IBM Launches Flash Storage Solutions to Target New, Intelligent Apps in the Cloud

IBM announced an expansion of its flash storage portfolio to help clients more quickly extract value from data so it can be turned into a competitive advantage. IBM launched three new all-flash array products incorporating industry-leading performance – a minimum latency of 250μs (microsecond) -- to solve the challenge of accessing the massive amounts of data quickly for cloud-based applications and workloads.

Consumers today are demanding cloud-based applications that are fast, easy and intelligent. Sub-second response times are critical when data is retrieved from the cloud to deliver a unique, personalized and positive customer experience. IBM MicroLatency technology transfers data within the flash array via hardware instead of the added layer of software.

Also built into the solutions are features designed to solve cloud requirements such as quality-of-service (QoS) to prevent the impact "noisy neighbor" problems have on application performance, secure multi-tenancy, thresholding, and easy-to-deploy grid scale out.

“The drastic increase in volume, velocity and variety of information is requiring businesses to rethink their approach to addressing storage needs, and they need a solution that is as fast as it is easy, if they want to be ready for the Cognitive Era,” said Greg Lotko, general manager of IBM Storage and Software Defined Infrastructure. “IBM’s flash portfolio enables businesses on their cognitive journey to derive greater value from more data in more varieties, whether on premises or in a hybrid cloud deployment.”

"The workloads our department manages include CAD files for land mapping, geographic information system (GIS) applications and satellite imagery for the over 9.2 million acres of State Trust lands we’re responsible to oversee. The data we manage is tied directly to our goal to make this information available and to increase its analytical capabilities,” said William Reed, chief technology officer at the Arizona State Land Department. "After exhaustive, comparative proof of concept testing we chose IBM's FlashSystem, which has helped to increase our client productivity by 7 times while reducing our virtual machine boot times by over 85 percent."

"American Postal Workers Union Health Plan continues to experience tremendous amounts of data growth within our medical claims department,” said Rich Myers, senior network director, American Postal Workers Union Health Plan. “We need a storage solution that easily scales, simplifies management and reporting, and lowers our costs per terabyte. IBM FlashSystem solves all these problems, and at the same time, increases the speed of our batch processing by 7 to 8 times from our previous solution removing all latency from the system.”