Dell InsightIQ 5.0: Driving Efficiency for Demanding AI Workloads

By Richard Greenwalt, product marketing manager, unstructured data solutions portfolio, Dell Technologies, Inc.

Keeping file storage performing at peak levels can be a daunting task. Numerous factors contribute to performance management challenges for unstructured data including data volume and growth, as well as security and application requirements.

For example, more than 90% of the word’s data is unstructured, meaning storage administrators need to manage a tremendous amount of content with a variety of requirements. Furthermore, the rise of AI and generative AI (GenAI) is bringing new opportunities and performance requirements for unstructured storage. To gain business insights from AI, it is crucial to keep file storage performing at peak levels. Now organizations can streamline unstructured data performance management and unlock application benefits with the newest release of InsightIQ, available for download.

Powerscale appliance

Dell PowerScale is flexible, ⁽¹⁾ efficient ⁽²⁾ and secure ⁽³⁾ scale-out NAS solution and is the #1 NAS ⁽⁴⁾ in the market. The company utilized this leadership to innovate the next-gen of file storage performance manager, InsightIQ 5.0., the firm’s software designed to monitor and manage performance for PowerScale storage.

InsightIQ differs from CloudIQ, which provides comprehensive health status and monitoring to the broad portfolio of Dell data center infrastructure. The InsightIQ 5.0 software expands PowerScale monitoring capabilities by increasing efficiencies that benefit your file storage performance tasks. For example, it includes a new user interface, automated email alerts and added security. It is available for all existing and new PowerScale customers at no additional charge. These innovations are designed to simplify management, expand scale and security and automate operations for PowerScale performance monitoring for AI, GenAI and all other workloads.

Simplified management
Dell built InsightIQ 5.0 to simplify operations with proactive performance management. The software includes a new user interface, a portion of which is shown below, designed to make day-to-day performance monitoring easier for IT administrators. The dashboard has a variety of tiles to display key information at a glance. For example, there is a status tile summarizing the number of clusters the software manages. There is also a tile that displays recent alerts. Another tile shows aggregated capacity for monitored clusters displaying the amount of storage remaining. There are also summaries of cluster performance and percentage of used capacity to rapidly gain an overview of cluster performance and identify any performance bottlenecks. These features are designed to simplify tasks and streamline file storage performance management.

Section of InsightIQ 5.0 dashboard

Expanded scale and security
The software for InsightIQ 5.0 is now based on a new Kubernetes platform, enabling seamless PowerScale performance management. The advancements improve the scalability of the software to increase the number of PowerScale systems the software can manage. A single InsightIQ instance can now manage up to 504 PowerScale nodes from a single user interface. InsightIQ 5.0 also offers improved, secure communications for the management of PowerScale infrastructure. It utilizes TLS 1.3 and LDAP-S for secure communications to the PowerScale systems, helping to keep infrastructure safe. These InsightIQ 5.0 infrastructure upgrades provide performance capabilities to save IT admins time and provide increased security.

Automated operations
InsightIQ 5.0 was designed to automate operations to free users of trivial tasks. For example, it offers new Key Performance Indicator-based alerts with customizable thresholds. Therefore, administrators can receive automated notifications as soon as problems develop rather than constantly checking the software. The alerting capabilities offered in InsightIQ 5.0 will enable users to resolve performance issues rapidly. In addition, it offers customizable report management for in-depth analysis of file storage performance. The software has also been designed for seamless upgrades and deployments. Existing InsightIQ 4.3, 4.4 and 4.4.1 deployments can upgrade to 5.0 software and benefit from the latest advancements.

With InsightIQ 5.0, performance management of PowerScale nodes is easier and faster than ever. The proliferation of AI workloads necessitates resolving any performance-related storage issues, and Dell’s new software provides powerful capabilities to keep PowerScale operating at the highest levels. InsightIQ 5.0 is available to all PowerScale customers at no additional charge and exemplifies Dell’s dedication to simplify IT management.

Resources :
Information about InsightIQ 5.0 software, view the InsightIQ InfoHUB page.  
InsightIQ monitors all-flash, archive and hybrid PowerScale nodes. PowerScale storage.

⁽¹⁾ Based on Dell analysis, February 2023
⁽²⁾ Based on Dell analysis comparing efficiency-related features: data reduction, storage capacity, data protection, hardware, space, lifecycle management efficiency, and ENERGY STAR certified configurations, June 2023
⁽³⁾ Based on Dell analysis comparing cyber-security software capabilities offered for Dell PowerScale vs. competitive products, September 2022
⁽⁴⁾ Dell is ranked #1 globally in NAS solutions for external OEM storage in IDC WW Quarterly Enterprise Storage Systems Tracker, 2023 Q2 historical release, September 7, 2023.