Digitalization has ushered in a data explosion in all organizations across all industries. Data volumes have continued to grow at a breakneck pace with no signs of abatement, thereby significantly altering the storage industry and its priorities. The disruption with cloud, cyber resiliency, application-driven economy and demands for transformation, are driving organizational strategy focused on management of storage solutions. IT leaders welcome this new world order as their organizations have benefited from improved business operations, personalized customer experience and agile innovation
But benefits often come hand-in-hand with challenges.
The increased reliance on data meant that organizations and their IT infrastructure are at greater risk from malicious attacks, human errors and negligent behaviors. Researcher ESG reported that 79% of companies globally had experienced a ransomware attack over the past year. Yet, according to our Global Data Protection Index Survey, 67% of IT decision-makers are not confident that their business-critical data can be recovered in the event of a cyberattack.
Furthermore, the permanence of digital transformation, accelerated by the pandemic, meant that data storage would require greater attention and investment; and cyber resiliency could no longer be an afterthought.
A Matter of When, Not If
In 2017, the WannaCry malware attack grabbed global headlines, and the man on the street quickly learned of a new word: ransomware. Today, threat of a cyberattack is real; unfortunately, no organization is immune to these bad actors. Cyberattacks are increasingly sophisticated, malicious and expensive. In a survey by Accenture, 81% of leaders think that staying ahead of attackers is a constant battle, and the cost is unsustainable. That is because the cost implications are even greater if we consider the negative impact on an organization’s reputation and stakeholder confidence. Here’s the bottom line: enterprise data is the golden goose, and protecting it is a business imperative. IT leaders need to think of storage as a part of a surround-sound security strategy.
Pivot to Software-defined Storage
Software-defined innovation paves the way for a continuously modern storage experience, as organizations try to find ways to manage the data explosion while keeping costs low. At this year’s Dell Technologies World conference, we announced a suite of upgrades to our storage portfolio that will enable our customers to win in the multicloud ecosystem. The benefits are incontestable: simplicity, cost savings and efficiency.
Take Dell’s VxRail as an example – we partnered with Cianbro Corporation to transform their storage capacity and bolster their disaster recovery capabilities. The result is simplified management and up to 80% cost savings compared to tape-based backup and recovery. Ultimately, software-defined storage enables organizations to efficiently and effectively manage data.
Air-gapped Cyber Vaults: What’s Not Connected Can’t Be Attacked
With the paradigm shift to a multicloud environment, we are seeing our customers move critical data away from the attack surface by logically isolating it from access within public clouds. This creates an “air gap” that provides an additional layer of defense by reducing the attack surface. This ensures that even when there is a sophisticated malware attack, organizations are still able to fulfill the three tenets of a purposeful recovery framework: isolation, immutability and intelligence.
Founders Federal Credit Union needed an air-gapped cyber security solution with AI, machine learning and automation that would integrate seamlessly with their IT environment. By deploying the PowerProtect Cyber Recovery solution, they could have 10 petabytes “mini-data center” protected in an isolated cyber vault and reduce the average server restore time from backups to 35 minutes while enabling automated cybersecurity reporting for IT audits.
Move from Cybersecurity to Cyber Resilience
The adage that prevention is better than cure is no longer relevant in today’s heightened threat landscape. In a cyber resilient mindset, the focus shifts from defense to mitigation. This ensures minimal disruption and loss. It is important to note that resiliency is not a technology but a strategy or, better yet, an outcome.
IDEC Corporation in Japan implemented the Dell PowerMax 2000 to enhance its storage infrastructure reliability, availability and performance while supporting current applications and operating systems. Likewise, the University of Pisa leveraged the PowerMax for its mission-critical applications such as admin functions, teaching and labs, ensuring that these workloads run in a highly resilient and cost-efficient environment that will continue to operate, even in event of a breach.
Integrated security is a key pillar in the modern storage experience. Protecting data and infrastructure calls for a software-defined approach that leverages innovation for scale, agility and intelligence, aligns around outcomes rather than threats and is proactive in recovery planning.
