Big Blue continues to churn out new storage products amidst increasing competition for both enterprise and small business customers.IBM on Oct. 30 announced it is adding six new machines to its enterprise tape storage portfolio and is enhancing some optional features for its enterprise line of disk arrays—including the introduction of a new flexible-choice warranty option.
The new products and services, announced on the eve of Storage Networking World in Orlando, Fla., augment Big Blues already broad portfolio of tape and disk storage products.
IBM, based in Armonk, N.Y., introduced six new versions of its System Storage 3599 Tape Media, the first tape media to feature 700GB in physical capacity.
The 3599 Tape Media models, designed for applications such as backup and restore, archiving and those requiring security or an audit trail, include WORM format and are supported by the encryption capability in the IBM System Storage TS1120 Model E05 Tape Drive.
They may be integrated into the TS3500 Tape Library, the 3494 Tape Library, the Silo Compatible Tape Drive Frame 3592 Model C20 and into stand-alone environments, an IBM spokesperson said.
"Here is the net on the tape news: IBM now offers several different 3599 tape media sizes," Dianne McAdam, director of enterprise information assurance with The Clipper Group in Wellesley, Mass., told eWEEK.
"The new 700GB cartridge is an example of IBM continuing to deliver larger capacities on each cartridge [usually, the larger the cartridge, the lower the cost per GB for storage]. So larger tape capacities drive down the cost of storing data on tape."
The IBM HyperPAV feature for the IBM System Storage DS8000 server is designed to help clients reduce overall administrative workloads.
The HyperPAV is an on-demand, automated allocation of aliases for z/OS mainframe environments. PAV (Parallel Access Volumes) represents a significant performance improvement by the storage unit over traditional I/O processing.
HyperPAV aims to provide a more efficient PAV function and to help users who implement larger volumes to scale I/O rates.
The IBM System Storage DS8000 will now be available with a new flexible Enterprise Choice option for warranty extensions, which allows clients to choose 24/7 warranty options in one-year increments from one year to four years.
The System Storage DS8000 was previously available only with a four-year warranty. The new Enterprise Choice warranty plans provide users with increased pricing flexibility. All options include support for hardware, software, parts and labor.
IBM reveals virtual tape backup for mainframes. Click here to read more.
In addition to the HyperPAV feature and the new Enterprise Choice warranty option for the IBM System Storage DS8000 product line, the DS8300 Turbo four-way box model will now include an option for greater scalability by expanding capacity with 60 percent more drives.
With support for third and fourth expansion frames, a single DS8300 system will allow for up to 512TB of physical capacity.
"Here is the net for the disk news: IBM is offering more flexibility with its warranty pricing," McAdam said. "Some users want a one-year warranty, others may want to buy a four-year warranty up front. IBM is making it easier for users to pick and choose which warranty options best suits their needs."
The HyperPAV feature is a feature that can be used by mainframe (z/OS) users only, McAdam said.
"HyperPAV is an extension of PAV-PAV support is available for users running VM or Linux on a mainframe," McAdam said.
"Basically, PAV support eliminates the bottlenecks when two different operating systems share one volume. HyperPAV is a performance improvement for z/OS users."
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