IBM’s Flash Storage Play: Inside Big Blue’s Move

IBM’s Flash Storage Play: Inside Big Blue’s Move

by Darryl K. Taft

IBM Launches Flash Systems

At an event in New York City, IBM launched new FlashSystem appliances and announced plans to invest heavily in boosting the use of flash technology.

IBM’s Ed Walsh Sets the Tone

Ed Walsh, IBM’s vice president of storage systems marketing and strategy, welcomes attendees and sets the agenda for the FlashSystem event at IBM’s New York City offices at 590 Madison Ave.

Steve Mills Makes Big Blue’s Case

Steve Mills, IBM’s senior vice president and group executive for software and systems, discusses why the company has taken a big bet on flash technology and introduces its new FlashSystem appliances.

All-Flash Is About Economics

IBM says greater use of flash technology improves performance, reduces cost and enables new opportunities.

The Time for Flash Has Come

Over the last 10 years, CPU performance, and DRAM, network and bus speed have all grown significantly, while disk storage speed has hardly improved at all. Enter flash.

The New Tipping Point in Systems

IBM says flash represents a new tipping point in systems, given the performance gains the technology can deliver.

Flash Saves Money and a Whole Lot More

Flash leads to lower software license costs, higher storage utilization, fewer servers, lower environmental costs, and lower operational and support costs.

An Example of the Economics of Flash

In a real-world example, IBM shows how flash technology cuts costs at a wholesale provider.

Use Cases for IBM Flash Storage

IBM says potential use cases for its flash technology include online transaction processing (OLTP) databases, computational apps, high-performance computing (HPC), cloud-scale infrastructures, virtual infrastructures and analytical apps.

Flash Provides Durability

IBM said flash technology provides best-in-class durability with longer life.

Introducing the IBM FlashSystem Storage Appliance Line

IBM’s new FlashSystem storage appliance line supports 22 million input/output operations per second (IOPS).

IBM Demos the New FlashSystem

IBM demonstrated its new FlashSystem storage appliance running with IBM Power 780 system and IBM DB2 v10.5.

IBM FlashSystem Solutions

Here are details on the IBM FlashSystem 820 and the SAN Volume Controller with FlashSystem 820.

Flash Centers of Competency

IBM will open 12 flash Centers of Competency around the world for customers to do proof-of-concepts and more.

IBM Customers Speak on Flash

IBM customers Thomson Reuters, Kroger, ViON and Sprint talk about their experiences with flash storage.

The Customer Panel

From left to right, the panel of IBM flash storage customers are Bob Bruce, vice president of ViON; Rick Mattingly, director of IT infrastructure projects at Kroger; Al Candela, head of technology and service at Thomson Reuters; and Karim Abdullah, director of IT operations at Sprint.

Moderating the Panel

Dave Vellante, co-founder of Wikibon, moderated the IBM customer panel.

The IBM FlashSystem 820

Take a look under the cover of a FlashSystem 820 storage appliance.