Key takeaways: Smart metadata makes file storage as intelligent as object storage. With Dell PowerScale and Diskover Data, you can discover, automate, and govern data effortlessly. This powerful integration turns unstructured data into a strategic resource, driving innovation, cost savings, and even life-saving research. Stop guessing—start governing your data today!
In today’s data-driven world, understanding your data isn’t optional—it’s essential. Metadata, the contextual information that travels with your files, is the key to unlocking this understanding. Object storage’s ability to store arbitrary key/value metadata right alongside the object itself is frequently cited as a standout feature. And it’s true. Understanding what’s in your data is not a nice-to-have feature; it is 100% necessary for modern data management.
When the metadata—contextual information about the file’s contents, origin or usage—travels with the data itself, it radically simplifies tasks like data discovery, cataloging, and automated business processes. An object’s self-contained intelligence makes it instantly identifiable and manageable, no matter where it moves or who accesses it.
PowerScale: The giant that has been doing metadata for years
While object storage often gets credit for this capability, the truth is that this sort of rich, embedded metadata is not limited to objects. Imagine if your files could be as smart as your objects? With Dell PowerScale, they can.
Dell PowerScale is a market leader in the file storage world. PowerScale leads for many reasons: security, performance, resilience and scalability. In addition, PowerScale has supported storing arbitrary key/value metadata attached to file info for a long time.
Here is a simple example using the command line: The file, “test.docx”, has been given a “status” key with a value of “in-progress.” The key/values here are arbitrary and can be set to anything.
This capability is a big deal because it allows file storage to be as intelligent as object storage. More importantly, with PowerScale, you can leverage this custom metadata to drive business logic. For example, file metadata to drive SmartPools tiering. A policy can be configured to automatically move files to the most appropriate storage tier (performance or archive) based on their unique attributes—not just last access time.
Better together: Dell PowerScale and Diskover Data
While PowerScale provides the foundational support, the potential for discovery is unlocked when paired with Dell’s partner, Diskover Data—a powerful metadata management tool.
Diskover Data has a tight integration with PowerScale metadata, and can reapidly index the custom metadata already present in PowerScale, dramatically enhancing data discovery and analysis for end-users.
Diskover Data can rapidly index the custom metadata already present in PowerScale, dramatically enhancing data discovery and analysis for end users.
Additionally, Diskover Data can write new metadata directly into the PowerScale file system, providing a layer of external context that is permanently associated with the file.
This combination creates a file storage ecosystem where data is not just stored securely and efficiently, but also deeply understood and cataloged.
Real-world value: Data that cares for patients
These combined capabilities are being leveraged today at a large cancer research hospital. The hospital relies on PowerScale to store critical patient imagery data, prioritizing its high performance and robust security.
Adding massive value to this critical environment, Diskover Data is capturing essential patient record metadata (for example, patient ID, study date, doctor, diagnosis) and writing that information directly into PowerScale as custom metadata. This ensures patient information is directly associated with that patient’s imagery files.
This powerful association ensures that the critical context of the data is always accessible and identifiable. The unstructured imagery is seamlessly linked to the structured patient information, creating a single, searchable source of truth that drives life-saving research and critical patient care.
By leveraging embedded metadata support in PowerScale, combined with the modern indexing and writing capabilities of Diskover Data, organizations can ensure their data becomes an intelligent, self-describing resource.
Diskover Data + Dell Data Analytics Engine:
This concept can be taken even further, by leveraging metadata indexed in Diskover Data to feed the federated query engine of the Dell Data Analytics Engine.
An excellent white paper provides detailed insights into the multiple ways in which these products combine to create actionable solutions for data scientists and engineers. The paper outlines solutions such as Dell Data Analytics Engine querying Diskover Data directly or Diskover Data pushing Parquet files into the Dell Data Analytics Engine itself.
Dell Data Analytics Engine and Diskover Data: Creating AI Datasets from Unstructured Data
The not-so-secret challenge many organizations face is curating their massive unstructured data repositories for AI training—or any other purpose. Dell provides a way for enterprises to manage this information effectively and immediately.
Stop guessing, start governing
The ability to embed key/value metadata directly into your filesis not a feature exclusive to object storage; it is the essential foundation of modern data intelligence, and Dell PowerScale has long offered this capability. When this native intelligence is combined with Diskover Data, it creates an unmatched data management solution. This powerful pairing allows you to:
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- Discover every piece of data, no matter how vast your repository.
- Automate data placement based on business context.
- Curate massive unstructured datasets for high-value pipelines like the Dell Data Analytics Engine
The seamless integration of PowerScale’s file metadata support and Diskover Data’s global cataloging transforms your data from a chaotic cost center into an intelligent, strategic resource—driving innovation, from cost savings to life-saving research.
While PowerScale’s advanced metadata capabilities and efficiency are impressive on their own, its true power lies in its role as a cornerstone of Dell’s modular AI Data Platform strategy. Recognized as a 2025 CRN Tech Innovator, PowerScale is more than just a storage solution—it’s the storage engine powering the modular Dell AI Data Platform and collaborating with the NVIDIA AI Data Platform to shape the future of AI infrastructure.
Ready to transform your data into a strategic resource? Learn more about Dell PowerScale today.
