IBM Updates System Storage DS8000 Series and Enterprise-Class N Series Systems

August 23rd, 2006: IBM is claiming one of the single largest expansions of its storage portfolio with the introduction of new and faster systems, enhanced products across its storage product line, and a new Enterprise Choice warranty service option for the IBM System Storage DS6000 series.

"The storage industry's broadest portfolio of products and solutions just got broader," said Andy Monshaw, general manager, IBM System Storage. "We're turbocharging our storage systems and accelerating our NetApp relationship to help customers manage their information on demand needs. Today's announcement further demonstrates IBM's commitment to provide our clients with increased flexibility and increased choice that enables them to take control of their storage infrastructures. The choice for customers is clear - more powerful and faster storage solutions from IBM, versus proprietary solutions from EMC."

At the high-end, IBM is introducing the new IBM System Storage DS8000 Turbo models, updating its flagship DS8000 series. The new models - the IBM System Storage DS8100 Turbo and DS8300 Turbo systems - are based on POWER5+ processors, and demonstrate a performance improvement of up to 15 percent for transaction processing workload environments, as compared to the previous IBM System Storage DS8000 storage system. The addition of 4Gbps Fibre Channel and FICON technology allows for the reduction of the number of network resources supporting simplified management and reduced infrastructure costs. With this offering, IBM is now the first vendor to deliver 4Gbps FICON support.

• Additional features of the IBM System Storage DS8000 Turbo models include improved tiered storage options, functions to enable greater performance and efficiency for DB2 applications on IBM System p servers, and support for three-site business continuity solutions that reaches greater distances and requires less network bandwidth than competing systems. Details include:
• Tiered Storage Options - The new Turbo models offer tiered storage options within a single system in order to align data with business value and simplify data management. The first tier, using Fibre Channel drives, can be used to store critical, frequently used data, whereas the second tier incorporates low cost Fibre Channel ATA drives (FATA) and is used to store less frequently used data. The second tier disk storage can support faster restores and provides the opportunity for lower costs by temporarily staging snapshots or backups.
• Three-Site Business Continuity/Disaster Recovery Solution - Three-site Business Continuity/Disaster Recovery solutions are designed to provide constant access to data and to support failover/failback modes for efficient resynchronization with quick updates in the event that any site experiences downtime. The DS8000 three-site solution from IBM utilizes IBM Metro Mirror to maintain synchronous copies of data up to 300 kilometers away. Additionally, IBM's Global Mirror function for asynchronous copy provides three- to five-second replication at virtually unlimited distances, compared to up to 30 seconds for competing systems.
• IBM Server Synergy Features - I/O priorities and Cooperative Caching enable the IBM System Storage DS8000 Turbo to work in conjunction with IBM AIX solutions and DB2 in order to improve efficiency and performance for high priority applications.
• IBM TotalStorage Productivity Center (TPC) for Replication - Is designed to provide a single point of control for Metro Mirror, Global Mirror and FlashCopy functions, as well as providing the ability to track and confirm the completion of replication operations to avoid costly mistakes. It also can help maintain data consistency with cross-device consistency groups. The software also works with IBM Enterprise Storage Server and IBM SAN Volume Controller (SVC) as a way of automating the replication functions of SVC.
• Improved Costs - The enhancements announced today are designed to enable clients to take control of their storage infrastructure and to tailor their investment to their unique business needs. The DS8000 Turbo line includes a 25% lower base system list price (USD) than the previous comparable systems. The lower base system price, new option for second- tier capacity, and functions to reduce and simplify management are all designed to help clients achieve a lower TCO.

"The IBM System Storage DS8000 Turbo's disaster recovery is a major improvement over the solution from Hitachi we were using previously," said Gilmar Teixeira, Storage Management, Tivit. "We replaced the HDS storage infrastructure with IBM System Storage DS8100 systems, which enables us to mirror 100 percent of the data between our primary and backup centers, allowing Tivit to comply with its strict service level agreements."

IBM today is also announcing enhancements to the IBM System Storage DS6000, which will now also support low cost Fibre Channel ATA drives (FATA), tiered storage options and TPC for Replication. Based on customer requests, the DS6000 Series will also come with one-standard warranty and the option for customers to take advantage of a new flexible Enterprise Choice option for warranty extensions, which allows customers to choose a 24X7 warranty for an additional one year to three years in one-year increments when ordered at the time of original purchase.

The new IBM System Storage DS8000 Turbo models and enhancements for the DS6000 series will both be available on September 9, 2006 with starting list prices of $213,400 for the DS8000 Turbo models and $102,600 for the enhanced DS6000. Additionally, the server synergy features for the DS8000 Turbo will be available on November 17, 2006, and available as an upgrade at no additional charge on systems purchased prior to November 17, 2006.

"The IBM DS8000 system has allowed us to simplify our infrastructure and become more cost efficient," said Bob Venable, enterprise systems manager at BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee. "We need to provide around-the-clock service to our customers. The DS8000 helps us to do this by decreasing our per-terabyte disk costs, increasing disk performance, protecting our data from unforeseen events and maintaining data availability."

Introduction of the IBM System Storage N7000 Series

IBM today is also announcing the next major step in its groundbreaking relationship with Network Appliance Inc. (NASDAQ: NTAP) with the introduction of high-end enterprise and gateway solutions. With today's launch of the new IBM System Storage N7000 family, IBM has introduced a complete line of unified storage products based on NetApp technology designed to provide end-to-end solutions for environments needing enterprise class NAS, FC SAN, and iSCSI offerings, from the smallest of businesses to the largest data centers.

The N series models, IBM System Storage N7600 and N7800, offer Fibre Channel and SATA disk drive support and provide simultaneous NAS, iSCSI and 4Gbps FC SAN (FCP) attachment. Additionally, they offer over 35 advanced software features and are scalable up to 504 terabytes of physical capacity. The enterprise gateway models, IBM System Storage N7600 and N7800 Gateways, utilize the same technology as the enterprise appliance models and include an option of attachment to IBM, Hitachi and HP storage subsystems. These high-end enterprise solutions are designed to enable customers to consolidate large amounts of IP attached storage under one single point of management.

Both the enterprise appliance and gateway solutions offer new software capabilities, in addition to the 35-plus software features already available across the entire N series. They include:

• FlexShare - Designed to help administrators to increase processing utilization without sacrificing the performance of critical business needs, as well as the control to prioritize applications based on how critical they are.
• MetroCluster - Designed to extend cluster failover capabilities from the primary to remote site and replicates data from the primary site for the remote site to help maintain currency and availability of data. MetroCluster also helps to rapidly resume operations at the remote site in the event of a disaster. Disaster recovery options are available for distances up to 100 kilometers.

"The introduction of the N7000 products represents a significant milestone in NetApp's strategic relationship with IBM," said Tom Georgens, executive vice president and general manager, Enterprise, Storage Systems, Network Appliances. "The pairing of IBM's global reach and NetApp's leading-edge storage offerings has been a winning relationship for both companies, and in particular our customers."

The N series enterprise appliance models will be available September 1, 2006 with a starting price of $140,500, and the N series enterprise gateway solutions will be available September 22, 2006 with a starting price of $113,500.

Enhancement of IBM's Compliance and Archiving Solutions

Designed for long-term data retention, including retention driven by regulation or corporate governance requirements, the IBM System Storage DR550 V3.0 and DR550 Express is designed to offer increased flexibility, capacity and price performance by including the IBM System Storage DS4700 storage controller and the EXP810 storage expansion as its disk storage subsystem. The DS4700 system uses 500 GB SATA drives and offers 4Gbps Fibre Channel technology.

Single server and express model configurations are currently available starting at a price of $21,000. Dual-server models will be available September 15, 2006 starting at a list price of $128,000.

Expansion of IBM System Storage DS4000 Series

Today's announcement completes a major expansion of IBM's storage line, which started earlier this month. IBM recently expanded its DS4000 line of midrange storage servers with the introduction of the IBM System Storage DS4200 Express Model, a powerful and affordable storage server that is ideal for small and medium-sized businesses. It also added new features and functionality across its entire DS4000 family of products to increase capacity, speed and overall performance, helping clients to create optimal tiered data storage strategies and offer robust data protection and duplication features.

The new IBM System Storage DS4200 Express will be available on August 25, 2006, starting at a list price of $11,474.

Comment on this story.