IBM Storage Community

IBM PureFlex Joins IBM® Flex System™ V7000 Storage Node to Drive Hybrid Efficiency and Cost Savings

Mary Hall — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 20:53:17 GMT

The new IBM Flex System V7000 Storage Node for IBM PureSystems™, an example of what hybrid computing is about.Both IBM PureSystems and IBM Flex System V7000 address similar complaints about the time and effort it takes to deploy systems and storage, to make changes, and to manage them over time. Both tap built-in expertise to enable the system to take over the initial setup as well as the ongoing management. The IT staff provides a few key parameters, mainly by filling in templates, and the Flex System Manager takes over from there.

This saves the organization time and money. Read this executive brief by Alan Radding to learn more.

Data Protection – Re-Imagined, Inclusive and Business-Savvy

Stacey Tabor — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 17:58:11 GMT

Abstract: Dependency of business on automated systems to support their critical processes has never been greater than it is today. Even a short term interruption in access to data required by applications and decision-makers can have disastrous consequences. This situation underscores the requirement to develop, implement and maintain a comprehensive data protection strategy. Such a strategy must be guided by the recovery requirements and timeframes of business processes themselves, must be inclusive of the many tools and techniques available, and must apply appropriate protective services to data in a business-savvy way.

This paper is a perspective by

Jon Toigo

CEO, Toigo Partners International

Chairman, Data Management Institute

24 January 2013

www.drunkendata.com

Competitive Management Cost Study: IBM Storwize V7000 vs. EMC VNX5500 Storage Systems

Stacey Tabor — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 20:01:27 GMT

With data volumes growing exponentially, storage-related expenses are also on the rise. Organizations therefore, are constantly seeking more effective ways to tame spending. Read the white paper and explore a comprehensive analysis of two prominent systems - EMC VNX5500 and IBM Storwize V7000. See how the latter excels by providing a scalable, unified storage platform that:

consumes 34 percent less administrative time;
delivers approximate savings of more than $25,000 per year;
offers 31 percent less management complexity.

Executive Brief: How Midsize Organizations Build Value and Win in a Global Economy

Stacey Tabor — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 15:35:29 GMT

Data increasingly is recognized as a business' most valuable asset, a key to winning in the global economy. But it is a challenging asset. Especially for midsize organizations, the storage options have been limited. Low cost, entry level storage offers only rudimentary functionality. Sophisticated functionality can be complicated. Storage often is cumbersome to provision and use, advances made in intuitive interfaces and intelligent management haven't yet filtered down to entry level storage. Midsize organizations are left left to piece together what they can or opt for storage appliances with limited flexibility.

This piece explores IBM's new Storage options to help mid-size businesses meet their IT Storage needs, including the Storwize V3700.

Executive Briefing: How Midsize Organizations Build Value and Win in a Global Economy

Stacey Tabor — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 15:32:38 GMT

Executive Briefing: Independent Assessment of the Smarter Storage Solution for Midsize Organizations-Storwize V3700 by Alan Radding. Alan Radding is an independent business and IT analyst/writer for over 20 years

IBM's Smarter Storage

Stacey Tabor — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 16:56:20 GMT

In this whitepaper, you will learn the ESG analysis and opinion of Smarter Storage written by analyst Mark Peters.

IBM Interview About Linear Tape File System (LTFS) Part 2

Stacey Tabor — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 16:26:38 GMT

Jon Toigo of DrunkenData.com continues to discuss Linear Tape File System (LTFS) with IBM executives at the IBM Edge event 2012.

IBM Interview About Linear Tape File System (LTFS) Part 1

Stacey Tabor — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 16:20:52 GMT

Interview with IBM about Linear Tape File System LTFS by Jon Toigo, Drunkendata.com.

Jon discusses LTFS with IBM executives and the benefits of giving tape technology another look as an active tape medium.

IBM Edge 2012 Video: Linear Tape File System discussion with Jon Toigo

Stacey Tabor — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 21:40:42 GMT

Discussion and announcements around LTFS, Linear Tape File System are discussed in this video taken at IBM Edge 2012 by Jon Toigo, CEO and Managing Principal Toigo Partners International, LLC

Canucks Sports & Entertainment wins at the storage expansion game

Mary Hall — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 20:01:24 GMT

Read this IBM case study to learn how Canucks Sports & Entertainment needed to expand their storage capacity to support a steady increase in media content while allowing plenty of room for future growth and their use of IBM storage solutions.

The Canucks organization deployed the IBM Storwize® V7000 storage system
with integrated IBM System Storage® Easy Tier® technology.

The IBM Storwize V7000 solution enabled the Canucks organization to implement scalable, cost-effective storage that quadrupled their storage capacity and reduced their backup
time by 50 percent.

The Future of Datacenter Management

Mary Hall — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 15:38:08 GMT

The Future of Datacenter Management by Ptak & Noel Analysts
Sponsored by IBM
Smarter Computing led to an upheaval in the business of Information Technology. IT could no longer function as a back-room operation solely bound to infrastructure, focusing on process automation to control costs and using mostly structured data. Traditional operating processes and workflow schedules had to be upended and transformed. This white paper discusses newly architected hardware and software systems that provides more intelligent, powerful and flexible computing.

Full listing of over 250 Technical Sessions from IBM Edge

Mary Hall — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 15:43:53 GMT

This is the full listing of 250 Technical Sessions or IBM Technical Edge. From this list, take a look at 25 hot topics listed on the agenda.

Backup and Recovery

    - Data Protection in a Virtual World (Oren Wolf)
- - VMware Backup Options with Tivoli Storage Manager (Eric Stouffer)
- - Compliance Storage: Understanding Options for Storing Archive Data (Tony Pearson)

Business Continuity

    - Fundamentals of Business-savvy Business Continuity Planning (Jon Toigo)
   - Testing the Recovery Capability in the 21st Century (Jon Toigo)
- - Tiers of Disaster Recover and IBM Storage (Vic Peltz)

Security and Compliance
-- Using Encryption to Satisfy and Simplify Compliance Objectives (Jack G. Arnold)
-- Encryption and Key Management in the Cloud: The Top 6 Concerns to Ensure a Secure and Reliable Solution (Jack G. Arnold)

Big Data and Analytics

- To Infinity and Beyond - 2012 Internet Scale, Big Data & Modern Analytics (John Sing)
- IBM Watson: How it Works & What it Means for Society Beyond Winning Jeopardy! (Tony Pearson)
-- Fantasy Analytics (Jeff Jonas)

Storage Networking
- Data Center Convergence (Jeffery S Currier)

Whitepaper : Six Hot Storage Technologies for 2012

Mary Hall — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 17:37:28 GMT

In this easy to read whitepaper, Jon Toigo, CEO and Managing Principal of Toigo Partners, discusses six cutting-edge storage technologies that are ready for prime time and can help transform your data center. No one has a crystal ball when it comes to Storage, but Mr. Toigo offers educated insights based on data and research to help you understand the hot technologies driving storage efficiency today.

Video: Jeff Jonas Interview Part 1: Big Data Challenges

Mary Hall — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 20:50:50 GMT

ClickFox CEO Marco Pacelli interviews Jeff Jonas about Big Data and the challenges to enterprises.

Podcast: Reduce Storage Power Consumption via Higher IOPS and Capacity per Watt

Mary Hall — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 16:43:44 GMT

Reduce Storage Power Consumption via Higher IOPS and Capacity per Watt
In this expert podcast, Greg Schulz, founder and senior analyst at StorageIO Group, advises IT shops to put in faster disk drives and boost IOPS per watt of energy in their high-transaction, performance-intensive environments. He also recommends storing more capacity per watt in storage environments loaded down with inactive data.

Listen to this podcast to get tips for saving energy and costs, to start off the New Year!

Expect More Tour Video

Mary Hall — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 22:32:52 GMT

On November 9, 2011, IBM along with co-sponsor Intel presented the 'Expect More' Online Event." This exclusive event featured a live broadcast presented in high definition. Review this video to see the event including:

Special announcements from Jeff Barber, Director, IBM Storage, and Randy Arseneau, IBM Storage Platform Strategy Leader
Conquering storage challenges with savings that go right to the bottom line Perspectives from Randy Kerns, senior strategist, Evaluator Group, and David Tuhy, General Manager, Intel Storage Group

Presentations from the IBM Intel Expect More Tour

Mary Hall — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 16:22:07 GMT

On November 9, 2011, IBM along with co-sponsor Intel presented the 'Expect More' Online Event." This exclusive event featured a live broadcast presented in high definition. Review these slides to see the following content presentations from the live event.

Special announcements from Jeff Barber, Director, IBM Storage, and Randy Arseneau, IBM Storage Platform Strategy Leader
Conquering storage challenges with savings that go right to the bottom line Perspectives from Randy Kerns, senior strategist, Evaluator Group, and David Tuhy, General Manager, Intel Storage Group

Data Protection and Retention: "Expect More" Event Literature:

Stacey Tabor — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 18:21:31 GMT

IBM best practices for improving backup, archive and continuous data availability

Highlights
●Provide faster, more frequent backups and restores

●Make archive data easier to find while lowering total costs

●Ensure continuous data availability for critical business systems

UPMC pairs IBMProtecTIER and IBMXIV solutions: "Expect More" Event Literature

Stacey Tabor — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 18:19:37 GMT

Overview
The need UPMC harnesses the power of IT to deliver healthcare innovation. Facing exponential data growth, the organization needed a smarter storage solution to meet stringent backup and recovery requirements.

The solution

UPMC worked with IBM to implement a comprehensive storage and backup solution that pairs IBM System Storage® TS7650G ProtecTIER® Deduplication Gateways with the IBM XIV® Storage System.

The benefit

The IBM solution enables a 24:1 deduplication ratio for Oracle, cuts back-upt times by 20 percent while drasticallyr educing the need for traditional tape,and reduces recovery times by more than 50 percent.

Benefit Case for IBM XIV Systems: "Expect More" Event Literature

Stacey Tabor — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 18:11:50 GMT

Overview
IBM XIV Storage Systems and EMC Symmetrix VMAX systems are, to a large extent,
contemporaries. Although the first XIV systems were introduced in 2005 by an Israeli start-up, it was only after the company was acquired by IBM and the product line relaunched in 2008 that it gained serious market traction.

VMAX was introduced in April 2009 as the flagship EMC high-end disk system. It plays a
central role in the company’s Fully Automated Storage Tiering (FAST) architecture, which
automates the allocation and relocation of data across flash memory (solid state) and conventional hard disk drives (HDDs) based on application performance requirements.

Over the last two years, the appeal of these platforms has been significantly different. VMAX
systems have been employed primarily in high-end “Tier 1” roles. XIV systems have been
deployed by a broader range of organizations for Tier 1, 2 and/or 3 applications. For many users,
XIV has offered a “single-tier” solution for varying performance and capacity requirements.
XIV appeal has also been driven by costs that are significantly lower than for VMAX systems.
The XIV platform is built around comparatively inexpensive “commodity” components, software is offered in a single integrated package, and IBM pricing has been aggressive. Storage administration and energy costs have also proved to be less.

During 2011, both platforms have undergone major enhancements. FAST capabilities announced in 2009 have been delivered for VMAX. New IBM XIV Storage System Gen3 models incorporate serial attached SCSI (SAS) HDDs, increased cache and InfiniBand system internal connectivity. I/O and other hardware components have also been upgraded.
Early indications are that, after the latest EMC and IBM moves, XIV systems retain their cost
edge. In six representative installations, three-year costs for use of current XIV systems average 69 percent less than for VMAX equivalents.

IBM System Storage Product Guide: "Expect More" Event Literature

Stacey Tabor — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 18:09:35 GMT

IBM core technologies to drive your information infrastructure

IBM solutions are optimized for the unique needs of midsize organizations, large enterprises, cloud computing providers, and others. Clients can get just what they need, saving time and money. A key benefit of selecting IBM for your next information infrastructure project is access to a broad portfolio
of outstanding products and services. IBM offers highly rated, patented technology that delivers unique value.

Small/Medium Enterprises Can Build Efficient Storage Environments: "Expect More" Event Literature

Stacey Tabor — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 18:06:26 GMT

Introduction:

Two years ago Clabby Analytics wrote a storage buying criteria Advisory entitled ―Storage Buying Criteria for Small/Medium Enterprises. In that Advisory, we suggested that small/mid-sized enterprises (100-1000 employees) base their storage hardware acquisitions on:

Product features/functionality;

Cost;
Reliability;
Service; and,
Support.

But today, due to several advancements in storage technology, we need to expand this list. Storage vendors are still competing in the areas of feature/function, cost, reliability, service and support — but now they are also competing in the areas of virtualization, tiering, replication, compression, deduplication, scalability, cloud delivery, centralized management. As a result, the list of criteria to be considered when buying storage needs to be expanded. Read this paper to learn more.

"Expect More" Event Literature: The hot new storage technology for 2011 is...tape?

Stacey Tabor — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 18:04:16 GMT

For more than a decade vendors with only disk-based storage systems
have been trying to convince IT buyers that tape-based storage is
obsolete. Despite the marketing efforts of disk-only vendors, tape
continues to play a vital role in most data centers and Data Mobility
Group believes tape will become even more important in the years
ahead. Read this paper to learn why.

Data Protection and Retention: "Expect More" Event Literature

Stacey Tabor — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 18:01:21 GMT