Customers can immediately bypass current server hardware lead times and historic prices on all-flash systems by using CloudBridge from Qumulo and Cisco, with NeuralProtect ransomware detection at file data write time.
Qumulo and Cisco are offering CloudBridge to seamlessly move applications using Qumulo file-based workloads running on Cisco UCS servers to the 4 main public clouds, across Qumulo’s Data Fabric software, where the apps run as before using Cloud-Native Qumulo (CNQ) Enterprise filesystem software. The aim is to enable customers to take advantage of the public cloud operator’s amassing of SSD storage and so avoid having to pay current very high prices for sufficient server memory and flash storage hardware to run their applications entirely on-premises.
Brandon Whitelaw, SVP of Product at Qumulo, said: "CNQ Enterprise with Cisco UCS provides the bridge that enterprise infrastructure teams need to deal with the real, immediate pressure they’re feeling without asking them to rip out what's already working.”
“Capacity extends to the cloud instantly. Users and applications never know that the systems have been extended into the cloud. Additionally, the entire dataset is fully accessible in the cloud to be used in combination with zero-copy AI pipelines into services like Microsoft AI Foundry, AWS Bedrock, or Google Vertex AI. That combination not only provides immediate relief from today's pressure but also delivers flexibility for tomorrow's demands.”
Qumulo talks about enterprises having to pay a so-called flash tax because the hyperscalers have fundamentally reshaped the memory and NVMe landscape by consuming unprecedented volumes of flash and DRAM for their massive AI training and inference clusters. This structural demand, secured through multi-year supply agreements, has led to a global NAND shortage and price surges of over 400 percent on high-performance storage and memory, with lead times stretching up to 26 weeks. Alternatively, customers face multi-year application migrations to the public clouds.
Cloud Bridge enables a more or less instant migration for Qumulo and Cisco users, with, it’s claimed, no application refactoring.
Qumulo says that, by seamlessly extending file workloads to the cloud, enterprises can immediately free up on-premises resources for high-priority applications while maintaining operational continuity, a consistent user experience, and the flexibility to transition workloads back on-premises as business needs evolve.
CNQ Enterprise includes unlimited Cloud Data Fabric and NeuralProtect, running on Cisco UCS on-premises and across the AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) public clouds. Cisco UCS and Qumulo say they deliver a unified infrastructure backbone that supports the full spectrum of enterprise data workloads, from traditional file services to emerging AI pipelines, with operational consistency across on-premises, remote edge, and cloud environments. It features:
Hybrid cloud without disruptive migration: Extend file workloads to the cloud without application refactoring, workflow interruption, or forced timelines
Immediate capacity relief: Move select workloads to the cloud to free on-premises infrastructure for business-critical applications
Infrastructure flexibility: Optimize long-term on-premises footprint while maintaining seamless access across cloud and edge environments
Unified global namespace: Qumulo’s Cloud Data Fabric eliminates storage silos and makes distributed data accessible everywhere
Local-like performance: Qumulo’s NeuralCache and high-performance Cisco networking ensure users experience no degradation
Elastic scale: Grow from terabytes to exabytes across clouds without fixed hardware constraints
Neural Protect
NeuralProtect provides ransomware resilience, protecting data at the storage layer, by detecting and stopping threats before data is encrypted, corrupted, or lost. It performs Deep File Inspection on every file as it is written, inspects them at the precise point-of-write using a series of AI-driven analysis models to detect both known and zero-day threats, instantly isolating malicious activity and enabling rapid recovery. The SW is a native capability of Qumulo Core, Azure Native Qumulo (ANQ), and Cloud Native Qumulo (CNQ) deployments.
Qumulo CTO Kiran Bhageshpur said: “Ransomware doesn't target your backups first; it targets your live data. NeuralProtect is the first solution built to stop attacks at exactly that point, at the data layer, before a single file is compromised, avoiding costly and lengthy recoveries.”
NeuralProtect’s detection engine combines multiple AI models to identify every category of threat including:
Deterministic AI model: Identifies known ransomware and malware variants with 100 percent accuracy** Statistical AI model**: Detects zero-day and novel attacks with greater than 95 percent success** Temporal AI model**: Surfaces stealth campaigns and slow-moving, partial-encryption attacks** BitDefender Virus Detection Engine**: Adds a proven commercial antivirus layer for comprehensive coverage
When a threat is detected, NeuralProtect can respond autonomously and immediately. The offending user session is terminated, the user or IP address is blocked, defensive snapshots are created, and infected data is quarantined thereby stopping the spread of attacks and accelerating recovery to a clean state.
Telemetry from Qumulo and Cisco flows directly into Splunk via OpenTelemetry integration, giving security operations teams unified visibility and faster, better informed incident response.
Bhageshpur said: “Combined with Cisco Hypershield and Splunk, we've built what the industry has long needed: a coordinated cybersecurity architecture that spans storage, infrastructure, and security operations, so enterprises can respond to known and emerging threats without sacrificing business continuity."
Working with Cisco Hypershield and Splunk, NeuralProtect can enable an instant data-to-network response, quarantining malicious actors across the entire network and operating with a false-positive rate of less than 0.01 percent.
It isolates compromised systems and instantly notifies Splunk of the specific client, the malware variant, and the exact point of intrusion, preventing further infection and protecting crucial data for forensics and response resolution.
Availability
Qumulo NeuralProtect is now available for enterprise customers running Qumulo on-premises and in hybrid cloud environments, including Azure Native Qumulo.
Qumulo CNQ Enterprise is available now for deployment on Cisco UCS on-premises infrastructure and across AWS, Azure, GCP, and OCI. CNQ Enterprise is available through Cisco for simplified enterprise procurement.