IBM Expands Flash Storage Solutions to Target New, Intelligent Apps in the Cloud

‘IBM MicroLatency’™ Technology To Transfer Data at Unprecedented Speed

IBM (NYSE: IBM) announced an expansion of its flash storage portfolio to help clients more quickly extract value from data so it can be turned into a competitive advantage. IBM launched three new all-flash array products incorporating industry-leading performance – a minimum latency of 250μs (microsecond) — to solve the challenge of accessing the massive amounts of data quickly for cloud-based applications and workloads.

Consumers today are demanding cloud-based applications that are fast, easy and intelligent. Sub-second response times are critical when data is retrieved from the cloud to deliver a unique, personalized and positive customer experience. IBM MicroLatency technology transfers data within the flash array via hardware instead of the added layer of software.

Also built into the solutions are features designed to solve cloud requirements such as quality-of-service (QoS) to prevent the impact “noisy neighbor” problems have on application performance, secure multi-tenancy, thresholding, and easy-to-deploy grid scale out.

“The drastic increase in volume, velocity and variety of information is requiring businesses to rethink their approach to addressing storage needs, and they need a solution that is as fast as it is easy, if they want to be ready for the Cognitive Era,” said Greg Lotko, general manager of IBM Storage and Software Defined Infrastructure.  “IBM’s flash portfolio enables businesses on their cognitive journey to derive greater value from more data in more varieties, whether on premises or in a hybrid cloud deployment.”

Flash Solutions for Diverse Client Needs

With today’s news, IBM is unveiling an end-to-end flash portfolio with features specifically needed for cloud environments.

• Providing simple onramp for flash storage for IT service providers: The FlashSystem A9000 comes fully configured which helps drive down the cost of implementing an all-flash environment.
• Delivering scalable storage for cloud service providers: The FlashSystem A9000R, with its grid architecture, provides easy scaling up to the petabyte range.

The FlashSystem A9000 and A9000R both incorporate data reduction features, including pattern removal, deduplication and real-time compression, as well as IBM FlashCore technology to deliver consistent low latency performance.  They are priced as low as $1.50 per gigabyte.

• Optimized all-flash systems for enterprise-class servers: With the all-flash IBM DS8888, customer databases and data-intensive applications are accelerated resulting in improved business performance and customer satisfaction.

Clients around the world are adopting IBM Flash Storage.  For example, the Arizona State Land Department was seeking a solution that could speed access to data.

“The workloads our department manages include CAD files for land mapping, geographic information system (GIS) applications and satellite imagery for the over 9.2 million acres of State Trust lands we’re responsible to oversee. The data we manage is tied directly to our goal to make this information available and to increase its analytical capabilities,” said William Reed, chief technology officer at the Arizona State Land Department. “After exhaustive, comparative proof of concept testing we chose IBM’s FlashSystem, which has helped to increase our client productivity by 7 times while reducing our virtual machine boot times by over 85 percent.”

“American Postal Workers Union Health Plan continues to experience tremendous amounts of data growth within our medical claims department,” said Rich Myers, senior network director, American Postal Workers Union Health Plan. “We need a storage solution that easily scales, simplifies management and reporting, and lowers our costs per terabyte. IBM FlashSystem solves all these problems, and at the same time, increases the speed of our batch processing by 7 to 8 times from our previous solution removing all latency from the system.”

Representing more than 380 patents, IBM’s flash portfolio includes many breakthroughs in performance, flash durability, reliability, availability, and ease of use. In addition to cloud-enabled features, IBM flash solutions are also addressing the complexity of data management facing CSPs. IBM’s new Hyper-Scale Manager is a simplified user interface that streamlines data movement and can manage more than one hundred units from a single user interface. Developed in collaboration with clients and leveraging IBM Design Thinking, the Hyper-Scale Manager reduces mouse clicks by more than 50 percent and eliminates time wasted toggling between the user interface and corresponding files.

All-flash solutions announced today complement IBM’s existing all-flash portfolio includingFlashSystem 900 and V9000 that also leverage IBM’s FlashCore technology. IBM’s midrange all-flash solutions consist of all-flash versions of the industry acclaimed Storwize® family, which offers the performance needed for real-time insights from business data combined with advanced management functions. IBM’s Big Data all-flash solution delivers a high-density multi-petabyte scale, low-cost flash option ideal for industries such as media, genomics, and life sciences.