The Importance of Collaboration: Rubrik & Pure Storage

Rubrik and Pure Storage’s partnership brings together two leaders in their respective fields, creating a powerful solution that integrates Rubrik’s Security Cloud with Pure Storage’s FlashArray and FlashBlade. This combination enables businesses to follow best practices like the 3-2-1-1-0 rule—three copies of data, stored on two media types, one off-site, one immutable, with zero errors. Together, they offer a layered defence system that protects both short-term and long-term data, ensuring rapid recovery and long-term retention.

The importance of this collaboration lies in its ability to bring together Rubrik’s immutable backups with Pure’s high-performance flash storage, safeguarding data against ransomware and other malicious attacks. For customers, it means confidence that their data is not only protected but recoverable in the event of an attack, with minimal disruption to business continuity.

IBM and Cohesity: Another Powerful Partnership

Much like Rubrik and Pure Storage, IBM and Cohesity have recognised the need for integrated solutions. IBM’s FlashSystem and Cohesity’s platform combine the performance and reliability of IBM storage with Cohesity’s modern data management, delivering a solution that enhances both security and scalability.

By integrating IBM FlashSystem’s ultra-low latency and high availability with Cohesity’s comprehensive data protection, organisations gain a unified platform that addresses both backup and cyber resilience. Cohesity’s ability to provide rapid recovery through its immutable file system and zero-trust architecture complements IBM FlashSystem’s storage capabilities, enabling businesses to respond quickly to cyber threats while ensuring their data remains secure and accessible.

The Power of Unified Solutions

At Silverstring, we believe in the power of these partnerships. While we began with IBM technology, our business has expanded to include solutions from Rubrik, Veeam, and Cohesity. Each partnership brings unique strengths, but what truly makes the difference is our ability to integrate these technologies via our use of the Predatar platform.

Predatar: The Glue for Cyber Resilience

Predatar acts as the unifying layer that brings storage, backup, and security systems together. In an era where cybercrime is evolving rapidly, it’s vital that businesses have a single, integrated view of their environment. Our use of Predatar gives our clients that single pane of glass, ensuring they can monitor and manage their data protection across multiple vendors with ease.

With Predatar, we don’t just offer backup solutions; we provide our clients with proactive cyber resilience. The platform integrates automation, threat detection, and recovery workflows into one seamless service, empowering organisations to stay ahead of cyber threats. Whether it’s IBM FlashSystem and Cohesity, or Rubrik and Pure Storage, Predatar is the glue that underpins our managed services and ensures these solutions work together to provide end-to-end protection.

Conclusion

The Rubrik and Pure Storage partnership is part of a broader movement in the industry, where leading vendors are collaborating to deliver comprehensive cyber resilience solutions. IBM and Cohesity have taken a similar approach, combining their strengths to ensure that organisations can protect, manage, and recover data in the face of modern cyber threats.

At Silverstring, we see these collaborations as essential to the future of data protection. With Predatar integrating these technologies into one view, we give our clients the tools and expert support they need to secure their data, no matter what the future holds. Cyber resilience is not just about having the best storage or backup, it’s about creating an integrated, unified strategy that ensures data is always protected and always recoverable.

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1. Maintenance and APAR Fixes

The 8.1.24 update includes a range of APAR (Authorized Program Analysis Reports) fixes that improve overall system stability and reliability. These fixes address previously reported issues and ensure that your IBM Storage Protect environment operates smoothly with fewer interruptions. Staying up-to-date with these patches is vital for maintaining the health of your data protection infrastructure.

2. Security Enhancements

One of the standout features of version 8.1.24 is its enhanced security settings. These updates reinforce stricter security protocols, particularly when managing SSL certificates and password encryption. Administrators are required to follow stricter guidelines during installation and upgrades to ensure that security vulnerabilities are minimised. This level of security is crucial for businesses handling sensitive data and aiming to prevent cyberattacks or breaches.

3. RHEL 9 Compatibility

This release introduces support for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 (RHEL 9), but with some notable changes. It’s important to note that OpenSSL 1.1, which is mandatory for IBM DB2 to function properly, has been deprecated in RHEL 9. To maintain compatibility, users upgrading from RHEL 8 to RHEL 9 must install the “compat-openssl11” package immediately. Without this, IBM Storage Protect’s internal DB2 database will not function as expected, which could result in system downtime or performance issues.

4. Compatibility and System Updates

Version 8.1.24 also introduces several system compatibility updates. For example, IBM AIX 7.1 is no longer supported in this version, and system administrators should review the latest requirements for Linux and Windows operating systems to ensure a smooth upgrade. This focus on compatibility ensures that your storage environment is up-to-date and optimised for the latest software and hardware configurations.

5. Simplified Installation and Upgrades

IBM has streamlined the installation and upgrade processes in this release. The updated procedures help administrators avoid common pitfalls, particularly when upgrading from earlier versions like 7.x or 6.x. The simplified process reduces the risk of errors during installation, ensuring that your system remains operational and that upgrades don’t cause unnecessary downtime.

In Summary

The IBM Spectrum Protect 8.1.24 update enhances system security, introduces RHEL 9 compatibility, and streamlines installation processes. These updates are crucial for businesses looking to strengthen their data protection infrastructure and maintain cyber resilience.

At Silverstring, we’re experts in managing and upgrading IBM Storage Protect environments. If you’re ready to take advantage of the latest enhancements in version 8.1.24, reach out to us today for assistance with your upgrade.

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So in this blog, we are going to highlight the top five cyber features IBM has released for Storage Protect in 2024 that can help clients maximise their protection and stay one step ahead of cybercriminals

Enhanced Container Storage Pool Management

With more organisations embracing hybrid cloud and containerisation, IBM has focused on enhancing container storage pool management in Storage Protect. The new 2024 update introduces dynamic storage provisioning, allowing businesses to allocate storage resources based on demand. This helps organisations respond more flexibly to changing workloads, while reducing administrative tasks. This is key in a world where quick adaptation is critical for resilience.

Data Resiliency and Object Lock Support

A must-have in today’s cyber landscape is the ability to ensure data immutability, protecting against malicious changes or deletions. In 2024, IBM Storage Protect added support for object locking in cloud environments, enforcing “write once, read many” (WORM) policies. This feature protects backup data from being altered, an essential defence against ransomware attacks that target and encrypt backup files. For businesses with regulatory obligations, it also ensures compliance with strict data retention requirements.

Advanced VMware Integration

Many clients run a significant portion of their infrastructure on virtual machines (VMs). Early this year IBM enhanced its integration with VMware, simplifying the protection of virtualised environments. This update includes better snapshot management for VMs, reducing recovery times without disrupting operations. The integration also automates backups and recovery scenarios, which is critical for businesses needing fast, reliable disaster recovery.

Multi-cloud Integration and Expanded API Support

With modern infrastructures often spanning multiple clouds, seamless data protection across these environments is essential. IBM has enhanced Storage Protect’s multi-cloud integration in 2024, supporting AWS, Azure, and IBM Cloud. This enables businesses to create resilient backup strategies that stretch across public, private, and hybrid clouds. Expanded API support also provides more automation options, making it easier to integrate with existing tools and streamline workflows, improving efficiency and resilience.

Faster Backup and Recovery Operations

When it comes to resilience, speed matters. IBM’s latest updates have improved backup and recovery times by optimising deduplication and compression algorithms. Shorter backup windows reduce disruption, while faster recovery ensures that operations can be restored swiftly after a cyber attack or disaster.

Many clients aren’t fully leveraging these new features in IBM Storage Protect, but doing so is crucial to maintaining a strong cyber resilience posture. IBM’s 2024 innovations offer powerful ways to defend against ever-evolving threats, and it’s more important than ever to make the most of these tools. If you want to find out how Silverstring can help you deploy these features any many others that IBM Storage Protect contains then reach out to us here.

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What is IBM FlashCore Module 4?

IBM FlashCore Module 4 is a hardware-based solution that adds speed and efficiency to storage systems, particularly those using IBM FlashSystem arrays. It’s built on NVMe (Non-Volatile Memory Express) technology, which is essentially a fast lane for data transfer. IBM has also integrated features like compression and encryption at the hardware level. This isn’t just a software layer on top of the storage; it’s embedded directly into the physical components.

How Does It Support Anomaly Detection?

Here’s where things get interesting. One of the challenges many businesses face is detecting anomalies in real time, whether that’s a spike in traffic, unusual patterns in data access, or potential security breaches. From what we’ve observed, the FCM 4 can help with this because it operates directly within the hardware, allowing for real-time monitoring of huge datasets. When something goes off-script in your I/O patterns, for example, FCM 4 can flag this immediately. This brings up a natural comparison with traditional, software-based detection systems, which often rely on backend analytics to identify anomalies.

Hardware vs. Software-Based Detection: What’s the Difference?

The key advantage of FCM 4’s hardware-based detection is its speed. It monitors data in real-time at the storage level, so there’s no waiting for external processes to analyse what’s happening. This gives IT teams an immediate head start in identifying and reacting to issues (such as an encryption event in progress) before it can do serious damage.

However, software-based detection tools have their own strengths. From our own work with these solutions, especially those driven by AI and machine learning, they typically offer more flexibility. They don’t just react to threats as they happen; they can scan data proactively and even identify dormant threats, like ransomware, before an encryption event begins. This gives businesses a chance to prevent a disaster before it strikes, rather than just responding quickly when it does.

Why Both Layers Are Important

It is our opinion that replying solely on one form of detection, whether hardware or software, can leave gaps in your defence. FCM 4 is ideal for rapid, real-time anomaly detection, but combining it with proactive, software-based tools adds an extra layer of protection. While FCM 4 will detect an encryption event in progress, software-based tools can prevent it from happening in the first place by identifying the threat earlier.

Is FCM 4 the Right Fit?

So, based on our findings, FCM 4 is great for businesses that need immediate, fast anomaly detection where performance is critical. But to truly secure your infrastructure, it’s worth layering this with software-based tools that can offer proactive threat detection and long-term insights. In the end, having both forms of detection provides a more complete, resilient approach to handling anomalies and cyber threats.

The post An Inside Look at IBM FlashCore Module 4 and Anomaly Detection appeared first on Silverstring.

The Nature of Containers

Containers (such as those created using Docker or OpenShift) are often short-lived. They can be spun up or down based on demand, which means you don’t need to back up the container itself. If a container fails, it can easily be restarted from the base image, making backing up the actual running container redundant. However, as container technology has evolved, so too have the ways we use containers, especially in relation to persistent data.

Persistent Data in Containers

When containers were first introduced, they were mainly used for stateless applications, meaning they didn’t store any data that needed to persist beyond the life of the container. But today, containers are often used for stateful applications, including databases, and this changes the equattion entirely. If you store data in a file system or volume attached to a container, that data needs to be protected, just as it would if it were in a traditional virtual machine (VM) or physical server.

The Challenge of Backing Up Container Data

Backing up container data introduces challenges that differ from traditional methods. For example, in a VM, data is tied directly to the machine and is easily identified by a name or other metadata. But containers use GUID-style identifiers, making it more difficult to track and back up data consistently. This is especially true when applications scale up or down dynamically. One day your application might have 10 containers, and the next only 5, each with different volumes.

What’s the Right Approach?

The key to backing up container data lies in understanding your application’s data model and knowing how bests to protect it. Should you back up at the application level or at the file system level? Do you need to protect the entire data set or just specific pieces? The answer will depend on your particular use case, but one thing is certain: while you don’t need to back up the containers themselves, you absolutely need a strategy for protecting the data associated with them.

Conclusion

Containers may have been designed to be short-lived, but the data they handle can be crucial to your business. As more companies rely on stateful applications in containerised environments, having a clear strategy for protecting that data is essential. Understanding the nuances of container backup will ensure you’re not caught off guard when something goes wrong.

In a world of ever-evolving technology, one thing remains constant: your data matters. Make sure you’re backing up what counts. If you would like guidance and advice on protecting your Container environment reach out to us using the link below.

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How Quantum Computing Works: A Simple Analogy

To make quantum computing easier to understand, let’s use an analogy. Imagine you’re trying to find a single item in a huge library. A classical computer is like searching through the library one book at a time—if there are millions of books, it could take a long time to find the right one. A quantum computer, on the other hand, is like having thousands of copies of yourself searching all the books at once, dramatically speeding up the process.

In a classical computer, bits are like individual pages, either blank or filled with information (0s and 1s). Quantum computers, however, use quantum bits (qubits), which can be in multiple states simultaneously, like a page that can be both blank and filled with text at the same time. This ability to process many possibilities at once means quantum computers can solve incredibly complex problems much faster than classical computers.

What Quantum Computing Means for Cybersecurity

Today’s encryption methods rely on the fact that solving certain mathematical problems like factoring large prime numbers, takes classical computers so long that it’s practically impossible. For example, AES 256-bit encryption is widely considered unbreakable by today’s standards because it would take millions of years for todays computers to crack.

However, a sufficiently powerful quantum computer could crack this encryption in hours or even minutes. Shor’s Algorithm, a quantum algorithm, makes it exponentially faster for quantum computers to solve the same mathematical problems that underpin today’s encryption. Once cybercriminals gain access to quantum computers, encryption standards like AES 256-bit will no longer provide the security we rely on today.

How Far Away is Quantum Computing for the Masses?

The good news is that quantum computing for the masses is still several years away. Most experts believe that large-scale quantum computers aka the kind capable of breaking encryption are at least 10 to 20 years away from being widely available. While quantum research is advancing quickly, there are still major hurdles to overcome, such as scaling up the number of qubits and solving issues with quantum error correction.

This means that the immediate threat isn’t here yet, but the risk is on the horizon. It’s crucial to start preparing now because quantum computing is evolving rapidly. Organisations that don’t future-proof their encryption strategies could find their data exposed when quantum computers become powerful enough to break today’s encryption standards.

Data Stolen Today, Cracked Tomorrow

What’s especially concerning is that cybercriminals don’t need to wait for quantum computers to be widely available. Data stolen today can be stored and cracked later once quantum technology becomes more advanced. Sensitive data like personal information, financial records, or government secrets that are encrypted now may be broken open in the coming years when quantum computers can tackle encryption far faster. This means that the window for stolen data to remain secure is closing, and organisations need to prepare now for this eventuality.

IBM’s Work on Quantum-Safe Encryption

As an IBM partner we have been lucky to spend time with the teams working in this area. IBM are not only leading the way in quantum computing research but also in developing defences against quantum-powered attacks. What is really interesting when we think about cyber security and backup is that IBM is pioneering quantum-safe cryptography, which aims to create encryption that can withstand attacks from quantum computers. One promising area of research is something called lattice-based cryptography, which relies on problems that even quantum computers struggle to solve.

What This Means for Businesses and Cybercriminals

Once quantum computers become accessible to cybercriminals, the threat landscape will shift dramatically. Encryption standards we trust today could be rendered ineffective, leaving sensitive data exposed.

Preparing for a Quantum Future

While quantum computing’s impact on encryption may still be 10 to 20 years away, the time to act is now. Organisations should begin evaluating their encryption strategies, staying informed about quantum-safe solutions, and following leaders like IBM  and Google who are developing quantum-resistant cryptography. The data you protect today could become vulnerable tomorrow if you don’t plan for a quantum computing future.

The post Quantum Computing and the Future of Cybersecurity: How Safe is Your Encryption? appeared first on Silverstring.

Gravy Train

We talk to many users of IBM Spectrum Protect about what they are getting in return for their annual support maintenance fees. It’s not so much the absolute costs, more the perceived value, or total return on investment. To use a phone analogy, its like paying for the latest iPhone but only using the SMS and call features. The incidence of technology debt is pandemic in the backup and recovery field but is it the manufacturer’s fault? Backup is often seen as a cost of doing business and is notoriously hard to manage and upgrade. Migration projects take time and just like when decorating your house, there is always one “room” left to do.

The house analogy might be more appropriate than the phone one. Phones are usually disposed of, with care for the environment we hope, after every upgrade cycle. Your data is probably not, it represents the valuables in your home. Spectrum Protect is a quality product and ranks highly for giving users peace of mind. For many though, it’s not as modern a “house” as they would like.

Money to Burn

Some companies get tired of their cluttered houses and throw their lot in with a second, or even third, storage company. Before you know it, not only is the garage full of stuff, the yard is littered and you have more items in local storage. It can’t be the best solution.

Back to what’s changed since our 2017 blog post.

Later that same year IBM announced the general availability of Spectrum Protect Plus. Perceived by some as a new product, we believe it’s an upgrade to help you modernise Spectrum Protect and gain greater value from your investment. Spectrum Protect now offers a much simpler administrative experience for users, as well as covering more of the “cloud-native” infrastructure starting to penetrate the enterprise. The new software adopts the “agentless” model used by many backup companies targeting the VMware protection market, whilst allowing for very efficient long-term data retention, for which Spectrum Protect is lauded.

This presents the Spectrum Protect user with the opportunity to modernise their “house” from the inside out, whilst eliminating losses caused by unnecessary use of “garages, yards and third-party storage boxes”. Second homes are great, but you wouldn’t keep your valuables in them. Far better to get a new kitchen or bathroom, than buy a second home.

On the Money

Referencing the great advice given in the original blog, which licence model is best to bring-in Spectrum Protect Plus, to modernise your data protection system?

Spectrum Protect Plus (SPP) is licenced on a per-VM basis. However, if you have use of a capacity-based licence model, you can offset some of your capacity allowance to bring in the new technology. The conversion is one terabyte (1 TB) of back-end capacity to ten (10) virtual machines. If you subsequently copy the snapshots into Spectrum Protect, say for long-term retention, you don’t pay again for the use of capacity in that repository. This is not true if you use a third-party product for your snapshots and copy that data into Spectrum Protect. It makes commercial sense to replace any third-party software, such as Veeam, with Protect Plus. So, by modernising your “house” from the inside and reclaiming the cost of your “second home”, you consolidate and simplify your protection estate.

The Bottom Line

If you are familiar with cloud-billing models and are of a mind to preserve cash, you can switch to a pay-for-what-you-use subscription model. This has the added benefit of avoiding any of those obtrusive vendor licence audits. This “no surprises” model is much more flexible than the old IBM PVU or legacy capex options. It is especially suited for companies moving data between the core, the cloud and the edge.

When combined with management platforms such as Predatar, customers can more easily track usage and allocation of licences, down to the business unit, application or even individual node.

Just as with bank accounts and utility bills, customer loyalty is often rewarded with higher prices. With so many ways to consume the IBM software, it makes sense to consider your options.

If you want to stop losing money, do get in touch to find out more about our IBM Spectrum Protect Licence Workshops.

The post 10 More Ways to Licence Spectrum Protect appeared first on Silverstring.

But enough about me, let’s get back to the IBM event. The reason I was at this event is because IBM is one of our key strategic partners. It’s storage solutions and backup applications are a key underpinning of our Backup-as-a-Service model for many of our larger enterprise customers. Throughout my entire career I have always viewed IBM as this huge beast that is complex, traditional and slow to react. Leaving for the airport I was joking with my wife about how exciting a two day conference on IBM storage was going to be, especially since I was used to the fast moving world of Payroll (PS: Payroll is anything but fast moving).

Day 1 opened with a 1 hour keynote to a packed conference hall of over 800 people. The keynote focused on a number of new announcements that centred around two main concepts: storage being seen as a solution rather than just hardware, and the role that storage solutions play in data security and resilience. Day 2 then built on this with a deeper dive into these topics and an overview of how Redhat supports this.

What do we want? Solutions! When do we want them? Now!

The key message from IBM is that no one wants to talk storage hardware anymore. The reason being that hardware alone has no benefit to the customer and that the industry should be much more customer focused. This is something that absolutely resonates with me, I am a huge fan of customer-centricity and strongly believe the best products and services in any industry are those that are designed with customer needs at the centre. The position from IBM is that it is a combination of hardware and software brought together as customer-centric solutions. It is to this end that IBM are pushing big on using storage for more than just storing your data. One of the big innovations that came from the show was the inclusion of AI and Machine Learning being baked into their storage solutions. This will allow customers to put the data they backup to work and use the new tools to drive big data analytics and insights. The benefit of this is that it allows businesses to understand their data better and use the intelligence gained to make informed businesses decisions. By doing this IBM are turning the conversation with customers away from that of backup and storage hardware into one that has very obvious benefits for consumers.

Please mind the air gap!

The other side of the story that IBM told was around data protection and security. Again IBM want to position storage as much more than just hardware and they see storage as a key defence against cyber crime. With cyber crime becoming more and more frequent from governments to corporations to individuals, the need to protect data is more important than it has ever been. Thus, using storage solutions (such as the cloud and modern tape) to provide an air gap, ensuring that backup data is secure, in the event of any network infection.

In Conclusion

So what were my impressions? The thing that struck me the most was my perception of IBM as this traditional and slow business was blown away. The presentations I saw were energetic, full of confidence and were delivered in a way that shows the team are proud of what they have built. Most importantly of all, the solutions were presented with the customer in mind, no technical jargon was used and the IBM team talked about benefits rather than features. Yes, of course data protection, recovery and resilience is a complex business, but it does not mean we have to talk about it in this way. Talking about customer benefits and putting the customer needs at the heart of any offering is so important in today’s market, it’s time our industry caught up.

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