The News: IBM announced its new IBM Storage Assurance program along with new FlashSystem 5300 and Virtualize updates. Read the press release on the IBM website.
IBM Releases New Storage Technology and Life Cycle Management Program
Analyst Take: As the market moves to more consumption/subscription models, IT users are looking for options to own their technology while maintaining the ability to maneuver and take advantage of the latest innovations. This setup is difficult for hardware-based technologies, especially data storage, which has a long life span and is difficult to move and migrate. We have seen vendors bring programs that enable upgrades to the controller, which houses the storage operating system (OS). This upgrade gives a boost to IOPS and performance and avoids migration of data to new drives taking advantage of solid state drives’ (SSDs’) longer life span, 7 or possibly 10 years.
IBM’s innovation has been threefold: the storage OS, the controller, and IBM SSDs, Flash Core Modules. FCMs, now in their 4th generation, have managed the unique qualities of QLC and very importantly scan every IO for ransomware. Doing so in the controller can bring IO to a halt and disrupt operations. IBM has also enabled data reduction, which is another CPU consumer.
Thus, to provide a program that recognizes advances in storage OS and controller upgrades, the IBM Storage Assurance program is designed to enable a user refresh to the FCMs during the life of the system. As with all of these programs, this requires premium support services with options for 4- or 8-year commitment.
Along with the IBM Storage Assurance program, IBM announced the latest version to its FlashSystem with the 5300. With 400K IOPS, 64 Gb Fibre Channel (also NVMe over TCP), it packs over 1 PB of effective capacity in a 1U. The system uses the advanced FCM, Intel’s Icelake with PCIe gen4. The storage controller has one core dedicated to selected data services such as VASA, and Policy Based Replication, which frees up the other cores for IOs. IBM has also increased the number of snapshots and capacity to 10 PiB. One may question why this size is needed. The answer is ransomware. With ongoing threats, organizations are increasing the number and duration of their snapshots to safeguard against data loss.
IBM also announced new capabilities and performance improvements for its Virtualize offering (often known as SVC)—most significant being Policy Based Replication and High Availability. As this can cause a drag on the overall performance, this is a big improvement.
IBM FlashSystem is a strong competitively priced offering. IBM continues to innovate, often starting from its very high-end DS8XXX series and then to the broader market. As the company tends to focus messaging on the big IT trends, its storage strength is not always touted. Still, it has a very strong channel that is committed to its success.
Disclosure: The Futurum Group is a research and advisory firm that engages or has engaged in research, analysis, and advisory services with many technology companies, including those mentioned in this article. The author does not hold any equity positions with any company mentioned in this article.
Analysis and opinions expressed herein are specific to the analyst individually and data and other information that might have been provided for validation, not those of The Futurum Group as a whole.
Other Insights from The Futurum Group:
IBM Doubles Down on AI-Powered Storage Security
2024 Trends and Predictions for Data Storage
IBM FlashSystem 9500 – Product Review
Author Information
Now retired, Camberley brought over 25 years of executive experience leading sales and marketing teams at Fortune 500 firms. Before joining The Futurum Group, she led the Evaluator Group, an information technology analyst firm as Managing Director.
Her career spanned all elements of sales and marketing including a 360-degree view of addressing challenges and delivering solutions was achieved from crossing the boundary of sales and channel engagement with large enterprise vendors and her own 100-person IT services firm.
Camberley provided Global 250 startups with go-to-market strategies, creating a new market category “MAID” as Vice President of Marketing at COPAN and led a worldwide marketing team including channels as a VP at VERITAS. At GE Access, a $2B distribution company, she served as VP of a new division and succeeded in growing the company from $14 to $500 million and built a successful 100-person IT services firm. Camberley began her career at IBM in sales and management.
She holds a Bachelor of Science in International Business from California State University – Long Beach and executive certificates from Wellesley and Wharton School of Business.
