IBM has announced a range of new enhancements over the weekend designed to offer end-to-end NVMe technology, faster performance, and increased capacity. These updates include a new NVMe enabled all-flash storage system, flash storage and NVMe networking enhancements, modern data protection and security improvements, new storage solutions, and a brand new offering.
IBM has announced a range of new enhancements over the weekend designed to offer end-to-end NVMe technology, faster performance, and increased capacity. These updates include a new NVMe enabled all-flash storage system, flash storage and NVMe networking enhancements, modern data protection and security improvements, new storage solutions, and a brand new offering.
First up is the new Storwize V7000 system, promising a 2.7x increase in maximum throughput for data-driven workloads during compression, while extending end-to-end NVMe capability to the entire IBM Storwize family. The new V7000 system starts as all-flash with a range of expansion capabilities. It is designed to protect and extend storage investments via its ability to cluster with new or existing Storwize V7000 systems to support a maximum of 32PB of flash capacity. Moreover, IBM indicates that its Easy Tier AI-based management (which includes predictive analytics, streamlined support, and automated data placement) automatically transfers data to the most suitable media tier based a user’s pattern.
IBM has also announced a significant expansion of lower latency, higher throughput NVMe fabric support across to their entire storage portfolio. Updates to IBM Spectrum Virtualize allow for NVMe over Fabrics (NVMe-oF) support for Fibre Channel via a nondisruptive software upgrade for FlashSystem 9100, many installed FlashSystem V9000, Storwize V7000F/V7000, SAN Volume Controller systems, and VersaStack solutions that use those storage systems.
Moreover, a new 16Gbps adapter enables Fibre Channel NVMe-oF support for FlashSystem 900, which has also doubled the maximum storage density and effective flash capacity (after compression). This will certainly help to lower costs and physical footprint to simplify storage solutions. The new FlashSystem 900 model also sports an updated user interface, faster rebuilds, and improved capacity reporting, among a number of other improvements.
The DS8880F has also been enhanced with new custom flash with up to double maximum flash capacity in the same form factor and an update to the zHyperLink solutions by significantly reducing write and read latency.
IBM continued their slate of announcements with a new entry-level configuration (now available) for the FlashSystem A9000R, which comes with a 40% lower entry-list price. IBM claims that this price tag does not compromise on scalability. This new system has can use both high-availability HyperSwap and disaster recovery capabilities at the same time, which will enhance data availability. IBM is expected to enhance FlashSystem A9000/R with AI technologies sometime in 2019.
IBM also announced a range of new capabilities that help protect user-data and enhance data security:
- IBM Cloud Object Storage small CD mode configurations support policy-based WORM and lockable vaults that can help meet these requirements even for smaller companies. It also supports more distinct use cases with a substantial increase in the number of vaults to support 1,500 unique environments.
- The new TS1160 enterprise tape drives support doubled native capacity (20TB) and improved performance. These new drives are supported in IBM TS3500 and TS4500 libraries, enhancing those existing investments with greater capacity.
- IBM Storage Utility Offering provides cloud-like storage pricing for on-premises storage based on actual monthly usage, turning storage budget from CAPEX into OPEX.
- IBM Storage Utility Offering enables acquisition of HA configurations (two systems) for a starting monthly rate from only 20% more than leasing a single system. It has also been extended to include IBM TS7760 virtual tape libraries.
Next up is IBM’s new multi-cloud storage and data management solutions for next-generation applications:
- IBM Storage Solution for SAP is designed specifically to provide enhanced data protection for SAP Hana environments leveraging the capabilities of IBM storage, IBM Spectrum Protect, and IBM Spectrum Copy Data Management. This solution is enhanced with SAP TDI certification of FlashSystem 9100, new IBM Storwize V7000 model, and Elastic Storage Server.
- The award-winning IBM FlashSystem 9100 has received electronic healthcare records certification from Epic, with certification from Meditech planned in 2019.
- Supporting our clients’ adoption of Blockchain, IBM plans to extend IBM Storage Solutions to include solutions supporting Blockchain in 2019.
- Finally, as clients embrace more and more multicloud solutions, IBM plans to make
- IBM Spectrum Virtualize for Public Cloud available on Amazon AWS in 2019, where IBM Spectrum Scale is already available.
Lastly, IBM has announced new software systems to complement their flash and NVMe enhancements. IBM Spectrum Discover automatically enhances and leverages metadata to help users better understand huge amounts of data so users can work to improve and accelerate large-scale analytics, ease data governance, and enhance storage economics. IBM Spectrum Discover supports unstructured data in IBM Cloud Object Storage and IBM Spectrum Scale and is expected to support Dell-EMC Isilon next year.
IBM Storage Insights is a cloud-based management for IBM block storage. It uses new AI technology to detect storage network “gridlock,” one of the main culprits to significantly slowing down applications across SAN. Once identified, Storage Insights will alert IBM support staff who will then proactively call the affected clients.
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