Well, it's Tuesday again, and you know what that means? IBM Announcements! There were lots of announcements today, so I have split this up into two posts. One for the Tape and Cloud announcements, and the other for the Spectrum Storage family.
- IBM TS7700 Virtual Tape System
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IBM TS7700 release 4.1.1 now supports seven- and eight-way grids with approved RPQs. Before this, grids could only have up to six TS7700 systems connected together.
IBM also plans to extend the capacity of the TS7760 base frame to over 600 TB, and to extend the capacity of a fully configured TS7760 system to over 2.45 PB, before compression, by supporting 8 TB disk drives. This is a huge increase over the 4TB and 6TB drives used today.
To learn more, see [TS7700 expands the grid to support up to 8 systems] press release.
- IBM Cloud Object Storage System
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IBM offers the IBM Cloud Object Storage System in three ways: as software, as pre-built systems, and as a cloud server on IBM Bluemix (formerly known as SoftLayer).
For those not familiar with IBM Cloud Object Storage (IBM COS), consider it "Valet Parking" for your storage. In a valet parking environment, you have valet parking attendants that drive the cars, parking garages that hold the cars, and a manager that oversees the operation. With IBM COS, you have Accesser® nodes that receive and retrieve your data like valet parking attendants, you have Slicestor® nodes that store your objects like cars in a parking garage, and you have IBM COS Manager to oversee the operation.
Today, IBM announced new HDD options for their S01, S03 and S03 models of Slicestor nodes. These are all 7200 rpm, 3.5-inch Nearline drives, at capacities of 4 TB, 6 TB, 8 TB and 10 TB.
In addition, a short-range 40 GbE SFP+ transceiver is available for ordering on IBM Cloud Object Storage Accesser models A00, A01, and A02, and IBM Cloud Object Storage Slicestor models S01 and S02. This improves the performance of data transfer between the Accesser nodes and the Slicestor nodes. Think of it like shortening the distance valet parking attendants have to drive your car to the garage and run back.
To learn more, see [IBM Cloud Object Storage System HDD features] press release.
- IBM Multi-Cloud Data Encryption V1.0
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I have been presenting Cloud Storage for nearly 10 years now. People are often shocked to learn that most of the major cloud providers -- including Amazon, Google, Microsoft -- do not offer "Data at Rest" encryption on their storage offerings.
Why not? Because it would mean investing in Self-Encrypting Drives, Key management software, and other related technology to make it happen. Instead, Cloud Service Providers (CSPs) expect you to encrypt the data in software. Most users encrypt data before it lands on the cloud, but what if you create the data in the cloud?
IBM solved this by offering IBM Cloud Object Storage in its IBM Cloud (formerly known as SoftLayer). It has integrated encryption software that takes care of this for you.
This new product, IBM Multi-Cloud Data Encryption V1.0, enables you to encrypt files, folders, and volumes in any cloud while maintaining local control of encryption keys. It integrates with IBM Security Key Lifecycle Manager (SKLM). This is designed to allow you to move cipher data between clouds that are running Multi-Cloud Data Encryption without decrypting and re-encrypting the data.
For example, you can use IBM Multi-Cloud Data Encryption to protect your data on Amazon, Google or Microsoft, then later realize that you can save a ton of money moving to IBM Cloud instead, and you are now able to move the data over seamlessly!
To learn more, see [IBM Multi-Cloud Data Encryption V1.0] press release.
Lots of good stuff. For details on the Spectrum Storage family, see my other post!