Organizations that are considering adding storage capacity may be surprised to learn that all-flash subsystems from IBM have now become cost-competitive with traditional spinning disk.
Hybrid storage systems with both low-cost hard disk drives (HDDs) and solid state drives (SSDs) are typically bundled in an array, with the intent of improving performance by tiering hot data to the SSD tier. They remain a first option for many clients as they have historically been less expensive than all-flash alternatives. But that’s not necessarily true anymore.
One case in point is the most recent addition to the IBM FlashSystem portfolio: the FlashSystem V9000. Together with the IBM SAN Volume Controller (SVC) Storage Engine Model DH8 introduced last spring, the combination eliminates the processor bottleneck to deliver astounding 5:1 real-time compression (RTC) ratios without sacrificing performance. The addition of the DH8 means that the IBM FlashSystem family now includes the entire storage software portfolio of compression, remote replication, external virtualization, thin-provisioning, and more. Utilizing RTC, the FlashSystem V9000 boasts outstanding data densities with 285TB of usable flash storage in only six rack units (RU). Furthermore, the addition of compression accelerators and efficiencies in compression yield an increase in the amount of throughput to the overall system from 3,000 IOPS of compressed traffic to 195,000 IOPS (in the base model), an increase of more than 60 times!
In just one recent example of my work designing systems, a client was offered a competitor’s solution that would have required 135 RU of space. The IBM solution I countered with took up only 24 RU — 1/6th the amount of space — with roughly 20 times the performance, and consuming only 10 percent of the electricity. The cost of the IBM solution was only about 5 percent higher, and that was before factoring in future savings from the lower electricity consumption.
With IBM FlashSystem storage products, organizations have a cost-competitive alternative to disk-based systems that offers incredible advantages in terms of performance and availability.
Sirius is an IBM Premier Business Partner and has achieved the Storage Specialty Elite designation, IBM’s highest partner level for storage. Sirius’ dedicated storage practice includes more than 80 engineers who have over 570 years of combined IBM Storage experience.
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