AI prevention: Dell PowerStore protects data from ransomware with AI analysis

As part of its in-house exhibition in Las Vegas, Dell presented several innovations for its PowerStore, PowerProtect and PowerScale storage and data protection portfolios. In addition to the classic backup functions, the US company is now also relying on an AI-supported security architecture and promises to be able to respond to both known and new threat scenarios. Dell sees an increased relevance of preventive security mechanisms at storage level among its customers, for example due to business-critical AI applications and regulatory requirements.

AI analysis processes eight exabytes of data every day

To this end, Dell presented the new Advanced Ransomware Detection for PowerStore. Instead of relying on external security systems or agents, the storage system will in future analyze snapshots locally for potentially malicious patterns. Among other things, a self-learning algorithm is used. It does not require traditional signature databases, but detects anomalies such as mass encryption or sudden deletion using dynamic behavior models. The basis for this is a data pool, from which the model processes over eight exabytes of usage data every day, according to Dell.

The US company also promises that the integration of these analytics directly into the storage array will enable faster response times to malware. It should also reduce the dependency on external analysis tools. At the same time, the automatic check of the last intact data copy accelerates forensic processes and reduces recovery times.

Backup storage gets flash memory

At the same time, Dell announced the consistent use of flash memory for its backup storage for PowerProtect in the Data Domain family for the first time. The US company advertises it with higher performance and efficiency. Restore processes are said to run up to four times faster, while replication speed is said to double. According to the manufacturer, the flash memory offers potential deduplication rates of up to 65:1, while energy consumption is lower compared to classic HDD-based systems.

Dell has also expanded the security functions of its PowerScale scale-out storage with the Cybersecurity Suite. These include AI-supported anomaly detection when accessing files, offline backup of sensitive data and automated recovery that supports failover. There is also a connection to IT service management platforms so that security events can be integrated into existing IT processes. In hybrid architectures, the suite also supports data backup to S3-compatible object storage platforms.

In addition to protecting its storage offering against digital attacks, the US company also presented a new private cloud with a modular infrastructure at Dell Technologies World in Las Vegas, which supports different operating environments such as VMware, Nutanix, and Red Hat. Dell also announced new servers in the PowerEdge series for AI applications.

(wpl)