Home > Storage > PowerScale (Isilon) > Product Documentation > Security and Compliance > Dell PowerScale: SmartLock Best Practices > Introduction
Dell PowerScale SmartLock is a licensed software module available with Dell PowerScale OneFS versions 6.5.5 and later. It is used to protect critical data from unauthorized alteration. SmartLock allows you to commit files to a write once, read many (WORM) state, which prevents users from erasing or rewriting those files.
The most valuable outputs of modern companies and organizations are electronic: data and digital work products created on computers and stored on disk. For example, the manufacturing of physical goods is based on an electronic design, and a finished movie usually consists of one big file. An architectural design might only ever exist on disk, and an electronic health record or medical image dictates the medical treatment. These product designs, movies, building plans, x-rays, and other digital elements must be protected. Often, company policy or regulatory oversight determines how this data is protected and for how long.
Adherence to retention rules is most easily and reliably met using automation. Automated retention systems set the retention time of data based on user requirements and hold the protected data unchanged for the required time.
Retention systems can be implemented in either hardware or software. Hardware implementations are dedicated retention systems rather than general-purpose storage. This hardware typically carries a price premium and requires staff to be trained on managing the additional storage infrastructure. Software implementations vary widely in manageability, flexibility, and granularity, and some software requires large capacities of storage to be dedicated to retention for long-term or permanent storage.
SmartLock provides an automated data retention solution is simple to implement and manage. It is also reliable, flexible enough to support multiple use cases without requiring investment in dedicated hardware, and scalable to meet the needs of today and the foreseeable future.