Data security is constantly grabbing the headlines. The explosive growth of cloud computing has changed the security landscape and created an ever-expanding attack surface.

Spread across multiple clouds, on-premises, and even out-to-edge devices, data is no longer contained in a single location. This means that creating a consistent protection plan is both increasingly critical and an even bigger challenge.

“You really have to pay attention to ‘How am I going to protect my data from the edge to core to cloud, and in that cloud native world?’” said Nelson Hsu (pictured), director of solutions marketing, data protection, at Dell EMC.

Hsu joined Stu Miniman (@stu), host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio in Boston, Massachusetts, for a post KubeCon + CloudNativeCon CUBEConversation on data protection in the multicloud era. (* Disclosure below.) 

Dell goes cloud native

The Dell EMC delegation were first-time attendees at Kube-Con, making the event a “coming-out party” for the company in the cloud-native realm, according to Hsu.

“We’ve got a tremendous amount of momentum … between what we’ve done in the data-protection space with our PowerProtect software for Kubernetes, what we’ve done in our storage realm, and the work that we’ve done around container storage interfaces,” Hsu said.

Citing VMware Inc. Chief Executive Officer Pat Gelsinger’s multicloud pillars of build, run, manage, connect and protect, Hsu stated: “Protect falls right into [the data management] area, because with the growth of data as we’re seeing it today, the need to manage that in the cloud-native realm becomes even more prevalent and important.”

Underlying Dell EMC’s entry into the cloud-native space is the company’s collaboration on the Cloud Native Computing Foundation’s open-source Velero Project. “Dell EMC and specifically the data protection team is working and contributing hand-in-hand with the VMware team on Velero,” Hsu stated.

Secure storage is critical to protect data assets

For the past few years, cloud-native security has focused on protecting the application, but this year the spotlight has shifted to storage, Miniman stated.

“Storage has become a very, very relevant topic … when it comes to cloud-native apps moving into production because it’s about protecting those mission-critical workloads,” Hsu agreed. “You have your applications, but at the end of the day, your data is really the capital and it’s what you really need to focus on.”

Assessing Amazon Web Services Inc.’s re:Invent conference taking place this week, Miniman commented that the collaboration between cloud leader AWS and virtualization maestro VMware is “one of the most interesting partnerships.”

“We’ve got a great offering for VMware Cloud on AWS,” Hsu said. “It allows you to protect into and within the cloud itself, so you can protect in and extend out to the cloud.”

The key aspect of this is the consistency to protect data across a multicloud environment. “Being able to protect all that valuable data that you have, whether it’s on-premises, where it’s in cloud, where it’s multi-cloud or hybrid,” Hsu said.

This ability to protect across multiple environments is going to be a theme at re:Invent, according to Hsu. “I think you’ll hear a lot about that consistency with regards to observability, orchestration, automation,” he said. “I think you’ll also see some pretty, pretty significant numbers coming forth with regards to how much data is being protected in AWS.”

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s CUBE Conversations. (* Disclosure: Dell EMC sponsored this segment of theCUBE. Neither Dell EMC nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE