Dell also flexes public cloud storage efforts, announces Snowflake Data Cloud
With the spotlight on its in-person Dell Technologies World event in Las Vegas this week, Dell announced cybersecurity enhancements to Apex, the company’s increasingly diverse cloud services play, extending data protection services for Amazon and Microsoft cloud customers. Dell also demonstrated Project Alpine, its public cloud data storage effort, and announced a collaboration with data warehousing service Snowflake to yield results later this year.
Dell introduced Apex in 2021 with the slogan, “As-a-Service as it Should Be.”Chuck Whitten, Dell Technologies co-COO, said that Apex solves multi-cloud management complexity, a present challenge for Dell’s customers. He described Apex as “a portfolio of software and services that simplifies on-premises and multi-cloud environments.”
Dell realigned Apex this January, calling it “a better way to multi-cloud.” The service operates on premise, edge, and data center co-locations, and also supports public cloud services. Apex now provides businesses with block, file, object and data protection storage service that works with AWS, Azure, Google and Oracle Cloud via high-speed and low-latency connections. It also offers in-cloud backup with end-to-end protection for popular corporate Software as a Service (SaaS) platforms, including Microsoft 365 and Salesforce.
That’s also when Dell announced Project Alpine, which it said helps enforce “operational consistency in hybrid cloud environments.” Project Alpine deploys Dell’s block and file storage platforms to public cloud environments, delivered as cloud software and services. Dell promised that Project Alpine will enable companies “to seamlessly manage data between on-prem and public cloud environments with consistent M&O [Monitoring & Operation] tools and existing skills.”
Dell reiterated the Project Alpine message at its event. “With Dell storage software in the public cloud, customers will be able to seamlessly move data to the cloud and leverage cloud-based analytics services. Developers can write applications once and deploy them anywhere they are needed to create a consistent, cloud-native experience across multiple public clouds,” it said.
Cyberattack recovery, on premise or in the public cloud
Dell’s new Apex Cyber Recovery Services simplify recovery from cyberattacks, it said. The full-stack, managed solution provides “day-to-day cyber recovery operations and assists with data recovery.”
Dell also extended its data protection offerings for enterprises using Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services (AWS). The company’s Azure offering protects and isolates enterprise data in the public cloud within “an isolated cyber vault” which can be recovered data on-premise, in a new Azure private network, or an in an otherwise clean Azure environment.
Dell said that its new cyber recovery offering for AWS leans on adaptive analytics, machine learning, and forensic tools to speed data recovery. The service monitors files and databases for evidence of cyberattacks, then identifies the last known uncorrupted copy of data.
Dell also said it’s working with fast-rising data warehousing service Snowflake. Dell called the results of their collaboration a “first of its kind” that will yield better multi-cloud flexibility while maintaining data sovereignty requirements.
“Dell and Snowflake customers will be able to use on-premises data stored on Dell object storage with the Snowflake Data Cloud while keeping their data local or seamlessly copying it to public clouds,” it said.
