Dell Adds Orchestration Capabilities to Data Protection Platform
Dell Technologies added orchestration capabilities to its data protection software that makes it simpler for IT teams to schedule backup and determine the precise order in which applications and systems are brought back online.
Rob Emsley, director of product marketing for data protection at Dell, said PowerProtect Data Manager has been updated to give IT teams more control over which applications are rehydrated in the wake of a ransomware attack, for example.
With more organizations dependent on IT to drive revenue, there’s more focus today on mean-time-to-recovery. The PowerProtect Data Manager enables IT teams to create both volume and volume group snapshot backups directly to Dell PowerProtect appliances, which can then be restored in any combination an IT team determines to be most advantageous, noted Emsley.
Dell leverages a unique protocol the company created for Transparent Snapshots, which optimizes the backup of virtual machine images in a way that minimizes any impact on the virtual machine being protected, also known as “VM stun.”
Dell, as previously promised, also updated a PowerProtect Data Manager Appliance with a cyber vault capability that provides access to immutable instances of data that can be stored on-premises or in the cloud.
In addition, Dell has added a retention lock compliance capability to the Data Manager Appliance that prevents configurations from being tampered with after the appliance is deployed, along with support for multifactor authentication using software from Microsoft.
Dell is also providing enhanced storage capacity visibility into its PowerProtect DD storage platform along with more granular control over vault operations and enhanced monitoring, alerting and reporting capabilities.
The operating system for these storage devices has also been updated to include enhanced smart scale workload management, which enables automatic identification and inclusion of affinity groups when performing migrations between appliances. In addition, the latest operating system updates add support for KVM VirtIO disks with PowerProtect DD Virtual Edition and enhanced cloud security of APEX Protection Storage for Public Cloud by adding support for retention lock compliance on Amazon Web Services (AWS).
Finally, Dell has added a Configure Dashboard to simplify license management for CyberSense, which streamlines the setup and configuration of licenses for ease of access and status monitoring for tools that detect malware in backups. Dell has also added the ability to read and analyze Hyper-V VM snapshots created by NetWorker and Commvault SAP HANA backup images to CyberSense.
In general, backup and recovery tasks are still mainly managed by IT teams. With the rise of ransomware, cybersecurity teams are exercising more influence over how those tasks are implemented and managed. After all, it’s usually the cybersecurity teams that need to inform the business about recovery times after a ransomware attack. The longer that takes, the greater the level of stress experienced by all concerned.
