IBM Storage Protect and Copy Data Management: Strong, reliable, and built for the future

Modern businesses face increasing challenges from data growth, cyber threats, and maintaining operational resilience. With risks like ransomware, disasters, and human error, robust data protection is essential. Managing storage and duplication often leads to inefficiencies and rising costs, leaving enterprises in need of solutions that not only secure data but also streamline operations and lower expenses.

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Operational resilience requires more than just protection against ransomware. It demands a comprehensive approach that addresses all potential risks. IBM Storage Protect is a key component in the overall IBM data resiliency strategy and provides comprehensive data resilience across physical, virtual, and application environments. It scales to billions of objects per backup server, allowing clients to reduce infrastructure costs through data efficiency and flexible storage options like tape, cloud, or on-premises storage. Additionally, IBM Storage Protect strengthens security with features such as ransomware attack notifications, two-key authorization for administrator commands, data encryption, and native support for immutable object storage, ensuring both data integrity and protection.

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Complementing these capabilities,?IBM Storage Copy Data Management?ensures that data copies are available to consumers precisely when and where they are needed. Without creating unnecessary or unused duplicates, it manages application-aware snapshots and replication in storage environments. This automated process simplifies workflows and ensures consistency across operations.

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Building on these strong foundations, IBM continues to enhance both products to meet evolving business requirements. As part of IBM's ongoing commitment to strengthening its data resiliency solutions, several updates have been made to expand the capabilities of Storage Protect:

New Workloads Supported:

• NetApp SnapDiff: The latest version supports efficient and incremental backups of NetApp filers, reducing backup times and improving performance.
• RedHat OpenShift Virtualization: Comprehensive protection for virtualized OpenShift environments, offering better coverage for containerized applications.
• Amazon S3 API Object Lock: Enables object lock and immutability for object storage, with additional device support including Pure Storage FlashBlade, IBM Storage CEPH, and iTernity iCAS, ensuring data remains tamper-proof.

?Enhanced IBM FlashSystem Support:

• Volume Group Snapshots: Leverages the latest snapshot technology from IBM FlashSystem to create efficient, consistent snapshots of entire volume groups.
• Policy-based High Availability: Adds an extra layer of protection for FlashSystem volumes, reducing the risk of data loss in high-availability environments.

?Platform Enhancements:

• ?TLS Certificate Renewal Automation: Automates the renewal process for TLS certificates, ensuring security while reducing manual work.
• New Blueprints: Introduced to help customers configure optimized Storage Protect environments, providing guidance for best-in-class performance and protection.

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In parallel, IBM has also made important updates to Copy Data Management:

• VMware 8.0 Support: Now allows seamless deployment and management in VMware 8.0 environments, expanding compatibility and flexibility for IT teams.
• SAP HANA SPS 07 Support: Enhancements include the ability to create snapshots of SAP HANA databases, as well as scanning them for ransomware threats, ensuring robust protection for critical business applications.

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To help customers with safer and faster recovery, IBM plans to enhance Storage Protect by leveraging IBM's Safeguarded Copy and enabling backups to IBM Diamondback tape libraries. Moreover, support for additional third-party storage controllers is planned for Copy Data Management, allowing customers to extend its use across more of their storage environments.

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A Future-Proof Data Protection Strategy

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As IBM continues to innovate, future releases are set to introduce even more advanced capabilities. In upcoming releases, IBM plans to dramatically increase integration between Storage Defender, Storage Protect, and Copy Data Management, bringing ransomware detection, recoverability reporting, and clean room isolation to workloads managed by both solutions. Additionally, a centralized view of customers' backup products will be enabled. With continuous innovation, these solutions led by Storage Defender, provide the security, resilience, and integration needed to protect critical data and ensure operational resilience. IBM remains committed to delivering innovative, reliable solutions that keep businesses strong in an ever-changing threat landscape.