IBM and Cohesity collaborate to improve data security and resiliency

When it comes to data security on the cloud, one of the biggest challenges for organizations is accessing a solution that can ensure security across their data no matter where it resides. What makes it even more challenging is that data continues to grow exponentially, and businesses are leveraging the cloud to address this data growth, especially in analysis and building applications.

As businesses continue to increase their cloud adoption, many opt for a hybrid cloud approach as it ensures their sensitive data can remain on-premises, while still being able to enjoy the capabilities of the cloud. However, managing the data can be complex, especially when it comes to its security.

As such, there is now a critical need for organizations to ensure data security and resiliency in hybrid cloud environments. In fact, IBM’s recent Cost of a Data Breach Report revealed costlier and higher-impact data breaches than ever before. Today, the global average cost of a data breach reaches an all-time high of US$4.35 million for studied organizations and increased nearly 13% over the last two years of the report.

What’s more interesting is that the report also showed hybrid cloud environments to be the most prevalent infrastructure among organizations studied (45%) . Businesses that adopted a hybrid cloud model observed lower breach costs at an average of US$3.8 million, compared to businesses with a solely public or private cloud model, which experienced US$5.02 million and US$4.24 million averages respectively.

With the hybrid cloud seemingly the more secure approach to cloud adoption, IBM and Cohesity have announced a new collaboration that combines data protection, cyber resilience, and data management capabilities from both companies. IBM will launch its new IBM Storage Defender solution which will include Cohesity’s data protection as an integral part of the offering.

IBM Storage Defender is being designed to leverage AI and event monitoring across multiple storage platforms through a single pane of glass to help protect organizations’ data layers from risks like ransomware, human error, and sabotage. Additionally, it will feature cyber vault and clean room features with automated recovery functions to help companies restore business-critical data in hours or minutes — this used to take days.

Moreover, IBM Storage Defender is being built to give clients the ability to rapidly find their most recent clean copy of data. It is IBM’s first offering that brings together multiple IBM and third-party solutions to unify primary, secondary replication, and backup management. Leveraging advanced storage capabilities, such as IBM Storage FlashSystem Safeguarded Copy for logical  air gap, can help companies recover their most mission-critical data within hours in the event of an attack.

The first of such ecosystem integrations, Cohesity brings world-class virtual machine protection managed in the hybrid cloud. Cohesity on-premises cluster managed with a cloud-based control plane supports a multi-vendor strategy optimized for data recovery to improve business continuity.

Enhancing data security and resiliency in hybrid cloud environments

Phil Goodwin, Research Vice President at IDC commented that data protection solutions like IBM Storage Defender are designed to support the deployment diversity, virtualization, containerization, and self-service that are among the requirements of the modern data center. Goodwin believes that IBM and Cohesity are combining their market-leading capabilities to build a foundation to reduce data fragmentation, maximize availability, and improve business resiliency for companies’ hybrid cloud environments.

IBM Storage Defender will include:

• IBM Storage Protect (formerly IBM Spectrum Protect): comprehensive data resilience for physical file servers, virtual environments, and a wide range of applications (including SaaS-based workloads), where organizations can scale up to manage billions of objects per backup
• IBM Storage FlashSystem: a cyber-resilient, all-flash and hybrid storage platform for performance and capacity-intensive
• IBM Storage Fusion: container-native storage and data orchestration for Red Hat OpenShift for modern and next-generation
• Cohesity DataProtect: comprehensive protection for both traditional and modern data sources on a multi-cloud platform. Cohesity DataProtect is engineered so that clients can instantly recover at scale, across environments. Cohesity DataProtect positions clients to copy and store data in multiple locations in onsite or offsite servers, or in multiple clouds. This helps to ensure that an up-to-date and accurate copy of data is available in case of a cybersecurity breach or disaster – whether naturally occurring or through human

By integrating Cohesity with IBM Storage Defender, IBM clients gain new modern scale-out architecture secured-by-design, as well as easy SaaS-based cyber vaulting capabilities. IBM Storage Defender will allow companies to take advantage of their existing IBM investments while significantly simplifying operations and reducing operating expenses.

According to Denis Kennelly, General Manager for IBM Storage, protecting against ransomware and other forms of malware requires a layered approach to data resiliency that involves early detection, automated protection, and rapid recovery.

“Fighting sophisticated threats to data is a team sport. When we looked at the overall market, we were impressed by the Cohesity platform and the team’s differentiated focus on scalability, simplicity, and security. By integrating our leading software-defined technologies, I am excited to bring essential cyber resiliency capabilities to IBM clients. Cyberattacks are on the rise, but data can be protected and restored when you are prepared,” explained Kennelly.

The combination of IBM and Cohesity brings a transformational, yet radically simple approach to cyber resilient data security and management. This includes the ability to manage everything in one place, leveraging a zero-trust approach built to help detect, protect, and rapidly recover from ransomware attacks, and using built-in, AI-powered decision-making to facilitate action.

For Sanjay Poonen, CEO and President at Cohesity, Cohesity’s technology leadership position in data security and management, combined with IBM’s impressive storage portfolio, forward-looking vision, global reach, and client intimacy will allow clients to benefit from the best of Cohesity and IBM brought together.

“We’re honored and pleased to work with IBM to help organizations strengthen their cyber resilience in the face of evolving sophisticated adversaries, and look forward to building the relationship to benefit many clients across the world,” added Poonen.

IBM plans to make the new IBM Storage Defender solution available in the second calendar quarter of 2023 beginning with IBM Storage Protect and Cohesity DataProtect. IBM Storage Defender will be sold and supported by IBM as well as through authorized IBM Business Partners.

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