File and Object Storage

From inside the IT industry and from far beyond it, we are constantly reminded that data is valuable – in fact, a company’s most valuable asset.¹ Business executives understand this; a recent survey found that 98% believe their company is losing revenue as a result of not effectively managing and leveraging information.²

But data is not like other traditional resources such as petroleum that is consumed once and then gone. The value of data assets usually increases, often enormously, depending on what you do with them. The world has certainly become data driven.

One way to increase the value of data is to accelerate the productivity and efficiency of the applications that consume data. Therefore, the adoption rates for flash storage systems, such as the new IBM FlashSystem 9100, are skyrocketing.³ Engineered to use the Non-Volatile Memory Express (NVMe) protocol and based on IBM FlashCore technology, IBM FlashSystem 9100 storage systems are among the fastest on the planet. ⁴

But accelerating the productivity of business-critical applications is not the only way that enterprises can gain more value from their information. Unlike some other resources, data can be used – and reused. You may not think of it this way, but copies made for data protection and disaster recovery (DR) purposes are forms of data reuse. Of course, existing data sets generated by business applications are reused for testing and validation purposes by development teams fixing bugs and building new applications. And mining data assets for business insight has become so valuable that nine out of 10 executives consider the ability to garner insight from data vital to their company’s very future.²

The FlashCore technology foundation of NVMe-optimized IBM FlashSystem 9100 arrays is deeply integrated with a suite of market-leading IBM Spectrum Storage software-defined and modern data protection solutions that provide a wide range of enterprise data services and multi-cloud capabilities. To enhance the functionality and value that IBM FlashSystem 9100 deployments can provide enterprises of all types and sizes, IBM offers multiple validated solution packages that can easily be added to the baseline FlashSystem configurations. One of these – the Data Reuse, Protection, and Efficiency solution – is designed specifically to help facilitate data reuse and help data-driven organizations unlock the added value potential of their information resources.

“IBM continues to execute well its storage strategy with a combination of systems innovation and best in class enterprise data services,” says Rajnish Arora, Vice President – IDC Asia/Pacific Enterprise Computing. “FlashSystem 9100 is an extremely compelling offering, delivering NVMe array packaged with compression and dedupe capabilities to address the most demanding AI/cognitive driven workloads in the digital economy.”

The Data Reuse, Protection, and Efficiency solution for IBM FlashSystem 9100 is designed to help increase storage efficiency while simplifying data reuse processes. It multiplies data protection options and capabilities, both on-premises and out into the cloud. Most importantly, leveraging the power of IBM Spectrum Virtualize and the performance of NVMe-optimized flash, the solution can help you increase the value and productivity derived from your data assets.



The solution adds IBM Spectrum Copy Data Management (CDM) and IBM Spectrum Protect Plus to IBM FlashSystem 9100 implementations. These components provide powerful data reuse, modern data protection, operational efficiency, and multi-cloud functionality. IBM Spectrum CDM positions you to improve overall data economics by creating the most efficient DevOps environments possible. It provides leading-edge features that simplify copy management using template driven API’s that accelerate business agility, while enabling developer self-service and facilitating data reuse.

"Easily and efficiently reusing existing data sets – for everything from disaster recovery to business analytics – is one of the greatest IT challenges for our customers,” notes Hiren Mehta, Director from IBM Platinum Business Partner Unified Data Tech Solutions Pvt Ltd. India. “The new IBM FlashSystem 9100 storage solutions with NVMe and available Spectrum CDM and Protect Plus can transform the data reuse challenge into an advantage – for our customers and for us as solution providers. Engineering advances such as this are why we remain a committed IBM partner."

The IBM Spectrum Protect Plus component of the Data Reuse, Protection, and Efficiency solution provides simplified, very agile virtual machine protection for both VMware and Hyper-V environments. It also supports disaster recovery and data copy use cases. Unlike other backup applications, Spectrum Protect Plus allows copies to be mounted, searched, and recovered in place without requiring a restore first.

The Data Reuse, Protection, and Efficiency solution for IBM FlashSystem 9100 is designed to help protect and reuse data for maximum business advantage while minimizing storage requirements. With it, you can:

• Back up data in virtual or physical environments using multi-cloud capabilities
• Reuse backup and other data copies for DevOps, analytics, reporting, and disaster recovery, among many other use cases – use the data in place without a restore
• Orchestrate copies to maximize snapshot use and provide data protection in containerized environments
• Lower risks and simplify implementations through the validated solution deployment blueprint.

The Data Reuse, Protection, and Efficiency solution for IBM FlashSystem 9100 brings together the speed and efficiency of NVMe-optimized flash storage with a suite of market-leading software-defined components designed to simplify and facilitate data reuse and protection in traditional, virtual, and containerized environments in your data center and across multiple private and public clouds.

To learn more about the today’s announcements, please read the Core of the Data-driven Multi-Cloud Enterprise blog. Watch our on-demand announcement webcast.



¹ The Economist: The world’s most valuable resource is no longer oil, but data, May 2017
https://www.economist.com/leaders/2017/05/06/the-worlds-most-valuable-resource-is-no-longer-oil-but-data

² WSJ Custom Studios: Data Mastery: The Global Driver of Revenue, 2015 (http://www.oracle.com/us/dm/global-executive-study-2618506.pdf?elqTrackId=29943fd7ddd146759a61e4ad0bf85a87&elqaid=35311&elqat=2)

³ Enterprise Strategy Group: ESG Master Survey Results, 2017 General Storage Trends, November 2017 https://research.esg-global.com/reportaction/msr2017GeneralStorageTrends/Marketing

⁴ Silverton Consulting StorInt Briefing: IBM FlashSystem 9100 Storage Family, June 2018
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