Low latency workloads prescribe the need to optimize the process for very high volume of data messages with minimal delay (latency) supporting operations that require near real-time access to rapidly changing data.

To demonstrate the value that clients put on latency, in 2007 a large global investment bank has stated that every millisecond lost results in $100m per year in lost opportunity[1]. Traders and hedge funds care about latency could gain an advantage in the stock market imposing a “tax” on other investors, costing as much as $5 billion per year across global exchanges[2]. To these traditional low latency markets, now we must include Multi Player games, Autonomous Vehicles, Internet of Things (IoT) devices, health care monitors, and factory robots which all require very low latency. 

As announced, IBM Tape Storage brings to the market an All Flash virtual tape library for those not only interested in disaster recovery, but on supporting high performance workloads. The TS7700 All Flash model provides better performance with 1 flash drawer performing with the same performance or better than 10 drawers with SAS HDDs[3]. This improvement is critical to customer workloads looking for low I/O latency and shorter response times.


TS7700 offers an option to add up to two SSD expansion cache drawer for a total capacity of 120 TB or 600 TB compressed with 5:1 compression. Capacity is flexible as well, starting with as little as 20 tb flash usable capacity and expandable to 120 TB with Capacity on Demand. This is an introduction model, as with all Storage solutions, it is expected to grow its capacity in the near future.

TS7770 All Flash model is offered in an IBM F07 rack and rack-less, or in a 19’inch client- supplied rack. This allows the datacenter to experience floorspace reductions, as 20U of HDD based capacity drawers can be replaced by one single 2U SSD cache drawer. Note that the All Flash model protects previous investment on virtual tapes as it is fully integrated to the grid. This model is also supporting Mainframe Storage co-location on a 19inch client-supplied rack where a production data storage and networking can be sharing space on the same data center tile.

The SSD drives help deliver a significant increase in system enhancements over previous models, resulting on improved host efficiency to help reduce batch processing time even more than previous generations, strengthens business continuity and availability, eases data agility and management through operational enhancements, and helps with cyber resiliency and regulatory compliance. In addition, total cost of ownership and management overhead are improved while accelerating IBM Z transactional processing.

Learn more about the IBM TS7770 Virtual tape library with its grid resiliency and integration to hybrid cloud to support your disaster recovery and archive strategy for high performance workloads.

[1] "Wall Street's Quest To Process Data At The Speed Of Light". Information Week. April 20, 2007.

[2] Quantifying the High-Frequency Trading “Arms Race”: A Simple New Methodology and Estimates. Financial Conduct Authority, Occasional Paper , January 2020  

[3] Comparison with previous TS7770 system with various standalone and 5.35:1 compression workloads. Performance tested on VED 5.1 CSB/10 DRs vs VED 5.2 CFC/1 DRs for (12EH8)/8x16Gb/2x10Gb configurations.