As an increasing number of companies undergo digital transformation, the potential for tech across business processes is growing and enabling innovation that improves efficiency and security. With many customers eager to take the next step in optimization, Dell Technologies Inc. is improving data management efforts by incorporating automation and intelligent insights through its expansion of the platform CloudIQ.

“[With CloudIQ] you’re able to do a lot of in-depth analysis, collection, look for anomalies in the system. The analogy I like to use is ‘a Fitbit for storage,’” said Brian Henderson (pictured, right), director of storage portfolio product marketing at Dell EMC.

Henderson and Susan Sharpe (pictured, left), senior consultant and product manager at Dell, spoke with John Walls (@JohnWalls21) and Stu Miniman (@stu), co-hosts of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, at the Dell Technologies World event in Las Vegas. They discussed the details of CloudIQ and how the system is helping businesses simplify complex data work while building into the future. (* Disclosure below.)

A proactive approach to data health

Like a Fitbit, CloudIQ measures the “health” of a system — in this case, a data storage environment. The platform tracks metrics around system elements like data protection and capacity and notifies users preemptively to help businesses avoid risk.

“We can proactively alert our storage administrators to the fact that their data is not being protected … and then provide that clear remediation about what they need to do to bring that into compliance,” Sharpe said.

Where traditional data management platforms take a break/fix approach, CloudIQ focuses on optimizing environments in advance of catastrophe with system health scores that range from zero to 100. Simple remote access to the system is also intended to encourage users to check up on their environment. In addition to the convenience of remote access, CloudIQ’s foundation in the cloud means users receive upgrades automatically.

“It lives in the cloud so you can access it anywhere. … It’s plugged into your system and the back-end is plugged into our data lake, so we understand what’s happening across multiple systems and can give specific guidance to each one,” Henderson said.

Sharpe says customers are responding enthusiastically to the expansion of CloudIQ and that Dell EMC is looking at new ways develop the system further. “Now that [customers] see the momentum, they’re wanting us to continue that momentum and … expand Cloud IQ. … I would love to see Cloud IQ expand as much as possible,” she concluded.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the Dell Technologies World 2018 event. (* 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