At Dell’s recent “Is Your Infrastructure Ready for the Age of AI?” event, industry leaders made one thing clear: AI is not just another workload. It’s a fundamental shift that demands a complete rethinking of IT infrastructure.
As businesses prepare their on-prem data for AI (yes, 75% of data will remain on-prem), modernization is no longer optional. IT managers must carve out space for AI-driven initiatives by building unprecedented agility into their systems, while also addressing rising energy costs, security threats and complexity. These challenges have ushered in a new era of IT, driven by software-defined, integrated technologies – with storage taking center stage.
The Rise of Modern Disaggregated Architectures
A decade ago, the 3-tier model was the gold standard for enterprise IT. IT departments built separate silos for compute, storage, and networking, connecting them to drive business operations. Effective in their time, the complex, often multi-vendor configurations eventually struggled to keep pace with modern “need it yesterday” deployment cycles.
Hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) emerged as an antidote, collapsing silos and streamlining management through software integration. Yet even HCI is now cracking under the weight of new workloads and changing economic realities. AI, containers, and edge applications expose key challenges including low resource utilization, inability to scale compute and storage independently, and rigid dependence on a single hypervisor ecosystem.
Not Your Father’s 3-Tier
Enter the modern disaggregated architectures. Like their traditional 3-tier predecessors, these advanced environments provide independently scalable storage and compute resources – but the components no longer function in isolation. Today’s best data center designs are software-defined, hypervisor-agnostic and automated end-to-end. They empower businesses to compose broadly integrated solutions at high velocity – and best of all, they’re laser-focused on minimizing cost.
If Your Storage Isn’t Agile, Neither are You
To create this next-gen infrastructure, storage is the most critical consideration. Data gravity makes storage the focal point for mission-critical business operations – and it’s also where the greatest cost savings can be achieved through data reduction. Yet storage architectures have typically been the least flexible part of the stack, creating barriers to mobility, scalability and integration.
Dell PowerStore changes that. “Software-first” by design, PowerStore’s unique autonomous active/active architecture, always-on data reduction (guaranteed at 5:1¹), and programmable ecosystem support give it the flexibility and efficiency required for fully-orchestrated deployments. PowerStore adapts with your evolving IT – ensuring your storage works with modern workloads, not against them.
Introducing PowerStore 4.1 – the Next Evolution in Smart Storage
Last year’s PowerStore Prime announcement set a new standard for intelligent storage, and the newest PowerStore release raises the bar again with even more automation, integration and advanced data services.
Key enhancements include:
AI-Driven Analytics
- Smart Support – AI-driven monitoring detects potential issues before they occur, automatically opening support tickets and expediting resolutions.
- Performance headroom analytics – Avoid resource bottlenecks and optimize efficiency with advanced insights into how your appliance will handle future needs.
- Carbon footprint forecasting – Now track and predict CO2 emissions at the appliance or data center level, for holistic energy cost management.
Stronger Security and Resiliency
- Automated certificate renewal – New Certificate Renewal and Alerting Engine minimizes security risk while eliminating manual effort
- CAC/PIV “smart badge” support – Secure and convenient multi-factor authentication supports the strictest federal and enterprise access control standards.
- Enhanced data protection – PowerStore’s Storage Direct Protection backup integration with Dell PowerProtect Data Domain now provides up to 4x faster recovery speeds². This “better together” Dell solution includes new PowerProtect DD6410 appliance and All-Flash Ready Node options.
Expanded File Capabilities
- Advanced data reduction insights – Industry-best storage efficiency tracking³ (now available for file and block data) simplifies resource optimization and planning, and helps you check the status of your 5:1 guarantee¹.
- Ransomware-resistant file snapshots – Supplements existing File Level Retention (FLR) and other local, remote and cloud-based protection methods
- File System QoS – Enables fine-tuned performance controls
- Unity Cloud Tiering support – Unity customers migrating to PowerStore can now preserve their existing Cloud Tiering Appliance (CTA) functionality. Archived files remain fully accessible, and customers can even create new archiving policies for migrated file systems on PowerStore.
Time to Think Outside the Box
The days of siloed hardware and inflexible software are over. Get ready to connect, adapt, and innovate. Built for the AI era, PowerStore is more than just storage – it’s your springboard for what’s next.
Join us at Dell Technologies World next month to explore the many ways we’re revolutionizing infrastructure to help your business turn change into opportunity.
Learn more about key PowerStore advantages
- PowerStore Web Page
- PowerStore 4.1 Technical Blog – what’s new, in detail
- Modern Disaggregated Infrastructure – hear from Dell execs Travis Vigil and Drew Schulke
- PowerStore Flexibility for Modern Workloads – 3rd-party cost comparison vs HCI
- Never Outgrow Your Storage with PowerStore – lightboard video explores the benefits of PowerStore’s Lifecycle Extension program
- PowerStore YouTube Playlist
1 5:1 average rate guaranteed across customer applications for reducible data. Rates for individual applications may vary. See Future-Proof program terms and conditions for details.
2 Based on internal testing of restore performance using Storage Direct Protection between PowerStore 5200T and DD6900
3 Based on Dell analysis of capacity accounting and reporting capabilities provided by primary storage competitors – May 2024.
