• Home
• Articles Archive
• Features List

• Media Pack
• Contact Us
• Subscribe

TURBOCHARGED IBM

From STORAGE Magazine Vol 6, Issue 8 - October 2006

How serious is IBM about storage? Very serious is clearly the answer, for it has announced one of the single largest expansions of its storage portfolio, with the introduction of new and faster systems, enhanced products across its product storage line and a new Enterprise Choice warranty service option for the IBM System Storage DS6000 series. Brian Wall reports

IBM is not a company to do things by halves. When it makes a statement of intent, everyone that counts is sure to hear it. And the message couldn't be more emphatic when it comes to the company's future thinking around the storage industry. It has recently unveiled its new and enhanced storage products, designed to provide customers with increased performance and management capabilities, infrastructure simplification and lower costs.

The new turbocharged array of solutions is impressive in itself, it must be said, but the subtext is equally powerful, for this is also a shot across the bows for competitors who might have been thinking that IBM is less than wholehearted about this market.

"The storage industry's broadest portfolio of products and solutions just got broader," says Andy Monshaw, general manager, IBM System Storage. "We're turbocharging our storage systems and accelerating our NetApp relationship to help customers manage their information on-demand needs. This announcement further demonstrates IBM's commitment to provide our clients with increased flexibility and increased choice that enables them to take control of their storage infrastructures."

The stir this has caused in the marketplace is audible, though few competitors would admit that openly to me. IBM itself has been less reticent about its intentions. When I spoke with Craig Butler, IBM disc, SAN & NAS manager, he was in no doubt about where the company goes from here, in storage terms. "Let's just say that there are certain industry segments in which we will be more compellingly involved."

The focus will undoubtedly be on sectors where there is a need for faster growing data to be archivable and accessible on demand. So the medical profession (particularly where imagery is concerned), banks and financial institutions are clearly some of the key areas where IBM will be deeply involved. "The oil and gas industries would also benefit from this," adds Butler. "They may tend to be more conservative, but they generate so much seismic data it would be a natural progression for them to move to these solutions."

ON A HIGH
At the high-end, IBM is introducing the new IBM System Storage DS8000 Turbo models, updating its flagship DS8000 series. The new models - the IBM System Storage DS8100 Turbo and DS8300 Turbo systems - are based on POWER5+ processors, and demonstrate a performance improvement of up to 15% for transaction processing workload environments, as compared to the previous IBM System Storage DS8000 storage system. The addition of 4Gbps Fibre Channel and FICON technology allows for the reduction of the number of network resources supporting simplified management and reduced infrastructure costs. With this offering, IBM is now the first vendor to deliver 4Gbps FICON support.

Additional features of the IBM System Storage DS8000 Turbo models include improved tiered storage options, functions to enable greater performance and efficiency for DB2 applications on IBM System p servers, and support for three-site business continuity solutions that reaches greater distances and requires less network bandwidth than competing systems.

IBM has also made enhancements to the IBM System Storage DS6000, which will now also support low-cost Fibre Channel ATA drives (FATA), tiered storage options and TPC for Replication. Meanwhile, the new IBM System Storage DS8000 Turbo models and enhancements for the DS6000 series have also become available in the last few weeks, while the server synergy features for the DS8000 Turbo will be available in November.

THE NETAPP EFFECT
IBM has also unveiled the next major step in its relationship with Network Appliance, with the introduction of high-end enterprise and gateway solutions. With the launch of the IBM System Storage N7000 family, IBM has introduced a complete line of unified storage products, based on NetApp technology, designed to provide end-to-end solutions for environments needing enterprise-class NAS, FC SAN, and iSCSI offerings, from the smallest of businesses to the largest data centres.

The N series models - comprising the IBM System Storage N7600 and N7800 - offer Fibre Channel and SATA disk drive support and provide simultaneous NAS, iSCSI and 4Gbps FC SAN (FCP) attachment. Additionally, they offer more than 35 advanced software features and are scalable up to 504 terabytes of physical capacity. The enterprise gateway models - IBM System Storage N7600 and N7800 Gateways - utilise the same technology as the enterprise appliance models and include an option of attachment to IBM, Hitachi and HP storage subsystems. These high-end enterprise solutions are designed to enable customers to consolidate large amounts of IP attached storage under one single point of management.

"The introduction of the N7000 products represents a significant milestone in NetApp's strategic relationship with IBM," said Tom Georgens, executive vice president and general manager, Enterprise, Storage Systems, Network Appliances. "The pairing of IBM's global reach and NetApp's leading-edge storage offerings has been a winning relationship for both companies, and in particular our customers."

According to Craig Butler, the relationship with NetApp has grown, matured and is now proving its worth. "We said we would buy in to their entire portfolio over time and these announcements complete that process. There is a great synergy there."

IBM recently expanded its DS4000 line of midrange storage servers with the introduction of the IBM System Storage DS4200 Express Model, a storage server, targeted at small and medium-sized businesses. It also added new features and functionality across its entire DS4000 family of products to increase capacity, speed and overall performance, "helping clients to create optimal tiered data storage strategies and offer robust data protection and duplication features", says the company. ST