Storage Ticker - 20 March

Storage supplier 45Drives is participating in Ceph Days Raleigh 2026, on March 25th, a community-driven event dedicated to the Ceph distributed storage ecosystem. The event will bring together Ceph developers, operators, enterprise users, and infrastructure leaders from across the region and beyond.

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Alation Curation Automation, which automates metadata governance at scale, is generally available. Its focussed on outcome-based governance, a new approach to data governance that replaces manual, process-driven programs with an agent-powered operating system. This connects three products within the Alation platform: CDE Manager for identifying and governing business-critical data elements, Data Quality for automated validation and monitoring, and the newly available Curation Automation for enriching metadata with business context at scale. Read more here.

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Ataccama launched Agentic Data Observability to increase AI-readiness with data pipeline observability and unified alerting, and embedded business context. IT enables the Ataccama platform to not just tell you something broke, but connect the alert to who owns it, what downstream reports and products it affects, and how to resolve it, closing the gap between "we detected a problem" and "we fixed it.” Attacama says “the same quality rules work across both pipelines in motion (dbt, Airflow, etc.) and data at rest, which means teams aren't maintaining two separate sets of rules just to cover their stack, something that's a real pain point no one else is really solving cleanly.“ Learn more here.

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Broadcom is shipping the world’s first end-to-end Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC)-safe, in-flight network encryption product, an Emulex SecureHBA. This enables organizations to encrypt all in-flight data across Fibre Channel networks ensuring PQC-safe encryption. Over the last year, more than 120,000 Emulex SecureHBAs have shipped on OEM server platforms. Everpure now becomes the industry’s first storage platform to embed Emulex SecureHBAs in its FlashArray product family, completing the end-to-end solution. There’s a StorageReview evaluation here.

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Broadcom has contributed Velero to the CNCF Sandbox, where it has been accepted, marking its transition to vendor-neutral, community-driven governance. Velero is the Kubernetes-native backup, restore, and migration project. It provides platform teams with the ability to protect cluster state and persistent data, enable disaster recovery and rollback workflows, and migrate workloads across clusters and environments. Operating at the Kubernetes API layer rather than the control-plane datastore level, Velero delivers portable, application-aware backup and recovery that works consistently across cloud providers, on-premises environments, and Kubernetes distributions. 

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Object storage supplier Cloudian says its HyperStore 8.2.6 product, available now, has achieved the Foundation level of the Nvidia-Certified Storage designation, meaning customers can deploy this Nvidia-certified, exabyte-scalable object storage with native S3 API compatibility for AI training, fine-tuning, inference, and data pipeline workloads. The Foundation-level certification evaluates performance across the critical I/O patterns of modern AI factories—including sequential reads for training, random I/O for inference, and low-latency access for key-value cache and retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) pipelines—along with enterprise requirements such as quality of service, multi-tenancy, and security. 

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Cloudian announced its HyperScale AI Data Platform has successfully achieved Lenovo compatibility certification and is now a Lenovo Validated Design. It's built on the Nvidia AI Data Platform reference design and Nvidia Blueprints, and has been tested and validated on Lenovo infrastructure. This Lenovo Validated Design is built on the Lenovo Hybrid AI 285 platform, featuring the ThinkSystem SR675 V3 server, with up to eight RTX PRO 6000 Server Edition GPUs, dual AMD EPYC 9535 64-core CPUs, BlueField-3 DPU,  ConnectX-8 SuperNICs, AI Enterprise software and Cloudian HyperStore NvMe-based storage. Cloudian plans for future versions of the Hyperscale AI Data Platform to be validated on Lenovo infrastructure including the RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell Server Edition GPUs.

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Cohesity announced the availability of next-generation malware scanning powered by Sophos, integrated natively into the Cohesity Data Cloud. It says it’s is the first and only data security platform to embed next-generation antivirus malware detection alongside advanced threat intelligence feeds, enabling organizations to detect malware that bypasses primary defenses and validate clean recoveries after cyberattacks. The feature is included with Cohesity Data Cloud Enterprise Edition and does not require a separate Sophos license.

The Sophos-powered engine uses signature-based detection, heuristic analysis, and file emulation techniques to inspect backups in three scenarios: during routine backups, before restoration, and after indicators of compromise (IOCs) or YARA-based matches are detected. Incremental scanning of newly ingested data minimizes operational overhead while maintaining visibility into backup integrity. Triggered and pre-restore scans validate trusted recovery points when risk is identified. The result is deep, snapshot-level inspection far beyond approaches that rely solely on metadata. Learn more - https://www.cohesity.com/platform/threat-protection/ - here.

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Commvault has expanded its Threat Scan capabilities to provide organisations with the option of scanning rapidly or in depth. Hyper Threat Hunting provides a very quick threat detection, rapidly scanning an organisation’s entire index so they have an almost instant understanding of the presence of any threats in their environment. Alternatively, Deep Inspection provides layered file-level scanning and offers an in-depth analysis. 

Commvault has also expanded its existing data security posture management (DSPM) functionality for unstructured data to include the structured data environments that are increasingly used in AI applications. The advancements extend data discovery, classification, and risk assessment into structured data environments and introduce real-time access governance for structured databases. This unified visibility helps identify sensitive data, surface exposure and policy violations, and consolidates risk insights to enable organisations to prioritise remediation based on impact.

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DataBahn, calling itself the AI-native Security Data Fabric company, has “an expanded strategic partnership with Microsoft to fundamentally modernize how enterprises deploy and scale Microsoft Sentinel.” It is integrating its AI-powered data pipeline directly into Microsoft Sentinel, so that “AI-driven connectors automatically normalize, enrich, transform, and route telemetry from 500+ sources into Microsoft Sentinel, dramatically compressing deployment timelines.“ DataBahn intelligently classifies telemetry and separates high-fidelity detection data from long-term retention data, routing each to the appropriate tiers in Microsoft Sentinel (60% cost reduction from DataBahn customer deployment metrics).

A context-aware pipeline purpose-built for Microsoft Sentinel accelerates integration development and pipeline configuration using DataBahn’s Cruz AI. Databahn’s software is available via Microsoft Marketplace, customers can apply Microsoft Azure Consumption Commitments (MACC) toward DataBahn, accelerating procurement and minimizing net-new budget impact.

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The new Denodo Platform 9.4 “enables AI agents to securely access live enterprise data, both structured & unstructured, and reinforces Denodo’s role as the trusted data foundation for agentic and generative AI. The update also accelerates AI workloads and analytics through the Lakehouse Accelerator, delivering up to 4x faster query performance. … Denodo Platform 9.4 embeds support for the Model Context Protocol (MCP) directly into the platform, making governed data access a shared enterprise-wide service rather than a feature that needs to be implemented agent-by-agent. Denodo Platform 9.4 introduces Lakehouse Accelerator, the next evolution of Denodo’s embedded MPP capabilities. By embedding the open-source Velox execution engine, Lakehouse Accelerator delivers up to 4x faster query performance, improved CPU and memory efficiency, and better scalability for advanced analytics and AI workloads.“

Find out more here.

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EnterpriseDB is bragging about its PostgreSQL role. It launched a Postgres Vitality Index, a new framework measuring which commercial players are actually shaping the future of PostgreSQL across core code contributions, ecosystem expansion, and community investment. The topline finding: despite an influx of hyperscaler and data-platform investment, EDB still leads the field with more than 30% of key contributions tracked in the Index. Find out more about EDB's contributions to Postgres and the broader open source community here.

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EnterpriseDB and Nvidia announced a partnership at Nvidia GTC to accelerate Postgres for AI and data-intensive workloads. The collaboration expands integrations between EDB Postgres AI and Nvidia cuDF for Apache Spark, allowing enterprises to offload analytics workloads to GPUs running on NVIDIA AI infrastructure. According to EDB, this can deliver 50–100x faster interactive analytics on large datasets while maintaining the governance and control enterprises expect from Postgres. Through integration with Apache Spark accelerated by Nvidia cuDF, the EDB PG AI Analytics Engine offloads analytical workloads to GPUs, enabling 50–100x faster, predictable analytics on large datasets (3TB+). Learn more here.

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HighPoint Technologies launched its External CopprLink PCIe Architecture, based on the PCI-SIG CopprLink standard. It claims this establishes a new benchmark for disaggregated AI, HPC, and professional media workflows, delivering a massive 64GB/s of native throughput with unprecedented interoperability. Read more here.

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A HYCU interaction; we contacted HYCU and asked this: “How would HYCU compare and contrast it and its competitors in using AI to provide a natural language interface to its backup data set and state? Eg. to R-Graph? And to provide data for an AI pipeline? I’m thinking here of Cohesity, Commvault and Rubrik. Is this something HYCU could comment on? And perhaps mention its roadmap?”

CEO Simon Taylor replied: “Over the past several years, we’ve built a platform that protects more than 100 workloads through a single control plane. That foundation creates an opportunity that goes well beyond recovery. When you can see data across applications, environments, and contexts, you can start to do much more with it. We believe that matters a lot more than most people realize! Stay tuned as we are counting down to something very exciting in May.”

Right. We’ll stay tuned.

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Informatica and Microsoft announced a major expansion of their partnership that enables Azure customers to instantly connect 300+ data sources to Microsoft Fabric, creating a governed, AI-ready foundation. The announcement includes general availability of support for Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC) for Microsoft Fabric Open Mirroring. They are also launching an Azure-based pod in Switzerland to help European enterprises meet strict data residency and regulatory requirements. Support for Microsoft Fabric Open Mirroring in IDMC is generally available with the April 2026 release. The Informatica IDMC Azure pod in Switzerland is available beginning March 2026. 

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MSP-focussed data protector N-able has announced that it will be partnering with Manchester City football club as their official cybersecurity partner, protecting critical systems, sensitive data, matchday operations and their media systems.  

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NAKIVO announces the general availability of NAKIVO Backup & Replication v11.2. which expands platform support and reinforces security and compliance across modern IT environments. With v11.2, customers can protect their environments running the newest VMware and Proxmox releases, while ensuring secure system communications through modern authentication standards. It has full support for VMware vSphere 9 and Proxmox VE 9.0 plus native OAuth 2.0 support for email notifications. Get a datasheet here.

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Rubrik and Rackspace have launched UK Sovereign Cyber Cloud Recovery, a new solution designed to help UK public sector organisations restore operations within hours of a ransomware attack. The launch comes as the UK’s proposed Cyber Security and Resilience Bill tightens expectations around cyber resilience and recovery, with stricter reporting and recovery expectations. In response, this new service provides an automated, UK hosted ‘clean room’ environment, enabling organisations to restore operations while keeping sensitive data under UK jurisdiction. Key capabilities include: 

• True digital sovereignty with all data under UK jurisdiction 
• Rapid cyber recovery to reduce recovery time 
• Regulatory alignment to support 24-hour reporting requirements 
• Continuous operations to monitor SaaS Cloud and on-premises applications at all times

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Data warehouser Snowflake has announced Project SnowWork, now in research preview. It signals a shift toward what the company calls the “agentic enterprise”, where AI moves beyond generating insights to taking action for business users. As many organisations still struggle to turn data into measurable outcomes, this approach aims to change how work gets done across teams. 

CEO Sridhar Ramaswamy said: “We are entering the era of the agentic enterprise, ushering in a fundamentally new way to work. This shift is about much more than technology, it’s about unlocking new levels of productivity and efficiency by embedding intelligence directly into the operating fabric of the enterprise. Project SnowWork looks to put secure, data-grounded AI agents on every surface, so business leaders and operators can move from question to action instantly. By elevating AI from experimentation to enterprise-grade autonomous execution, Project SnowWork serves as the secure foundation for how modern enterprises will get work done in the AI era.”

Learn more here.

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StorPool Storage launched StorPool One, a fully integrated turnkey, KVM-based cloud platform which combines all essential components of a full Software-Defined Infrastructure (SDI) virtualization stack: Linux KVM hypervisor, host operating system (OS), cloud management platform (CMP), software-defined storage (SDS) and software-defined networking (SDN) - all pre-integrated, delivered and fully supported as one bundle, by one vendor.

It enables businesses to transition from VMware, bare-metal, or public cloud deployments to virtualized KVM environments with confidence and peace of mind, and is up to 67% or 3 times cheaper than VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF). It’s generally available. Learn more here.

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