PANZURA DATA SERVICES®
Insights and Intelligence for Panzura CloudFS
Panzura Data Services (PDS) ensures you can see it, operate it, and trust it. Transform your Panzura CloudFS global file infrastructure into a transparent, auditable, and actionable data estate with complete visibility, always-on governance, and real-time metadata intelligence—all from one unified dashboard. You gain operational clarity and control from day one while saving thousands of IT hours annually.
PDS Essentials—included with every CloudFS deployment—delivers centralized visibility, Pulse real-time monitoring, and custom alerting. PDS Standard extends these capabilities with enterprise-class search, comprehensive audit trails, one-click file recovery, and AI-powered Threat Control.
of enterprise data is unstructured and growing. 1
of data breaches involved insider threats. 2
average cost of insider threat incidents. 3
Critical Challenges
Legacy Visibility Gaps Create Costly Blind Spots
Ops Teams “Fly Blind” in Distributed Environments
Organizations managing petabytes of unstructured data across multiple locations lack centralized visibility. IT teams resort to node-by-node administration, can’t see who’s accessing what, and struggle to understand system health, topology, and deployment status across their global file system.
PDS Solution: Single-Pane-of-Glass Visibility
Panzura Data Services provides centralized configuration and observability across all CloudFS nodes, and datasets. Real-time dashboards reveal storage utilization, access patterns, and file activity from one console, transforming blind spots into operational clarity.
Business Impact:- Complete CloudFS infrastructure visibility
- Streamline CloudFS administration
- Reduced IT investigation time
- Observable, manageable, enterprise class
Insider Threats Go Undetected
76% of organizations have detected increased insider threat activity, yet fewer than 30% have adequate tools to handle it.4 Data exfiltration, inappropriate file access, and suspicious behavior often go undetected until grave damage occurs.
PDS Solution: Real-Time Behavioral Alerting
With CloudFS Threat Control, you can configure alerts for specific file activities, unusual access patterns, data destruction, and potential data exfiltration. Get notified immediately when behavior deviates from established baselines, catching threats as they happen, not after the damage is done.
Business Impact:
- Early threat detection
- Reduced incident response time
- Protect against data exfiltration & destruction
- Document security posture
Finding Files Wastes Thousands of Hours
Employees spend an average of 1.2 working days per week searching for documents.5 With billions of files spread across global locations, traditional search tools can’t provide the speed or scope needed for enterprise-scale file systems.
PDS Solution: Lightning-Fast Global Search
Query billions of files in seconds across your entire CloudFS namespace including multiple CloudFS rings. Powerful metadata indexing delivers instant results—even for files that have been moved, renamed, or deleted.
Business Impact:
- Minutes to find any file
- Reclaimed productivity hours
- Reduced end-user frustration
- Cross-platform search unification
Compliance Without Audit Trails
GDPR and data privacy violations cost billions in fines each year. Without comprehensive audit trails showing who accessed what data and when, organizations face escalating regulatory penalties and failed audits.
PDS Solution: Comprehensive Audit Capabilities
Track every file action with granular detail—who accessed, modified, moved, or deleted files, when it happened, and from where. Filtering and query tools let compliance teams quickly generate reports for GDPR, HIPAA, SOC, and industry-specific requirements. Audit uses the same powerful and burstable search functionality available in the tier and can return millions of results in under a second. The free-text search field is used for any known file identifiers, such as file name, extension, or last known location, and filters further refine the criteria by audit action, age of file, or user.
Business Impact:
- Audit-ready documentation
- Simplified compliance reporting
- Reduced legal exposure
- Complete chain of custody
Accidental Deletions Create Recovery Nightmares
When files are accidentally deleted, renamed, or moved, recovery becomes a time-consuming investigation. Traditional backup approaches require knowing exactly which files were affected and when—information that’s rarely available when you need it most.
PDS Solution: One-Click File Recovery
Find deleted, moved, or renamed files instantly with built-in recovery capabilities. Restore files to their original state with a single click—no backup tapes, no IT tickets, no waiting. Combined with CloudFS immutability, your data is recoverable and intact.
Business Impact:
- Minutes to recover vs. hours or days
- Self-service restoration
- Reduced IT burden
- Zero data loss confidence
Storage Costs Spiral Without Visibility
More than 55% of IT budgets are consumed by storage and data management.6 Without understanding what data exists, how it’s used, and where it’s duplicated, organizations overspend on storage while ROT (Redundant, Obsolete, Trivial) data accumulates.
PDS Solution: Storage Intelligence & Optimization
Analyze storage consumption patterns, identify duplicate files, surface cold data candidates for tiering, and get actionable recommendations for cost optimization. Historical trending helps predict capacity needs before they become emergencies.
Business Impact:
- Reduced storage spend
- Data-driven capacity planning
- Eliminated ROT data
- Informed infrastructure decisions
TWO SERVICE TIERS
Choose the Level of Intelligence Your Organization Needs
Every Panzura CloudFS deployment includes PDS Essentials, delivering centralized visibility, real-time monitoring, and custom alerting from day one. This is not an “add on” but a foundational capability that ensures customers can see, operate, and trust their global file system. Organizations requiring advanced search, audit, and recovery capabilities can extend with PDS Standard.
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PDS Essentials
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PDS Standard
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Included with CloudFS
Set it. Operate it. Trust it. |
Extends PDS Essentials
Complete data intelligence. |
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PDS Essentials is included with every CloudFS deployment—not optional, not “nice to have.” It represents the baseline operational experience every customer deserves, which is an observable, manageable, and enterprise-class platform from day one.
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When your needs evolve beyond visibility and operations, PDS Standard delivers search, comprehensive audit capabilities, and instant file recovery. Built in, not bolted on—a natural expansion path for governance, compliance, and advanced control.
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Centralized Visibility: Single-pane-of-glass view across all CloudFS filers and datasets. Clear understanding of system health, topology, and deployment status streamlines administration.
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Search: Global file discovery and instant recovery for operational productivity. Query billions of files in seconds across CloudFS and connected sources—even deleted, moved, or renamed files.
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Pulse– Real-Time Monitoring: Continuous monitoring of CloudFS system metrics—CPU, memory, cache behavior, connectivity, and cloud interaction. Establishes baselines for “normal” behavior with instant visibility into anomalies, enabling proactive operations instead of reactive firefighting.
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Audit: Governance, compliance, forensics, and ransomware visibility. Complete file activity audit trails track who did what, where, and when with powerful query and filtering for regulatory reporting.
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Custom Alerting & Proactive Ops: Customer-defined alert thresholds for capacity, performance, and system events. Real-time notifications via email and collaboration tools enable faster issue detection, faster root-cause identification, and reduced MTTR.
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Recover: Find and restore deleted, moved, or renamed files with a single click. Self-service recovery reduces IT burden while ensuring data is always available when needed.
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COMPLETE OVERVIEW
Integrated Capabilities for CloudFS Data Mastery
Panzura Data Services delivers purpose-built capabilities that work together to provide complete visibility over your CloudFS file data. That includes governance and control over your CloudFS environment. Start with operational clarity and expand into governance and security when your needs evolve.
Visibility
Single pane of glass.
Centralized view across all CloudFS filers, datasets, and sites. Configuration and observability from one console—no more node-by-node administration.
✓ PDS Essentials
✓ PDS Standard
Pulse
Real-time monitoring.
Continuous monitoring of CPU, memory, cache, connectivity, and cloud interaction. Behavioral baselines with instant anomaly visibility.
✓ PDS Essentials
✓ PDS Standard
Alert
Proactive operations.
Custom thresholds for capacity, performance, and system events. Real-time notifications to reduce MTTR and enable faster root-cause identification.
✓ PDS Essentials
✓ PDS Standard
Search
Find anything, fast.
Global file discovery across your CloudFS deployment. Query billions of files in seconds—including deleted and renamed files.
✓ PDS Standard
Audit
Governance and compliance.
Complete audit trails for GDPR, HIPAA, SOC. Track every action with granular detail for forensics and ransomware visibility.
✓ PDS Standard
Recover
Nothing is ever lost.
One-click restoration of deleted, moved, or renamed files. Self-service recovery ensures data is always available. Period.
✓ PDS Standard
THREAT CONTROL
AI-Powered Threat Detection & Interdiction for CloudFS
File systems represent a security blind spot in 91% of ransomware attacks, with incidents costing an average of $5.21 million and lasting 291 days.7 Traditional signature-based security is inherently reactive—leaving organizations vulnerable to evolving attack vectors.
CloudFS Threat Control, an extended capability for PDS Standard deployments, transforms passive file infrastructure into an intelligent security layer. Using advanced machine learning, it creates behavioral fingerprints for every user and detects subtle deviations in real time, stopping ransomware, malware, and data exfiltration before attackers can gain a foothold. It is also an “early warning system” for accidental data loss
- Ransomware Detection
Catches known and unknown ransomware and malware variants based on signatures, encryption patterns, and suspicious file behavior. - Data Exfiltration Prevention
Detects unusual data access patterns or large-volume copying that signals potential data theft or insider threats. - Mass Deletion Alerts
Recognizes suspicious destructive behavior like bulk deletions that may indicate active ransomware or malware attacks. - Automated Response
Automatically disables compromised accounts and quarantines affected areas to contain threats in real time.
THE 9-POINT COMPARISON
Panzura Data Services vs. Alternative Approaches
This comparison reveals how Panzura Data Services delivers integrated capabilities that standalone monitoring tools, general-purpose file auditing solutions, and traditional backup approaches cannot match.
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Capability
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Traditional File Auditing
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Generic Monitoring Tools
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Panzura Data Services
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CloudFS Native Integration
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No (requires agents)
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No (API polling)
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Yes (built in)
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Global File System Visibility
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Limited to connected shares
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Per-location views
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Complete namespace
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Billion-File Search Speed
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Minutes to hours
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Not designed for file search
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Seconds
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Deleted File Discovery
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Limited history
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No
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Yes (full history)
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One-Click Recovery
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No (requires backup restore)
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No
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Yes
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Compliance Audit Trails
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Yes
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Basic logging
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Yes (granular)
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Behavioral Alerting
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Rule-based only
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Threshold-based
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ML-powered (with Threat Control)
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Storage Optimization Insights
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No
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Capacity only
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Yes (with recommendations)
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Included with File System
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Separate purchase
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Separate purchase
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PDS Essentials included
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SERVICE TIER COMPARISON
PDS Essentials or PDS Standard: Feature Matrix
Understand exactly which capabilities are available in each service tier to choose the right level for your organization and needs.
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Feature
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PDS Essentials
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PDS Standard
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CENTRALIZED VISIBILITY
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Single-pane-of-glass across all nodes, datasets
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Consolidated visibility across CloudFS “rings”
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System health, topology, and deployment status
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PULSE: REAL-TIME MONITORING
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CPU, memory, cache behavior monitoring
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Connectivity and cloud interaction metrics
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Behavioral baselines for anomaly detection
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Node status and replication health
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Storage utilization tracking
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CUSTOM ALERTING
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Customer-defined alert thresholds
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Capacity and performance alerts
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System event notifications
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Email and collaboration tool integration
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Feature
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PDS Essentials
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PDS Standard
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SEARCH
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Global file search
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Billion-file query capability
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Search across multiple CloudFS “rings”
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Deleted/moved file discovery
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AUDIT & COMPLIANCE
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Complete file activity audit trails
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User action tracking
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Advanced query and filtering
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Enables regulatory compliance reporting
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RECOVERY
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One-click file restoration
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Deleted file recovery
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Self-service recovery portal
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LISCENSING
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Included with CloudFS
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(opt out)
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Extended service
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Gartner & IDC: 80-90% of enterprise data is unstructured and growing at 55-65% annually. Gartner Research
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Verizon DBIR 2025: 34% of data breaches in 2025 involved insider threats. Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report
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Ponemon Institute 2025: Average cost of insider threat incidents is $15.2 million, a 25% increase over three years. Cost of Insider Risks Global Report
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StationX/Ponemon: 76% of organizations detected increased insider threat activity over five years; fewer than 30% have adequate tools. Insider Threat Statistics 2025
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McKinsey Global Institute: “Employees spend 1.8 hours every day—9.3 hours per week” (approximately 1.2 days per week). The Social Economy: Unlocking Value and Productivity Through Social Technologies
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Komprise 2024 Survey: More than 55% of companies report spending 30%+ of IT budget on data storage and management. State of Unstructured Data Management Report
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IBM: Ransomware attacks cost an average of $5.21 million per incident with average duration of 291 days. IBM Cost of Data Breach Report 2024
Panzura Data Services is cloud-based Software-as-a-Service that processes metadata to deliver visibility and governance capabilities. Panzura employees cannot access, view, read, move, export, duplicate, modify, or retain any customer file content or data. Panzura Data Services processes only metadata—such as file names, sizes, dates, and user activity—transmitted securely from your environment to provide search, audit, and governance capabilities in the cloud. However, file content never leaves your infrastructure. All file content and data remain under your exclusive control within your designated storage backends and are never transmitted to or stored in Panzura Data Services. Panzura maintains SOC 2 Type I certification, which governs strict internal policies and controls for data access, security, and confidentiality.
Panzura Data Services (PDS) Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
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Why do organizations need centralized visibility for file data management?
Organizations managing petabytes of file data across multiple locations face critical blind spots without centralized visibility. IT teams often resort to inefficient node-by-node administration, cannot track who accesses data, and struggle to understand system health across distributed file systems. Centralized visibility transforms these blind spots into operational clarity, reducing investigation time and enabling proactive management rather than reactive firefighting.
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How does file activity auditing support regulatory compliance?
File activity auditing creates comprehensive audit trails that track every file action with granular detail—who accessed, modified, moved, or deleted files, when it happened, and from where. This documentation is essential for GDPR, HIPAA, SOC, and industry-specific compliance requirements. Organizations without adequate audit capabilities face potential regulatory penalties, failed audits, and increased legal exposure from data privacy violations.
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What is Panzura Data Services (PDS)?
Panzura Data Services (PDS) is a cloud-based SaaS platform that transforms Panzura CloudFS global file infrastructure into a transparent, auditable, and actionable data estate. It delivers complete visibility, always-on governance, and real-time metadata intelligence from a unified dashboard. PDS processes only metadata—file names, sizes, dates, and user activity—while file content never leaves customer infrastructure.
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What is the difference between PDS Essentials and PDS Standard?
Panzura Data Services has two tiers: PDS Essentials and PDS Standard. PDS Essentials is included with every Panzura CloudFS deployment and provides centralized visibility, Pulse real-time monitoring, and custom alerting. PDS Standard extends these capabilities with enterprise-class global search across billions of files, comprehensive audit trails for compliance, and one-click file recovery. Threat Control, an AI-powered security layer, is available as an extended capability for PDS Standard deployments.
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How does Panzura Data Services (PDS) search billions of files in seconds?
Panzura Data Services (PDS) uses powerful metadata indexing to enable instant file discovery across entire Panzura CloudFS namespaces, including multiple CloudFS rings. Users can query billions of files in seconds—even files that have been moved, renamed, or deleted. This eliminates the hours employees typically spend searching for documents, with studies showing workers spend 1.2 days per week on file searches.
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What is AI-powered Threat Control for Panzura CloudFS?
Threat Control for Panzura CloudFS is an AI-powered threat detection and interdiction capability for PDS Standard deployments. It uses machine learning to create behavioral fingerprints for every user and detects ransomware, malware, data exfiltration, and mass deletion events in real time. Threat Control can automatically disable compromised accounts and quarantine affected areas without requiring infrastructure changes or complex configurations.
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How does Panzura Data Services (PDS) enable one-click file recovery?
Panzura Data Services (PDS) enables instant discovery of deleted, moved, or renamed files through its global search capability, then restores them to their original state with a single click. Combined with Panzura CloudFS immutability, this eliminates traditional recovery nightmares that require knowing exactly which files were affected and when. Self-service recovery often reduces IT burden from hours or days to minutes.
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Is Panzura Data Services (PDS) included with Panzura CloudFS?
PDS Essentials is included with every Panzura CloudFS deployment at no additional cost—it is not merely an add-on. This baseline operational experience ensures every customer has an observable, manageable, enterprise-class platform from day one. Organizations requiring advanced search, audit, and recovery capabilities can extend to PDS Standard as their needs evolve.
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