Storage news ticker - 22 May

Alluxio released AI v3.9 with a POSIX write cache achieving 7.6 GiB/s peak write throughput on a single node and sub-2ms P99 write latency, alongside RDMA read support reaching 49.5 GB/s on 400 Gbps NDR. Cloud Software Group appointed Brenda Sheahan, Jeff Thomas, and Chris Hartley as new sales leaders for Arctera and Enterprise Vault. Dell Technologies highlighted storage wins with Eli Lilly scaling AI drug discovery at nearly 2 TB/sec read bandwidth and Mazda consolidating 30 years of data into a 10 PB AI data lake, while Informatica announced deals with AWS, Microsoft, Google Cloud, Snowflake, and Databricks to give AI agents native access to enterprise data intelligence.

FLASH Storage news ticker - 22 May Alluxio AI v3.9 has a POSIX write cache with: - 7.6 GiB/s peak write throughput on a single node - 20 GiB/s scaling near-linearly across 3 nodes - Sub-2ms P99 write latency — because tail latency is what gates your training step - Works transparently with every major training framework — no API changes It’s also added RDMA read support: - 23.2 GB/s on 200 Gbps InfiniBand 92.8% of link capacity - 49.5 GB/s on 400 Gbps NDR 99.0% of line rate - Sub-100µs P99 on small reads — critical for metadata and small-file training datasets - Drop-in compatible — falls back to TCP automatically if RDMA hardware isn't present … Arctera and Enterprise Vault, both business units of Cloud Software Group, announced three new sales leadership appointments, with Dublin-based Brenda Sheahan appointed International Sales Leader for Arctera, Jeff Thomas as Global Sales Leader for Enterprise Vault and Chris Hartley as Americas Sales Leader for Arctera. … Dell Technologies World highlighted two storage-related customer wins: Eli Lilly life sciences - a 15-year Dell partnership now extended into AI at scale. Dell storage feeds LillyPod, their Nvidia DGX SuperPOD with 1,000+ GPUs, at nearly 2 TB/sec of read bandwidth. PowerEdge, PowerStore and PowerProtect also underpin their global manufacturing footprint. More here https://www.delltechnologies.com/en-us/dt/corporate/newsroom/announcements/detailpage.press-releases~usa~2026~05~eli-lilly-and-company-scales-ai-driven-drug-discovery-and-manufacturing-with-dell-technologies.htm . Mazda automotive - deployed PowerScale part of the Dell AI Data Platform to consolidate 30 years of model-based development and CAD data into the foundation of a future AI/genAI data lake. Capacity went from 4 PB to 10 PB, storage cost per unit dropped 90% and they eliminated tape for offload. InsightIQ, SnapshotIQ and SyncIQ in the mix. More here https://www.dell.com/en-us/dt/corporate/newsroom/announcements/detailpage.press-releases~usa~2026~05~mazda-builds-ai-ready-data-foundation-with-dell-technologies.htm . … Informatica, the Salesforce-owned business, announced deals with AWS, Microsoft, Google Cloud, Snowflake, and Databricks to give AI agents native access to trusted enterprise data intelligence; - Microsoft: Headless Ingestion & AI Agents: MCP Servers allows Azure customers to power AI agents with trusted data context directly in Microsoft Foundry workflows, while expanded Fabric support enables low-cost, high-velocity CDC replication of billions of monthly rows. Click here for more https://www.salesforce.com/news/press-releases/2026/05/20/informatica-deepens-collaboration-with-microsoft/ . - AWS: Plug-and-Play AI Workflows: Teams can now inject Informatica metadata, quality, and MDM tools straight into AWS agentic workflows with no custom code via the AWS Agent Registry and new CLAIRE Agent APIs in Amazon Bedrock. Click here for more https://www.salesforce.com/news/press-releases/2026/05/20/informatica-announces-headless-data-management-aws/ . - Google Cloud: Native AI & Multi-Agent Collaboration: Integrates conversational AI via native CLAIRE GPT for natural-language data governance and adopts the Agent2Agent protocol to allow Informatica agents to communicate seamlessly with other agents like Gemini Enterprise. Click here for more https://www.salesforce.com/news/press-releases/2026/05/20/informatica-deepens-strategic-partnership-with-google-cloud/ . - Databricks: End-to-End Data Delivery for AI: Automates AI workflows by natively invoking Informatica microservices within Agent Bricks, streamlining "Golden Record" delivery into Databricks SQL, and federating data stewardship via direct Unity Catalog integration. Click here for more https://www.informatica.com/about-us/news/news-releases/2026/05/20260520-informatica-brings-headless-data-management-lakebase-connectivity-golden-record-publishing-and-unity-catalog-tag-extraction-to-the-databricks-platform.html . - Snowflake: Governed Data Layer for Cortex AI: Provides a zero-connector, plug-and-play data layer for Cortex AI agents, backed by automated CDAM row-level policy enforcement and Iceberg Table metadata scanning to safely link open-format assets to business glossaries. Click here for more https://www.informatica.com/about-us/news/news-releases/2026/05/20260520-informatica-brings-headless-data-management-and-iceberg-governance-to-snowflake.html . … Following Royal Assent, the Isle of Man has formally enacted its Data Asset Foundations https://www.blocksandfiles.com/data-management/2026/04/15/isle-of-man-wants-to-turn-datasets-into-balance-sheet-assets/5217905 legislation – creating the world’s first legal framework enabling data to be recognised, governed and managed as an asset in law. … SaaS backupper Keepit appointed James Dwyer as its CRO. Prior CRO Craig Bumpus left in Nov 2025 and is now CRO at Finout. The new hire took a long time to complete. Dwyer was previously SVP for w-w Customer Success and Renewals at Alteryx. … Lenovo announced Q4 and full year results, saying it was its best year ever. Q4 revenues were $21.6 billion, up 27% Y/Y with $521M net income up 479%. Full 2026 year revenues of $83.1 billion rose 20% while net income was 38% higher at $.9 billion. All this “marking an exceptional Q4 and the strongest year in the Group’s history.” All business groups achieved solid double-digit year-on-year revenue growth, with a notable record full-year performance from the Infrastructure Solutions Group ISG with revenue of $19.2 billion and full-year profitability. AI-related revenue doubled year-on-year accounting for 33% of Group revenue in the full year. ISG servers did well but storage wasn’t called out. The Infinidat acquisition means “Lenovo now captures ~85% of enterprise storage TAM with the full value across key verticals including financial services, healthcare, telecommunications, and the public sector .” Next quarter will see the inclusion of Infinidat results in the ISG numbers. That could make interesting reading. … MSP-focussed data protector N-able announced an integration between Cove Data Protection and HaloPSA, that automates ticket creation for backup issues, helping MSPs reduce missed alerts and accelerate response times to back up failures. … Dedicated Veeam backup target appliance maker Object First announced 118% YoY bookings growth in Q1 2026. There was strong EMEA growth +275% driven by data sovereignty and compliance demands, Americas bookings up 45% YoY, growing customer demand for immutable backup storage as ransomware resilience becomes a bigger priority, and Increasing enterprise adoption, with six-figure deals doubling YoY. … Stockport, UK-based data centre infrastructure specialist + reseller Vespertec has added UK-based PEAK:AIO, a software-defined AI storage company, to its portfolio. PEAK:AIO is already deployed at Los Alamos National Laboratory and across NHS AI environments in the UK, while Vespertec has deployed hardware from vendors including Nvidia and SuperMicro across finance, healthcare, and HPC environments. The collaboration will combine proven, high-performance storage with Vespertec's deep experience deploying complex infrastructure for enterprise infrastructure leaders. … Korean media reported https://sedaily.com/amparticle/20045507 that the value of SK Hynix’s Kioxia stake has reached around $40 billion. It has a 7%-plus equity stake in Kioxia through the Bain Capital consortium, as well as convertible bonds equivalent to roughly 15% of Kioxia’s shares, which can be converted into common stock in 2028. … StorMagic has promoted Tobias Pföhler to Director of Sales for EMEA from DACH Regional Sales Manager. … Cloud storage provider Wasabi has a new report out. It found 42% of European organisations experienced a cyberattack that resulted in loss of access to cloud data, while 92% are now backing up production AI data and applications. Wasabi has introduced Wasabi Account Control Manager Self-Activation, providing MSPs with free, multi-tenant management and one-click onboarding. It says it has “strengthened its cyber resilience proposition through its expanded alliance with Commvault, delivering a joint solution focused on trusted data protection and cost-effective cloud storage.” … HDD maker WD released a new customer survey. Some of the key customer survey findings include: - 87% of respondents prioritize capacity expansion and TCO optimization - 74% cite TCO, capacity, and scalability as key advantages of HDD-based infrastructure - 69% prioritize reliability and availability alongside AI training and inference workloads - 66% say they are deprioritizing newer technologies in favor of proven infrastructure with predictable performance at scale We assume “newer technologies “ means flash. A respondent said: “Even as SSDs dominate performance-critical workloads, HDDs remain unmatched for bulk storage.” …