Dell’s ObjectScale offers enhanced security, resilience for enterprise AI
The AI revolution is radically changing the IT landscape transforming how people live and work. AI stimulates creativity, improves productivity, and reinvents innovation. In fact, a new wave of AI innovation drives competitive advantage for businesses across many vertical markets. AI has been reshaping the way we connect, collaborate, and create value.
Today, storage that can keep pace with unprecedented data growth and processing requirements has become necessary to keep pace with the AI revolution. Enter Dell ObjectScale version 4.1 and the new XF960 all-flash appliance—the latest leap forward in our fourth-generation object platform designed specifically to accelerate AI workloads.
Industry-leading performance built for AI workloads
ObjectScale XF960 sets new standards for object storage performance. As the industry’s highest-performing object platform, it delivers up to 2x faster performance than the closest competitor. Organizations can expect up to 300% faster read throughput and response times for critical AI operations like model checkpointing and fine-tuning. This means data scientists spend less time waiting and more time innovating.
The XF960 achieves these performance breakthroughs through ObjectScale 4.1 storage efficiency gains and extensive hardware advances, including high-performance TLC, SED TLC and QLC SSDs paired with dual 32-core processors and 100GbE back-end/front-end networking. These advances ensure your AI pipelines never bottleneck on storage performance.
ObjectScale 4.1 introduces five user-configurable compression algorithms that deliver up to an impressive 9:1 data compression ratio. Organizations can now balance compression ratio and speed at the Virtual Data Center level, optimizing for their specific workload requirements.
Enhanced space reclamation in 4.1 frees up deleted capacity more quickly while the new streamlined capacity dashboard provides real-time visibility into user, available and reserved capacity with intelligent alerting when utilization reaches critical thresholds.
The XF960 appliance complements this software efficiency with remarkable density improvements. With support for 61TB QLC drives and configurations ranging from 6 to 24 drives per node, clusters can scale from 230TB to 23.6PB per rack today. A 122TB QLC option with up to 47PB per rack is on the way soon, delivering up to 8x more raw capacity than its predecessor.
AI workloads often involve sensitive data that require robust protection. ObjectScale is the world’s most cyber-secure object storage, delivering enterprise-grade security through multiple layers of encryption and data protection. The XF960 introduces Self-Encrypting Drive (SED) support with Local Key Management for FIPS-certified encryption. Keys are generated, stored and managed directly within the appliance using Dell iDRAC.
Reference: Power AI Innovation: All-Flash ObjectScale XF960 with 4.1 | Dell
Another discussion from Dell Technologies followed, but this time for the ISG portfolio and the speaker was Allan C. Divinagracia. He’s been with Dell for 18 years as Data Center Specialist performing various sales and technical roles. His discussion focused on the modern data center evolution made possible by Dell Automation Platform Architecture with its three pillars of Velocity, Simplicity, and Assurance.
Allan said, a culmination of innovations from across Dell, the three pillars provide the following features/capabilities:
- Data center modernization — Simplify and transform IT infrastructure and operations on disaggregated Dell infrastructure.
- Edge computing growth — More AI/ML and IoT driving compute at edge locations
- Unlock the full power of AI — Empower business to increase the pace of innovation with AI.
- AI-driven observability and insights — Increase agility and give IT teams more control over their digital infrastructure.
He also cited the Dell AI Factory which is Dell’s approach to help customers embrace and implement AI. This approach simplifies deployment of AI solutions with validated and optimized configurations for your system.
For the final presentation, Wendy Butlig Gurra, Enterprise Technical Specialist at Intel Philippines took the stage with her topic “Intel Bringing AI Everywhere.” She started off the discussions by declaring that AI as the future of innovation is here and the current landscape is evolving rapidly. In fact, various sectors have been adopting use of AI namely, education; health; finance; retail; government; energy; automotive. She described Intel’s AI strategy as open, innovative, efficient, and secure.
Wendy mentioned Intel’s tech updates for 2025 such as Intel Core Ultra (Lunar Lake for laptop and Arrow Lake for desktop) processors comprising Intel’s AI PC portfolio for 2025; Intel vPro as the no-compromise solution for business. She said that Intel delivers what modern businesses need: performance; manageability; connectivity; AI; stability; security. There is also the new Intel Xeon 6 which is the latest processor for servers bringing AI everywhere; for evolving data centers; and ecosystem ready. Xeon is the most deployed host CPU for AI accelerated systems.
Dynamic presentations and conversations capped this occasion plus some fun during the raffle draws with guests winning various prizes. But the best part was the priceless trove of knowledge imparted to valued clients for the benefit of their respective organizations.
