Dell PowerStore Combines Security, Scalability and AIOps in a Single Platform

For organizations of all sizes, Dell PowerStore is a versatile, enterprise-class platform designed to fit a wide range of workloads, price points and environments. With artificial intelligence–driven self-optimization and other advanced capabilities, PowerStore offers the ease of use and reliability that organizations need today, as well as the scalability to support future needs. It also includes standard, built-in capabilities such as immutable secure snapshots, hardware root of trust and data-at-rest encryption.

PowerStore is designed for rapid data growth and distributed environments. Its portfolio of models lets organizations rightsize their deployment, whether that’s a stand-alone array or multiple arrays deployed in combination with each other. Scalability is easy because all PowerStore models share a consistent operating system and footprint. That means that organizations can start small and scale incrementally — adding capacity or drives as workloads grow — without needing to upgrade to the next model.

Workload flexibility is another strength. Organizations can segregate specific workloads onto multiple, dedicated arrays while keeping them within the same management plane, or consolidate everything onto a single array with an aggregated storage pool. Either way, whether you need more capacity or more performance or both, PowerStore scales to meet the need.

The centerpiece of PowerStore’s reliability is the Dynamic Resiliency Engine (DRE), a software layer within the OS designed specifically for solid-state drive technology. The DRE continuously monitors drives to proactive identify and address issues before they cause problems, ensuring that drives and business-critical data stay in good health.

The DRE also reinforces PowerStore’s scalability. Many storage solutions require users to add multiple arrays at a time. But PowerStore lets administrators add as few as one drive and mix and match their sizes to achieve precisely the resources they need. When drives start to approach capacity limits, the engine can temporarily expand available capacity to allow time for deploying additional drives without disruption.

Dell’s approach to security is zero trust and built in, not bolted on after the fact. PowerStore’s security starts at the silicon level, with hardware root of trust protecting motherboard components from tampering during transit or after deployment. Digitally signed firmware and secure boot reinforce this foundation.

At the OS level, PowerStore offers immutable, read-only snapshots that cannot be altered or overwritten. These point-in-time copies can be made nondeletable for a set period of time — or indefinitely — giving organizations the ability to roll back exactly as they need to. In addition, all drives in the array are self-encrypting, ensuring that data is encrypted at rest as it’s written to disk. Beyond these built-in protections, PowerStore offers additional options for ransomware detection and other advanced security functions.

PowerStore’s AIOps capabilities bring proactive intelligence to storage management. From a single pane of glass, AIOps continuously monitors health, detects anomalies and flags conditions that are outside of the norm before they become problems.

When an issue is detected, PowerStore’s self-healing capabilities let it resolve the problem autonomously, without requiring a support case or manual intervention. This intelligence is informed by an extensive set of telemetry from multiple sources, enabling AI to not only respond to what it sees in real time but also apply data-driven insights from other environments to identify and fix issues. Good data is the engine for AI workloads, and PowerStore’s AIOps and self-optimization help to ensure that data remains high quality and well managed.

PowerStore has been a market leader for several years, and Dell is continually adding new features and functions. Designed with a 20- to 30-year horizon in mind, it’s a tried-and-true platform with advanced reliable and scalable capabilities that can grow with an organization. In other words, PowerStore can be your last storage platform refresh.