IBM has announced a strategic initiative to drive Flash technology further into the enterprise to help organizations better tackle the mounting challenges of big data. Challenges like swelling data volumes, increasing demand for faster analytic insights, and rising data center energy costs is what has driven Flash to quickly become a key requirement to enable the "Smarter Enterprise." IBM said.
Big Blue will invest $1 billion in research and development to design, create and integrate new Flash solutions into its expanding portfolio of servers, storage systems and middleware. IBM plans to open 12 Centers of Competency around the globe to enable clients to run proof-of-concept scenarios with real-world data to measure the projected performance gains that can be achieved with IBM Flash solutions.
“The economics and performance of Flash are at a point where the technology can have a revolutionary impact on enterprises, especially for transaction-intensive applications,” said Ambuj Goyal, General Manager, Systems Storage, IBM Systems & Technology Group. “The confluence of Big Data, social, mobile and cloud technologies is creating an environment in the enterprise that demands faster, more efficient, access to business insights, and Flash can provide that access quickly.”
IBM also announced the availability of the IBM FlashSystem line of all-Flash storage appliances, which are based on technology acquired from Texas Memory Systems. The IBM FlashSystem provides organizations instant access to the benefits of Flash. The IBM FlashSystem 820, for example, is 20 times faster than spinning hard drives, and can store up to 24 terabytes of data – more than twice the amount of printed information stored in the U.S. Library of Congress. Sprint Nextel Corp., an early adopter of Flash, recently completed a deal with IBM to install nine flash storage systems in its data center, for a total of 150TB of additional Flash storage.
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