Today, I want to look at a recent announcement around IBM Cloud Object Storage. On May 14th, IBM announced the [IBM Cloud Object Storage Gen2] hardware offerings, with a planned General Availability of June 7th so the timing is perfect to look at them. This announcement has benefits around performance, capacity and cost for the platform.
This enhancement to the platform takes the best of the current Cloud Object Storage architecture and extends it to allow for newer technologies, components, and approaches. These modifications incorporate new features, functionalities, and capabilities in an easily manageable manner. The same Cloud Object Storage software runs the same on both existing and new generation hardware. Clients can intermix past and present generations of hardware in the same storage pool and cluster.
As a part of this announcement, the IBM Cloud Object Storage Gen2 hardware brings with it a new COS Manager (Model M10), a new Accessor node (model A10) and a new SliceStor Controller Node (Model C10) which are all provided using the same physical 1U server that can be configured to suit as fit for purpose.
The Gen2 hardware leverages the latest Intel Xeon processors, new SAS controllers, and more options around high speed memory RDIMMs. Interestingly, provides the ability to implement an architecture that has a higher capacity in fewer rack units (RUs).
Previously, the SliceStor node was a single server with both controller and internal storage capacity. Now, a SliceStor is a new controller node, with externally-attached disk enclosures. This new approach is more elegant, in that the new server node becomes a common building block and now there are options around the disk enclosure. The disk enclosure options, small, medium and large, are listed in the table below to highlights the differences in capacity, density and drive options.
| Disk enclosures (models J10, J11, and J12 |
|---|
| Size | Small | Medium | Large |
|---|
| Controller | 1U | 1U | 1U |
|---|
| Capacity enclosures (rack space/disks) | 2U/12 | 4U/53 | 4U/106 |
|---|
| Slicestore Total Rack Space (Controller + Capacity Rack) | 3U | 5U | 5U |
|---|
| Drive sizes (TB) | 4, 8, 12 | 4, 8, 12 | 4, 8, 12 |
|---|
| Node raw capacity (min/max TB) | 48/144 | 212/636 | 424/1270 |
|---|
The combination of the new architecture with industry standard components results in an initial system that achieves up to 15% more GETs and PUTs per second as the previous generation of hardware.
The new Cloud Object Storage Gen2 hardware can also reduce CAPEX expenditures on new hardware models up to 25%-50% compared to the prior generation.
For more information on that see your IBM Business Partner or IBM Specialist.
You can find more information on [IBM Cloud Object Storage]here.