IBM Launches Stockpile Of Storage Products, Services

IBM on Monday introduced a slew of storage infrastructure products and services, some of which leverage recently acquired technology to ease the data glut faced by many corporations.

Among the highlights of the more than 30 storage-related announcements IBM made was a new disk system developed by XIV, which IBM acquired in January. The XIV system employs 15 CPUs and up to 180 SATA II, 1 terabyte disks with speeds of 7,200 revolutions per minute.

Other hardware features include 168 Gbps internal switching capacity, 120 GB cache memory and 240 Gbps cache to disk bandwidth. In addition, the system has 24 Firber Channel ports offering 4 Gbps, 2 Gbps, and 1 Gbps multi-mode and single-mode support, and six iSCSI ports offering Gigabit Ethernet connectivity.

XIV was a grid-storage specialist. It's chairman was Moshe Yanai, the primary designer of EMC's Symmetrix array.

IBM also introduced the DS5000 system to fit mid-range data center requirements. The 4U packaging is designed for a 19-inch rack and contains 4 Gbps FC drive interfaces that support up to 256 FC/SATA drives. The system is designed for up to 32 GB of dedicated data cache and supports the most common operating systems, including Microsoft Windows, Unix, and Linux.

To help companies consolidate data to reduce the need for more hardware, IBM unveiled data de-duplication software and hardware from the Diligent Technologies, which IBM acquired in April. IBM claims the ProtecTier offering can reduce redundant data by a factor of up to 25:1.

Data centers waste storage space by holding multiple copies of e-mail in servers and duplicate copies of the same file in archive media. Technology from Diligent and competitors like FalconStor provides single-instance storage where a single copy of a message or file is held. Diligent software is integrated with server and storage infrastructures to prevent de-duplication.

Other products introduced by IBM included the System Storage DR550, which is designed for retaining inactive business data in a cost-effective, secure repository to meet regulatory and non-regulatory data retention requirements, IBM said.

The system scales up to 224 terabytes with disk and petabytes with attached tape. The DR550 also offers policy- and event-based data management to protect against intentional or accidental deletions or modifications.

IBM's latest offering of products and services represents a $2 billion investment over three years and incorporates acquisitions made over the last 24 months, including the purchases of storage firm FilesX and back-up data vendor Arsenal.

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