This week’s announcements from Dell Technologies Inc. focused on enhancements to its Data Domain portfolio.

The appliances protect, manage and recover data at scale, and Dell’s latest Data Domain releases focus on reducing storage costs, improving system efficiency and enhancing data security.

“The Data Domain product has a track record with performance, scale and efficiency … those three things really go together,” said Rich Colbert (pictured, left), field chief technology officer of Dell Technologies Inc. “It’s the ability to handle an organization’s entire backup workload in a reasonable amount of time and a reasonable amount of space. Data Domain systems do what they say they are going to do; they protect the data.”

Colbert spoke with theCUBE Research chief analyst Dave Vellante at the “Building Cyber Resilience on Trusted Data Protection Infrastructure” launch event, during an exclusive broadcast on theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio. He was joined by Rob Emsley (right), director of data protection marketing at Dell Technologies, and they discussed the key solutions behind Dell’s data protection portfolio. (* Disclosure below.)

Rich Colbert and Rob Emsley talk with theCUBE about Dell’s latest data protection announcements.

Dell Technologies Data Domain provides organizations with greater choice

Dell’s Data Domain offerings have attracted the attention of the company’s industry partners. Commvault Systems Inc. recently announced an integration with its data protection software by incorporating the Data Domain Boost SDK into Commvault’s platform.

“With Commvault’s integration and API-level integration, the nice thing for us is that four out of six of the Gartner Magic Quadrant enterprise backup and recovery leaders now have API level integration with Data Domain appliances,” Emsley said. “That really gives customers a great choice. Many customers choose either a different solution, or they might combine different solutions together and Data Domain becomes the common denominator.”

Beyond Data Domain, Dell has also been focused on its PowerProtect Data Manager and APEX Backup Services offerings among its data protection solutions. Data Manager was launched in 2019, and the company has been steadily making enhancements to it, including new software releases in July. The offering has proven to be a growth opportunity for Dell, according to Colbert.

“Folks were yearning for a backup solution that was simpler,” he said. “We took a lot of time and looked at what we had to offer and decided that Data Manager was the right way to go, a net new product with simplicity and API control built in from the ground up. We really hit an inflection point this last year with Data Manager where we nearly doubled … the number of customers. It is definitely our go-forward strategy.”

One of the factors driving customer acceptance of Data Manager is a key decision that Dell made around how the solution would be offered to its existing customer base.

“We entitled those customers, as part of their support contracts, to make use of Data Manager,” Emsley said. “Many of them have introduced it to complement specific workloads especially for vSphere Data Protection. We have some unique IP within PowerProtect Data Manager with Transparent Snapshots. That allows them to get access to a simpler modern platform as part of their existing relationship with Dell.”

APEX Backup offers simplified multicloud solution

Dell APEX Backup Services is a SaaS offering designed to simplify day-to-day infrastructure management and data security. It represents an important piece of Dell’s multicloud solution by providing cross-cloud access for data protection.

“APEX Backup Services is a big part of our multicloud posture,” Colbert explained. “It allows us to reach workloads like Microsoft 365 and Google Cloud. It’s also a great SaaS-based offering for things like edge locations and smaller data centers.”

The APEX backup offering is also demonstrating growth for Dell, driven by customer interest in protecting critical data as it migrates from on-premises to the cloud, according to Emsley.

“APEX Backup Services was only introduced in the last three years, 2021,” he said. “We’re already serving over 200 customers around the globe. Customers, certainly in the medium part of the market, say to themselves, ‘Hey, as I move more of my data center to the cloud, I want to move my data protection capabilities to the cloud.’”

Data migration in a hybrid model is just part of the equation for Dell as it deploys new data protection solutions for its enterprise customer base. While a larger share of the IT budget is being shifted to artificial intelligence applications, Dell reminds its customers that efficiency matters.

“That’s always been part of our message,” Colbert said. “We find that efficiency is what drives the affordability and the cost-rational side of the solution. There’s a lot to be gained if you can make that data very small and move it in an effective fashion. That shows up on the bottom line too.”

Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE Research’s coverage of the “Building Cyber Resilience on Trusted Data Protection Infrastructure” launch event:

Watch the full event episode here:

(* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for the “Building Cyber Resilience on Trusted Data Protection Infrastructure” event. Neither Dell Technologies Inc., the sponsor of theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE