Storage and Data Protection News for the Week of February 20; Updates from Barracuda, Scality, StorONE & More

Solutions Review Executive Editor Tim King curated this list of notable storage and data protection news for the week of February 20, 2026.

Keeping tabs on all the most relevant storage and data protection news can be a time-consuming task. As a result, our editorial team aims to provide a summary of the top headlines from the last week in this space. Solutions Review editors will curate vendor product news, mergers and acquisitions, venture capital funding, talent acquisition, and other noteworthy storage and data protection news items.

For early access to all the expert insights published on Solutions Review, join Insight Jam, a community dedicated to enabling the human conversation on AI.

Top Storage and Data Protection News for the Week of February 20, 2026

Backblaze Flamethrower: Founder-First Startup Program for Data-Heavy Builders

Backblaze has launched Flamethrower, a startup program aimed at early-stage teams building data-intensive products—AI/ML, media, gaming, SaaS—who need simple, predictable object storage without hyperscaler complexity. Qualifying startups get meaningful Backblaze B2 credits, direct access to storage experts, and straightforward pricing, with no mandatory demos or aggressive sales motions, so founders can make storage the least complicated part of their stack.

Read on for more → https://www.backblaze.com/blog/introducing-the-backblaze-flamethrower-startup-program/

Barracuda: 90% of ransomware incidents now exploit firewalls

A new Barracuda Managed XDR Global Report reveals that 90% of ransomware incidents in 2025 began with attackers exploiting firewalls—via unpatched vulnerabilities or compromised accounts—rather than email or endpoints. One Akira ransomware case went from initial firewall compromise to full encryption in just three hours, underscoring the need for continuous firewall patching, identity hardening, and 24×7 monitoring of edge devices as first-class security assets, not static infrastructure.

Read on for more → https://www.barracuda.com/company/news/2026/ransomware-incidents-exploit-firewalls

CloudBolt: 86% of enterprises are actively reducing their VMware footprint

CloudBolt’s follow-up “Mass Exodus That Never Was: The Squeeze Is Just Beginning” report finds that while the feared immediate post-acquisition exit from VMware didn’t occur, 86% of 302 large enterprises are now actively working to reduce their VMware presence. Only 5% have seen costs more than double so far, but 88% worry about future price hikes, 56% have already modified their VMware strategy, and 72% of migrating workloads are heading to public cloud IaaS, with Azure Stack/Hyper-V and SaaS alternatives also gaining traction—indicating a gradual, workload-by-workload unwind rather than a sudden exodus.

Read on for more → https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2026/02/17/3239341/0/en/New-CloudBolt-Research-86-of-Companies-Actively-Reducing-their-VMware-Footprint.html

F5 + Scality: Secure, high-performance data fabric for AI workloads

F5 and Scality have expanded their partnership by integrating the F5 Application Delivery and Security Platform with Scality’s S3-compatible, scale-out object storage (RING) to provide secure, high-performance data access for AI, analytics, and data-intensive workloads. The joint architecture delivers resilient S3 endpoints with L7 security, traffic management, and cyber-resilient, self-healing storage, supporting use cases such as AI training and inference, multi-site data protection and DR, hybrid/multicloud storage, and long-term retention while simplifying management and reducing TCO.

Read on for more → https://aithority.com/machine-learning/f5-and-scality-expand-partnership-to-deliver-secure-high-performance-data-infrastructure-for-ai-workloads/

Radware 2026 Global Threat Report: DDoS up 168%, apps and bots surge

Radware’s 2026 Global Threat Analysis Report shows network-layer DDoS attacks jumped 168.2% year over year in 2025, with peak attack volumes nearing 30 Tbps and an average of 25,351 network attacks per customer in H2 2025. Web DDoS grew 101.4%, application/API attacks rose 128%, and bad-bot activity climbed 91.8%, with technology, telecom, and financial services bearing the brunt of large-scale campaigns.

Read on for more → https://finviz.com/news/315371/radware-2026-global-threat-report-shows-ddos-attacks-jump-168-as-cyber-threats-escalate-across-networks-and-applications

New Rocket Software survey: 69% of IT leaders say data security keeps them up at night

Rocket Software’s latest IT Leaders Report finds 69% of IT directors and VPs list data security as their top modernization concern, ahead of cost and performance, as hybrid IT and AI expand their attack surface. Only about a third feel very confident about passing their next regulatory audit, and major pain points include access control (52%), secure data movement (50%), consistent governance (46%), rising storage costs (45%), and AI data accessibility, with 66% saying getting the right data to AI is a critical challenge.

Read on for more → https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2026/02/18/3240304/0/en/69-of-IT-Leaders-Report-Data-Security-Keeps-Them-Up-at-Night-According-to-New-Survey.html

StorONE “9x ROI on Flash”: Breaking the flash bottleneck with smart auto-tiering

StorONE’s 9x ROI on Flash Program, delivered in platform v3.9, uses intelligent auto-tiering to combine existing flash arrays with a lower-cost HDD tier, increasing effective capacity by up to 9x while keeping hot data on flash for all-flash-class performance. Organizations can redeploy current all-flash JBODs as the performance tier and add HDD capacity without changing applications; StorONE continuously promotes and demotes data based on live access patterns, avoiding the “all-flash tax” and making capacity growth more predictable.​

Read on for more → https://www.hpcwire.com/off-the-wire/storone-introduces-9x-roi-on-flash-program/

Expert Insights

Watch this space each week as our editors will share upcoming events, new thought leadership, and the best resources from Insight Jam, Solutions Review’s enterprise tech community where the human conversation around AI is happening. The goal? To help you gain a forward-thinking analysis and remain on-trend through expert advice, best practices, predictions, and vendor-neutral software evaluation tools.

NEW Series Launching Soon: The Human Conversation with Solutions Review President Doug Atkinson

What makes us so special? And why isn’t AI just simply going to replace us all? Doug is sitting down with educators, researchers, and practitioners to try to find out. With the rise of AI, it is more important than ever that we need to have the Human Conversation.

Watch on YouTube

Solutions Review is Getting Set to Host Radware for the Exclusive Session ‘Securing Your AI Agents to Embrace Their Full Potential’ on March 5

In the hour-long webinar, the company’s VP of Product Marketing will examine the state of global AI adoption, the concerns it brings, and the tools an organization can and should put in place to utilize the full power of Agentic AI while still protecting its data and business. The conversation will also cover several threats, some of which were discovered and published only latterly. 

Register on LinkedIn

Solutions Review is Getting Set to Host Object First for the Exclusive Session ‘Zero Trust: Good, But Not Good Enough?’ on March 12

In the hour-long webinar, two Object First experts will discuss the importance of data resilience in cybersecurity and examine how an evolved Zero Trust approach can empower organizations to achieve genuine data resilience in the face of emerging threats. The event also includes a demo of Object First’s on-prem backup storage solution.

Register on LinkedIn

Solutions Review Surpasses 250K on YouTube to Power Unmatched Media Momentum in Enterprise Tech & the Human Impact of AI

Solutions Review has officially surpassed 250,000 subscribers on YouTube, a milestone that’s about more than just the number. This moment marks the payoff of a deliberate, two-year strategy centered on authoritative video, human-led insight, and an early recognition of how AI search engines ingest information, assign trust, and surface sources at scale.

Read on Solutions Review

Insight Jam Launches New “Mesh Lab” to Build a Framework for Work & Learning in the Age of AI

Insight Jam Mesh Lab is a year-long, monthly series of expert-led discussions dedicated to exploring and shaping the next generation of frameworks for work and learning in the age of AI. Rather than reacting to tools or trends, Mesh Lab is designed to initiate a sustained, cross-sector conversation about how human capability itself must be re-architected as AI becomes embedded across education, enterprise, and leadership.

Watch on YouTube

Solutions Review Editors Launch New ‘Human-AI Ledger’ Newsletter to Chronicle the Human Impact of AI

Artificial intelligence is everywhere—but understanding its human impact has never been more urgent. That’s where Solutions Review‘s latest newsletter, The Human-AI Ledger, comes in. Designed to chronicle how AI is reshaping the way we learn, work, lead, and live, this newsletter explores the soft side of AI—the non-technical, deeply human dimensions that determine whether this technological revolution helps us thrive or leaves us behind.

Sign up now to get a weekly debrief of the latest human-centric news, insights, and commentary coming out of this emerging discussion.

Sign Up Free

For consideration in future data protection news roundups, send your announcements to the editor: tking@solutionsreview.com.