IBM Storage: New Data Resiliency Features with FlashSystem

By Denis Kennelly, GM, IBM Storage, IBM Corp.

Our journey in IBM Storage‘s strategic transformation is an ongoing process, and at the heart of it is our commitment to tackling the most crucial data-related challenges faced by companies large and small as they further modernize and secure their businesses. Today, we have some updates to share as we continue to focus on bringing innovation to our IBM Storage for Data Resiliency portfolio.

IBM Storage is committed to giving clients access to our most comprehensive data services to store, safeguard, manage, govern, mobilize and integrate applications and data from edge-to-core-to-clouds. Clients already benefit from 30% more capacity in a single rack unit vs. previous generations. ^[1] We also project that over 90% of FTE time will be freed to work on other value-added tasks by reducing the effort needed to manage the storage environment. ^[2] With today’s news, there is more value in store.

FlashSystem 5000

Inline data corruption detection with AI and ML
FlashSystem, a key component of our Storage for Data Resiliency portfolio, handles some of the most challenging application and data workloads our clients have and is engineered to deliver fast response and recovery operations from data breaches and cyber-attacks – ransomware or state-sponsored. It is designed to offer verified and validated recovery times from data corruption events within hours.

We continue innovating in this space by introducing a new feature: inline corruption detection that uses AI and ML services to detect data changes that can be indicative of threats or direct attacks on your data sets in near real-time. In the second half of the year, we will extend these capabilities down to our patented computational storage flash drives – FlashCore Modules – to bring detection as close to the data as possible, further reducing time to detection. This will help your staff to act quickly and decisively, and continue to deliver business outcomes while your team mitigates and recovers from a threat efficiently.

FlashSystem 9500

Standard configurations and optimized pricing
The company is also introducing standard FlashSystem configurations that are modeled against the most prevalent workloads that our clients need. FlashSystem is designed with consistency, simplifying your storage configuration to 3 choices: storage controller performance/capacity, number of drives, and size of each drive. Each system runs the same OS, eliminating any footnotes on what features are available on which configuration. These configurations help small- and medium-sized clients serviced by ecosystem partners, in particular, to reduce the time spent configuring a system and can help accelerate IT schedules and initiatives based on a storage array with defined performance and capacity envelope.

We also announce that we are offering a reduction of the FlashSystem 5xxx and 7xxx list prices by 15% globally through June 30, 2023. Our new standard configurations allow us to identify and pass on cost savings to our clients. Clients can now address the performance and scale requirements for their critical workloads.

Innovation and value for clients
In these challenging and uncertain socio-economic times, any consistency in business operations is important. We are very happy to pass savings on to our clients through our new standard configurations. We’re also thrilled to continue delivering new Data Resiliency innovations, today and in the future.

To find out more and take advantage of the FlashSystem savings, reach out to your IBM Ecosystem Buiness Partner and/or see here.

Statements regarding IBM’s future direction and intent are subject to change or withdrawal without notice and represent goals and objectives only.

^[1] Based on IBM internal measurements of enhanced effective capacity of FlashCore Module Generation 3 38.4TB drives over the effective capacity of the FlashCore Module Generation 2 38.4TB drives.
^[2] The Total Economic Impact of IBM FlashSystem, Forrester Consulting Commissioned by IBM, February 2022