 Prior to the pandemic, organizations were largely optimized for efficiency as the best path to bottom line profits. Many CIOs tell theCUBE privately that they were caught off guard by the degree to which their businesses required greater resiliency beyond their somewhat cumbersome disaster recovery processes. And the lack of that business resilience has actually cost firms because they were unable to respond to changing market forces. And certainly we've seen this dynamic with supply chain challenges. And there's a little doubt, we're also seeing it in the area of cybersecurity generally and data recovery specifically. Over the past 30 plus months, the rapid adoption of cloud to support remote workers and build in business resilience had the unintended consequences of expanding attack vectors which brought an escalation of risk from cyber crime. Well, security in the public clouds is certainly world-class. The result of multi-cloud has brought with it multiple shared responsibility models, multiple ways of implementing security policies across clouds and on-prem. And at the end of the day, more, not less complexity. But there's a positive side to this story. The good news is that public policy, industry collaboration and technology innovation is moving fast to accelerate data protection and cybersecurity strategies with a focus on modernizing infrastructure, securing the digital supply chain and very importantly, simplifying the integration of data protection and cybersecurity. Today, there's heightened awareness that the world of data protection is not only an adjacency to, but it's becoming a fundamental component of cybersecurity strategies. In particular, in order to build more resilience into a business, data protection people, technologies and processes must be more tightly coordinated with security operations. Hello and welcome to the future of multi-cloud data protection made possible by Dell in collaboration with theCUBE. My name is Dave Vellante and I'll be your host today. In this segment, we welcome into theCUBE two senior executives from Dell who will share details on new technology announcements that directly address these challenges. Jeff Boudreau is the president and general manager of Dell's infrastructure solutions group, ISG. And he's going to share his perspectives on the market and the challenges he's hearing from customers. And we're going to ask Jeff to double click on the messages that Dell is putting into the marketplace and give us his detailed point of view on what it means for customers. Jeff is going to be joined by Travis V. Hill. Travis is the senior vice president of product management for ISG at Dell Technologies. And he's going to give us details on the products that are being announced today and go into the hard news. Now we're also going to challenge our guests to explain why Dell's approach is unique and different in the marketplace. Thanks for being with us. Let's get right into it. We're here with Jeff Boudreau and Travis V. Hill. We're going to dig into the details about Dell's big data protection announcement. Guys, good to see you. Thanks for coming in. Good to see you. Thank you for having us. You're very welcome. Let's start off, Jeff, with the high level. I'd like to talk about the customer, what challenges they're facing. You're talking to customers all the time. What are they telling you? Sure, as you know, we spend a lot of time with our customers, specifically listening, learning, understanding their use cases, their pain points within their specific environments. They tell us a lot. No surprise to any of us that data is a key theme that they talk about. It's one of their most important assets. They need to extract more value from that data to fuel their business models, their innovation engines, their competitive edge. So they need to make sure that that data is accessible, it's secure, and it's recoverable, especially in today's world with the increased cyber attacks. Okay, so maybe we could get into some of those challenges. I mean, when you talk about things like data sprawl, what do you mean by that? What should people know? Sure, so for those big three themes, I'd say you have data sprawl, which is the big one, which is all about the massive amounts of data. It's the growth of that data, which is growing at an unprecedented rates. It's the gravity of that data and the reality of the multi-cloud sprawl. So stuff is just everywhere, right? Which increases that service, a tax base for cyber criminals. And by gravity, you mean the data's there and people don't want to move it? It's everywhere, right? And so when it lands someplace, I think edge core or cloud, it's there. And that's something we have to help our customers with. Okay, so it's nuanced because complexity has other layers. What are those layers? Sure, when we talk to our customers, they tell us complexity is one of their big themes and specifically it's around data complexity. We talked about that growth and gravity of the data. We talk about multi-cloud complexity and we talk about multi-cloud sprawl. So multiple vendors, multiple contracts, multiple tool chains and none of those work together in this, you know, multi-cloud world. Then that drives their security complexity. So we talk about that increased attack surface. But this really drives a lot of operational complexity for their teams. Think about we're lack of consistency through everything. So people, process, tools, all that stuff, which is really wasting time and money for our customers. So how does that affect the cyber strategies? I mean, I've often said the CISO, now they have this shared responsibility model. They have to do that across multiple clouds. Every cloud has its own security policies and frameworks and syntax. So maybe you could double click on your perspective on that. Sure, I'd say the big, you know, the big challenge customers have seen it's really inadequate cyber resiliency. And specifically they're feeling very exposed and today as the world with cyber attacks is being more and more sophisticated. If something goes wrong, it is a real challenge for them to get back up and running quickly. And that's why this is such a big topic for CEOs and businesses around the world. You know, it's funny, I said this to my open, I think that prior to the pandemic, businesses were optimized for efficiency. And now they're like, wow, we have to actually put some headroom into the system to be more resilient. You know, are you hearing that? Yeah, we absolutely are. I mean, the customers really, they're asking us for help, right? It's one of the big things we're learning and hearing from them. And it's really about three things. One's about simplifying IT. Two, it's really helping them to extract more value from their data. And then the third big piece is ensuring their data is protected and recoverable regardless of where it is going back to that data gravity and that very, you know, the multi-cloud world. Just recently, I don't know if you've seen it, but the global data protected, excuse me, the global data protection index. GDPI. Yes. Not to be confused with GDPR. Actually that was released today and confirms everything we just talked about around customer challenges. But also it highlights an importance of having a very cyber, a robust cyber resilient data protection strategy. Yeah, I haven't seen the latest, but I want to dig into it. I think this has done this many, many years in a row. I'd like to look at the time series and see how things have changed. All right, at a high level, Jeff, can you kind of address why Dell and from your point of view is best suited? Sure. So we believe there's a better way or a better approach on how to handle this. We think Dell is uniquely positioned to help our customers as a one-stop shop, if you will, for that cyber resilient, multi-cloud data protection solution and needs. We take a modern, a simple and resilient approach. What does that mean? What do you mean by modern? Sure, so modern we talk about our software defined architecture, right? It's really designed to meet the needs not only of today, but really into the future. And we protect data across any cloud and any workload. So we have a proven track record doing this today. We have more than 1,700 customers that trust us to protect them, more than 14 exabytes of their data in the cloud today. Okay, so you said modern, simple and resilient. What do you mean by simple? Sure, we want to provide simplicity everywhere, going back to helping with the complexity challenge. And that's from deployment to consumption to management and support. So our offers will deploy in minutes. They are easy to operate and use and we support flexible consumption models for what other customer may desire. So traditional subscription or as a service. And when you talk about resilient, I mean, I put forth that premise, but it's hard because people say, well, that's going to cost us more, but it may, but you're going to also reduce your risk. So what's your point of view on resilience? Yeah, I think it's something all customers need. So we're going to be providing a comprehensive and resilient portfolio of cyber solutions that are secured by design. We have some unique capabilities in a combination of things like built-in immutability, physical and logical isolation. We have intelligence built in with AI-powered recovery and just one, I guess, fun fact for everybody is we have, our cyber vault is the only solution in the industry that is endorsed by Sheltered Harbor that meets all the needs of the financial sector. So it's interesting when you think about the NIST framework for cybersecurity, it's all about layers. You're sort of bringing that now to data protection. Correct. All right, in a minute, we're going to come back with Travis and dig into the news. You can take a short break, keep it right there. Dig deeper into the news, guys, again, good to see you. Travis, if you could, maybe before we get into the news, can you set the business context for us? What's going on out there? Yeah, thanks for that question, Dave. To set a little bit of the context, when you look at the data protection market, Dell has been a leader in providing solutions to customers for going on nearly two decades now. We have tens of thousands of people using our appliances. We have multiple thousands of people using our latest modern, simple PowerProtect Data Manager software. And as Jeff mentioned, we have 1,700 customers protecting 14 exabytes of data in the public clouds today. And that foundation gives us a unique vantage point. We talked to a lot of customers and they're really telling us three things. They want simple solutions, they want us to help them modernize, and they want us to, as the highest priority, maintain that high degree of resiliency that they expect from our data protection solutions. So that's the backdrop to the news today. And as we go through the news, I think you'll agree that each of these announcements deliver on those pillars. And in particular, today we're announcing the PowerProtect Data Manager appliance. We are announcing PowerProtect's cyber recovery enhancements and we are announcing enhancements to our APEX data storage services. Okay, so three pieces. Let's think that it's interesting appliance. Everybody wants software, but then you talk to customers and they're like, well, we actually want appliances because we just want to put it in and it works. It performs great. So what do we need to know about the appliance? What's the news there? Well, part of the reason I gave you some of those stats to begin with is that we have this strong foundation of experience but also intellectual property. Components that we've taken, that have been battle tested in the market and we've put them together in a new, simple integrated appliance that really combines the best of the target appliance capabilities we have with that modern, simple software. And we've integrated it from the sort of taking all of those pieces, putting them together in a simple, easy to use and easy to scale interface for customers. So the premise that I've been putting forth months now, probably well over a year is that data protection is becoming an extension of your cybersecurity strategy. So I'm interested in your perspective on cyber recovery, your specific news that you have there. Yeah, we are in addition to simplifying things via the appliance, we are providing solutions for customers no matter where they're deploying. And cyber recovery, especially when it comes to cloud deployments is an increasing area of interest and deployment that we see with our customers. So what we're announcing today is that we're expanding our cyber recovery services to be available in Google Cloud. With this announcement, it means we're available in all three of the major clouds. And it really provides customers the flexibility to secure their data no matter if they're running on-premises, in a colo, at the edge, in the public cloud. And the other nice thing about this announcement is that you have the ability to use Google Cloud as a cyber recovery vault. That really allows customers to isolate critical data and they can recover that critical data from the vault back to on-premises or from that vault back to running their cyber protection or their data protection solutions in the public cloud. I always invoke my favorite Matt Baker here. It's not a zero sum game, but this is a perfect example where there's opportunities for a company like Dell to partner with the public cloud provider. You've got capabilities that don't exist there. You've got the on-prem capabilities. We could talk about Edge all day, but that's a different topic. Okay, so my other question Travis is, how does this all fit into Apex? We hear a lot about Apex as a service. It's sort of the new hot thing. What's happening there? What's the news around Apex? Yeah, we've seen incredible momentum with our Apex solution since we introduced data protection options into them earlier this year. And we're really building on that momentum with this announcement, providing solutions that allow customers to consume flexibly. And so what we're announcing specifically is that we're expanding Apex data storage services to include a data protection option. And it's like with all Apex offers, it's a pay as you go solution really streamlines the process of customers purchasing, deploying, maintaining and managing their backup software. All a customer really needs to do is specify their base capacity. They specify their performance tier. They tell us do they want a one-year term or a three-year term, and we take it from there. We get them up and running so they can start deploying and consuming flexibly. And as with many of our Apex solutions, it's a simple user experience all exposed through a unified Apex console. Okay, so you're keeping it simple, like I think large, medium, small. You'll hear a lot about t-shirt sizes. I'm a big fan of that because you guys should be smart enough to figure out, based on my workload, what I need. How different is this? I wonder if you guys could address this, Jeff. Maybe you can start. Sure, I'll start and then pitch me. Travis, you jump in when I screw up here. So awesome. So first I'd say we offer innovative, multi-cloud data protection solutions. We provide that deliver performance efficiency and scale that our customers demand and require. We support, as Travis said, all the major public clouds. We have a broad ecosystem of workload support and I guess the great news is we're up to 80% more cost-effective than any of the competition. 80%? 80%? Okay, that's a big number. All right, Travis, what's your point of view on this? Yeah, I think number one, end-to-end data protection. We are that one stop shop that I talked about, whether it's a simplified appliance, whether it's deployed in the cloud, whether it's at the edge, whether it's integrated appliances, target appliances, software, we have solutions that span the gamut. As a service, I mentioned the Apex solution as well. So really we can provide solutions that help support customers and protect them. Any workload, any cloud, anywhere that data lives, edge core to cloud. The other thing that we hear as a big differentiator for Dell and Jeff touched on this a little bit earlier is our intelligent cyber resiliency. We have a unique combination in the market where we can offer immutability or protection against deletion as sort of that first line of defense, but we can also offer a second level of defense which is isolation, talking about data vaults or cyber vaults and cyber recovery, and more importantly, the intelligence that goes around that vault. It can look at detecting cyber attacks it can help customers speed time to recovery and really provides AI and ML to help early diagnosis of a cyber attack and fast recovery should a cyber attack occur. And if you look at customer adoption of that solution, specifically in the clouds, we have over 1300 customers utilizing power protect cyber recovery. So I think it's fair to say that your portfolio has obviously been a big differentiator. Whenever I talk to your finance team, Michael Dell, et cetera, that end to end capability, that your ability to manage throughout the supply chain. We actually just did an event recently with you guys where you went into what you're doing to make infrastructure trusted. And so my take on that is in a lot of respects you're shifting the client's burden to your R&D. Now they have a lot of work to do. So it's not like they can go home and just relax, but that's a key part of the partnership that I see. Jeff, I wonder if you could give us the final thoughts. Sure, Dell has a long history of being a trusted partner within IT, right? So we have unmatched capabilities going back to your point. We have the broadest portfolio. We have, you know, we're a leader in every category that we participate in. We have a broad deep breath of portfolio. We have scale. We have innovation that are just unmatched. Within data protection itself, we are the trusted market leader, no ifs or buts. We're number one for both data protection software in appliances per IDC. And we would just name for the 17th consecutive time the leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant. So bottom line is customers can count on Dell. Yeah, and I think again, we're seeing the evolution of data protection. It's not like the last 10 years. It's really becoming an adjacency and really a key component of your cyber strategy. I think those two parts of the organization are coming together. So guys, we really appreciate your time. Thanks for coming in. Thank you, sir. Thanks, good to see you. All right, in a moment, I'm going to come right back and summarize what we learned today, what actions you can take for your business. You're watching the future of multi-cloud data protection made possible by Dell in collaboration with theCUBE, your leader in enterprise and emerging tech coverage. Right back. In our data driven world, protecting data has never been more critical. To guard against everything from cyber incidents to unplanned outages, you need a cyber resilient multi-cloud data protection strategy. It's not a matter of if you're going to get hacked. It's a matter of when. And I want to know that I can recover and continue to recover each day. It is important to have a cyber security and a cyber resiliency plan in place because the threat of cyber attack are imminent. Power Protect's data manager from Dell Technologies helps deliver the data protection and security confidence you would expect from a trusted partner and market leader. We chose Power Protect Data Manager because we've been a strategic partner with Dell Technologies for roughly 20 years now. Our partnership with Dell Technologies has provided us with the ability to scale and grow as we've transitioned from 10 billion in assets to 20 billion. With Power Protect Data Manager, you can enjoy exceptional ease of use to increase your efficiency and reduce costs. I'd installed it by myself, learned it by myself with very intuitive. While restoring a machine with Power Protect Data Manager is fast, we can fully manage Power Protect through the center. We can recover a whole machine in seconds. Data Manager offers innovations such as transparent snapshots to simplify virtual machine backups and it goes beyond backup and restore to provide valuable insights and to protect the data, workloads and VMs. In our previous environment, it would take anywhere from three to six hours a night to do a single backup of each VM. Now we're backing up hourly and it takes two to three seconds with the transparent snapshots. With Power Protect Data Manager, you get the peace of mind knowing that your data is safe and available whenever you need it. Data is extremely important. We can't afford to lose any data. We need things just to work. Start your journey to modern data protection with Dell Power Protect Data Manager. Visit dell.com slash Power Protect Data Manager. We put forth the premise in our introduction that the worlds of data protection and cybersecurity must be more integrated. We said that data recovery strategies have to be built into security practices and procedures and by default, this should include modern hardware and software. Now in addition to reviewing some of the challenges that customers face, which have been pretty well documented, we heard about new products that Dell Technologies is bringing to the marketplace that specifically address these customer concerns. There were three that we talked about today. First, the Power Protect Data Manager appliance, which is an integrated system taking advantage of Dell's history in data protection but adding new capabilities. And I want to come back to that in a moment. Second is Dell's Power Protect Cyber Recovery for Google Cloud Platform. This rounds out the big three public cloud providers for Dell, which joins AWS and Azure support. Now finally, Dell has made its target backup appliances available in Apex. You might recall earlier this year, we saw the introduction from Dell of Apex backup services. And then in May at Dell Technologies World, we heard about the introduction of Apex Cyber Recovery Services. And today, Dell is making its most popular backup appliances available in Apex. Now, I want to come back to the Power Protect Data Manager appliance because it's a new integrated appliance. And I asked Dell off camera, really, what is so special about these new systems and what's really different from the competition? Because look, everyone offers some kind of integrated appliance. So I heard a number of items. Dell talked about simplicity and efficiency and containers and Kubernetes. So I kind of kept pushing and got to what I think is the heart of the matter in two really important areas. One is simplicity. Dell claims that customers can deploy the system in half the time relative to the competition. So we're talking minutes to deploy. And of course that's going to lead to much simpler management. And the second real difference I heard was backup and restore performance for VMware workloads. In particular, Dell has developed transparent snapshot capabilities to fundamentally change the way VMs are protected, which leads to faster backup and restores with less impact on virtual infrastructure. Dell believes this new development is unique in the market and claims that in its benchmarks, the new appliance was able to back up 500 virtual machines in 47% less time compared to a leading competitor. Now, this is based on Dell benchmarks. So hopefully these are things that you can explore in more detail with Dell to see if and how they apply to your business. So if you want more information, go to the data protection page at dell.com. You can find that at dell.com slash data protection. And all the content here and other videos are available on demand at the cube.net. Check out our series on the blueprint for trusted infrastructure. It's related and has some additional information. And go to siliconangle.com for all the news and analysis related to these and other announcements. This is Dave Vellante. Thanks for watching the future of multi-cloud protection made possible by Dell. In collaboration with the cube, you're a leader in enterprise and emerging tech coverage.