Tech News
VAST Data Delivers the First Fully Unified AI Data Platform, Adding Native Block Storage
VAST Data recently announced new capabilities that deliver on VAST’s mission to provide a truly unified data platform for the AI era. Available next month, VAST has added Block storage functionality, completing the initial vision for the VAST DataStore as a universal, multiprotocol storage platform.
The VAST Data Platform, which seamlessly combines storage, databases, and virtualized compute engine services into a unified AI operating system, is now the only exascale solution on the market capable of linearly scaling parallel data access performance for every type of data – file, object, block, table, and streaming data – for all data workloads. By having all dataaccessible in a single system, organizations can now address all workloads within one unified architecture without trade-offs in performance, scalability, or economics – allowing them to accelerate their journey to real-time insights and seamless AI adoption.
According to Gartner, “Multiprotocol storage platforms. These are designed to support multiple storage access protocols and address the growing needs of businesses. These platforms are versatile, allowing data to be stored and accessed using different protocols, such as Network File System (NFS), Server Message Block (SMB), block and object. This flexibility enables seamless integration with diverse IT environments and ensures that the storage system can meet the varied requirements of applications and users with different protocol preferences or compatibility needs.”
By incorporating Block storage, VAST has transformed data management for large-scale enterprises, consolidating siloed infrastructure into one platform with a full suite of enterprise data services such as snapshots, multi-tenancy, quality of service (QoS), encryption, and granular Role-Based Access Control (RBAC).
These new features allow VAST to meet the demands of modern enterprise IT infrastructure:
- Seamless Integration with Virtualization Platforms: The VAST Data Platform now provides robust support for environments such as VMware, Hyper-V, and other hypervisors. Features such as multi-tenancy and QoS allow IT teams to isolate workloads, guarantee performance, and simplify resource management across hundreds or thousands of virtual machines.
- Optimized for Kubernetes and Containerized Applications: For organizations leveraging Kubernetes, Openshift or other container orchestration platforms, the addition of Block storage enables persistent storage for containerized workloads. From transactional databases in containers to stateful microservices, the platform delivers the scalability and performance required for DevOps workflows, test environments, and production-grade applications.
- Unified Infrastructure for Hybrid Workloads: In modern enterprise environments, virtualized and containerized workloads often coexist, creating challenges in managing disparate storage systems. The VAST Data Platform eliminates this complexity by consolidating both workload types onto a single, unified storage architecture. This approach reduces operational overhead, simplifies provisioning, and ensures optimal performance across diverse application environments.
- Boot from SAN for Simplified Management and High Availability: With support for Boot from SAN, enterprises can streamline server deployment and management by eliminating reliance on local disks. This approach enhances disaster recovery, improves redundancy, and enables rapid provisioning of new virtual or bare-metal servers while ensuring consistent performance across IT environments.
“Our vision for the VAST Data Platform was always to enable organizations to process, analyze, and act on data in real-time, empowering them to scale effortlessly, reduce their infrastructure costs, and innovate faster by unifying AI data infrastructure within a single, powerful platform,” said Aaron Chaisson, Vice President, Product & Solutions Marketing at VAST Data. “With today’s announcement, we’re eliminating the data silos that once hindered AI and analytics initiatives, affording customers faster, more accurate decisions and unlocking data-driven growth.”
Tech News
New Rubrik Agent Cloud Accelerates Trusted Enterprise AI Agent Deployments
AI agents represent the biggest opportunity and the biggest threat to organizations everywhere. Rubrik, Inc., the Security and AI Operations Company, today announced the launch of the Rubrik Agent Cloud to accelerate enterprise AI agent adoption while managing risk of AI deployments.
AI transformation is now mandatory for most organizations. However, IT leaders are constrained because Agentic AI has significant risks including hallucination as well as compromise by threat actors. Rubrik Agent Cloud is designed to monitor and audit agentic actions, enforce real-time guardrails for agentic changes, fine-tune agents for accuracy and, finally, undo agent mistakes. Built on the Rubrik Platform that uniquely combines data, identity and application contexts, Rubrik Agent Cloud gives customers security, accuracy, and efficiency as they transform their organizations into AI enterprises.
“IT and security leaders often don’t know what their AI agents are doing or how to undo their mistakes. Rubrik wants to help them answer: ‘What agents do I have?’ ‘What are they capable of doing?’ ‘How are they performing?’ ‘What did they do?’ and ‘Can I undo that when they screw up?’ said Bipul Sinha, CEO, Chairman, and Co-Founder of Rubrik. “AI agents have the potential to cause 10x the damage in 1/10 of the time. With Rubrik Agent Cloud, we uniquely address this challenge by leveraging our leadership in data, identity, and resilience to help our customers deploy AI agents with peace of mind.”
Accelerate Enterprise AI Deployment and Resilience
Rubrik Agent Cloud will offer comprehensive agent management capabilities that encompass the entire AI agent lifecycle – from observability and control to performance management and simulation.
- Agent Monitor:
- Auto-discovers both infrastructure-as-a-service (Azure/AWS) agents as well as platform-as-a-service (M365/AgentForce) agents.
○ Automatically discovers and maps active agents across popular agent builders such as OpenAI, Microsoft Copilot Studio, Amazon Bedrock and other popular agent building tools.
○ Continuously monitors agent activity and data access, and maintains immutable audit trails capturing context from data, identity, and applications.
- Agent Govern:
- Tracks agent usage, evaluates performance against prompts, and gives teams the tools to control destructive/undesired actions.
○ Defines and enforces agent behavior, access, and action policies in real-time.
○ A centralized tool to provide integration with enterprise identity systems—helping ensure secure, compliant, and controlled innovation.
- Agent Remediate:
- Announced in August 2025, Agent Rewind integrates with Rubrik Security Cloud to provide the industry’s only solution for precise time and blast radius rollback of undesirable or destructive actions.
○ Goes beyond observability to allow organizations to instantly undo unwanted or destructive actions, without any downtime or data loss.
○ Selective rollback of agent-driven changes ensures continuous protection for critical data and systems, and immutable recovery.
Tech News
UAE’s AI market set to soar to Dh170 billion by 2030, driving MENA’s Dh610 billion Artificial Intelligence boom
The UAE’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) market is forecast to hit Dh170 billion (USD 46.33 billion) by 2030, according to new data from Grand View Research (GVR) in a study that underscores the country’s accelerating dominance in the region’s USD 166 billion (Dh610 billion) AI boom.
Close on the heels of the UAE unveiling its first Arabic-language AI model earlier this year, the new research by the California headquartered- firm reveals that the MENA AI market, valued at USD 11.92 billion (Dh43.7 billion) in 2023, is set to expand almost fifteen-fold to USD 166.33 billion (Dh610 billion) by 2030, growing at an annual rate of 44.8 percent.
“The Middle East, and especially the UAE, is no longer just an adopter of global AI technologies – it’s, in fact, shaping its own playbook,” said Swayam Dash, Managing Director at Grand View Research. “With sovereign funds backing innovation, and policies like the UAE’s new Strategic Plan 2031 leading the way with focus on utilising artificial intellegence in achieving greater financial efficiency for the federal government, the region is becoming a laboratory for how AI can drive both governance and growth.”
GVR’s report further highlights that nearly three in four UAE companies have maintained or increased their AI investments in the past year. Machine learning and deep learning remain the backbone of this transformation, particularly in healthcare, logistics, and financial services.
According to the report, the AI in Healthcare market in the Middle East and Africa, valued at USD 193.1 million (Dh 709 million) in 2023, is projected to reach USD 1.47 billion (Dh 5.39 billion) by 2030 growing at a CAGR of 33.6 per cent, while the region’s legal AI sector – currently at USD 43.3 million (Dh 159 million) – is expected to almost triple to USD 121.5 million (Dh 446 million) at a CAGR of 18 per cent over the same period.
“The release of region-specific AI metrics for the first time quantifies what many have sensed – that the UAE and its neighbours are at the tipping point of a generational transformation,” Dash added. “And the next wave of opportunity will come from specialisation. Sectors like healthcare and legal technology are still emerging here and hence the potential is immense. With the AI in regional healthcare market alone projected to touch USD 8.39 billion (AED 30.8 billion) by 2033, we’re looking at a decade of exponential growth. Likewise, the legal AI space, though currently small, represents a first-mover opportunity in digitising governance, compliance, and regulatory frameworks – areas where the Middle East can define its own benchmarks rather than follow global ones.”
The study also notes how the MENA region is further emerging stronger as one of the world’s most dynamic AI frontiers driven particularly by government-led digital transformation agendas, rapid urbanisation, and the rollout of AI-enabling technologies such as 5G, cloud, and IoT,
“Machine learning and deep learning continue to dominate adoption across smart-city initiatives, healthcare, and urban management – with the UAE leading the charge in real-world integration,” said Dash.
The full Grand View Research MENA AI Market Report offers an in-depth analysis of these evolving trends, uncovering how data, policy, and innovation are converging to redefine the region’s digital economy.
Tech News
FVC and SearchInform Join Forces to Boost Insider Threat Prevention and Data Protection in MENA
FVC, a prominent distributor specialising in innovative technology solutions, is pleased to announce its strategic partnership with SearchInform, a leader in information security and insider threat prevention solutions. Together, they are committed to strengthening organizations’ defenses against data leaks, corporate fraud, human-factor related risks.
K.S. Parag, Managing Director, FVC:
“We are excited to welcome SearchInform to our cybersecurity portfolio. The company offers the most powerful and localized DLP on the MENA market. SearchInform solution stands out from the competition due to a number of advantages. The system can be deployed within a few hours, protects the maximum number of data transfer channels, provides smart content-based blocking for all controlled channels and also use digital watermarks to trace the source of potential leaks. SearchInform DLP supports analysis of data in Arabic and has security policies, tailored for requirements of local organizations, enabling timely detection and prevention of confidential data leaks. The solution leverages AI to monitor atypical data transfer channels, recognize graphic elements, transcribe audio into text, detect attempts to photograph PC screens with smartphones.”
SearchInform offers a range of products, including DCAP, DLP, and SIEM. All the tools are seamlessly integrated. Technical support is provided through a specialist assigned to the company, who has extensive experience thanks to clients from various fields.
Commenting on the Partnership, Artem Volodin, CEO SearchInform MENA, stated:
“We are proud to collaborate with FVC, whose expertise in the Middle Eastern market will strengthen our efforts to combat insider threats and data leaks. The region needs a comprehensive solution that will enable organizations to meet regulatory standards, including SAMA, PDPL, DCC, ECC, UAE Information Assurance (IA) Regulation etc. and global ones, such as GDPR, PCI DSS. SearchInform delivers tools for data protection and risk mitigation across all levels: FileAuditor secures file systems, DLP covers workstations and human risks, Risk Monitor addresses corporate fraud, and SIEM protects IT infrastructure.”
The partners are currently conducting expert training, partner enablement sessions, and are also negotiating the implementation of SearchInform products in local companies.
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