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IBM Storage

In order to maximize performance, IBM has introduced new storage capabilities that allow clients choice and control in the data Centre. To assist safeguard clients’ investments from the start, IBM Storage Assurance is a new option for IT life cycle management that gives access to IBM FlashSystem hardware and software breakthroughs. As announced today, IBM Storage Assurance supports the FlashSystem 5300, 7300, and 9500.

48% of organizations anticipate to boost IT investment in 2024, according to TechTarget Enterprise Strategy Group. IBM also sees organizations seeking ways to maximize costs without losing performance. The goal of the IBM Storage Assurance programme is to prolong the life of clients’ storage investments by streamlining the storage ownership experience. It is designed to be used in conjunction with the current consumption models for IBM Storage as a Service and IBM Storage Utility.

According to Simon Robinson, Principal Analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group, a TechTarget subsidiary, “IBM research indicates that IT organisations are looking for greater flexibility in how they acquire and sustain their storage.” “Budget certainty is combined with continuous hardware and software upgrades in IBM Storage Assurance programme. Organizations are able to concentrate on their business goals as IBM offers this extra degree of support for their storage systems.”

IBM FlashSystem

In order to help keep storage infrastructure up to date while attempting to address downtime, disruptive migrations, and recurring purchases, IBM Storage Assurance model offers a modern approach to IT lifecycle management with a subscription that offers regular hardware and software upgrades plus premium-level Expert Care support. The goal of the new programme is to reduce procurement roadblocks and conventional storage lifecycle management difficulties. Among the main advantages of the IBM FlashSystem 5300, 7300, and 9500 are the following:

Take advantage of system-wide refreshes with thorough upgrades for all drives, controllers, software, etc.

A state-of-the-art all-NVMe FlashSystem portfolio, tailored for today’s enterprises’ most performance- and data-intensive workloads, can help you plan your storage needs from the start.

Utilise IBM’s unique computational storage architecture to safeguard data, applications, and businesses with hardware-accelerated and AI-enhanced cyber threat detection.

Use a subscription to protect your storage purchases. Subscriptions come with lifetime-based hardware and software updates, as well as flat, clear-cut pricing for durations of four or eight years.

With technology built for non-disruptive migrations, get access to the newest hardware and software breakthroughs from IBM FlashSystem.

Enjoy contract flexibility by getting a trade-in credit for enhancements that are performed outside of the cycle.

Use IBM Storage Assurance to gain access to the company’s elite Expert Care support programme.

IBM Cloud Storage

“IBM is pleased to present the new IBM Storage Assurance programme to IBM clients. SLAs and a flat pricing contract are included with this programme, which provides full-system hardware refreshes and software upgrades, according to David Howard, Senior Consultant at Converge Technology Solutions. “With this new programme, IBM clients can meet their business needs and have budget certainty.” IBM is optimistic about the numerous advantages this new programme would provide to its clients.”

By offering an upgrade path to handle end-of-support, capacity ceilings, and operating system requirements, this new programme aims to assist customers in staying on the cutting edge of technological advancements in IBM FlashSystem storage.

“IBM Storage Assurance obstacles the current status quo of corporate storage with a programme that delivers customers focused assurances, computing storage with driven by AI data storage, and a comprehensive software suite designed to solve customers’ primary problems, such as a path for them to adopt future advances from IBM,” said Denis Kennelly, IBM Storage General Manager. “As organisations feel more driven to maximise financial assets, improve business agility, embrace renewable energy solutions, and preserve their information, IBM is providing with IBM intelligent, easy-to-use all-flash portfolio.”

Furthermore, IBM is introducing IBM Flash Grid technology and Policy Based High Availability upgrades to streamline storage management even more, maximise workload performance, and encourage non-disruptive operations. With the flexibility to shift workloads between FlashSystem devices, IBM Flash Grid gives customers the ability to manage storage systems as a highly available and independently expandable environment from a single control panel. Important advantages consist of:

Management made simple

Clients can combine IBM FlashSystem devices into a single scalable storage grid that is designed to support non-disruptive application data migrations, high availability, and replication.

Automation and simulation in AIOps

Workload placement on the IBM Flash Grid can be optimised for clients by leveraging AI-powered workload simulation and AIOps automation.

Moreover, IBM is introducing FlashSystem policy-based replication and high availability, which aims to offer simple, high-performing disaster recovery solutions by allowing the system to automatically deploy and manage replication between two systems at lower latency, higher throughput, and less overhead. In order to facilitate highly available storage with replication to a third system and to streamline the processes involved in setting up, maintaining, and tracking replication, IBM plans to expand on these features in the second half of 2024.

With the recently released IBM FlashCore Module 4’s cyber threat detection capabilities, IBM FlashSystem offers improved data resilience. The new IBM FlashSystem 5300, which was also revealed today, will support all of these features.

The IBM SAN Volume Controller is positioned in front of every IBM storage device, and the IBM FlashSystem enables us to access particular IBM functionalities. “It’s quick, dependable, safe, and simple to use,” stated Kai Leibkuchler, Amadeus’s Senior Manager of System & Network Engineering.

IBM FlashSystem 5300

The IBM FlashSystem 5300, along with IBM’s Storage Assurance programme, are now widely accessible. Along with the FlashSystem 7300 and 9500, IBM Storage Assurance is compatible with the recently released FlashSystem 5300.

IBM retains the right, at its sole discretion, to modify or withdraw any comments it makes about its intentions, plans, and course of action without prior notice. Any future features or functionalities that are specified for IBM products are subject to IBM’s complete discretion regarding their development, release, and timing.

Change the way you feel about owning a storage facility

With a future-ready all-flash platform designed for non-disruptive innovation, the IBM Storage Assurance programme offers purchase protection that reduces procurement barriers and does away with storage lifecycle management. IBM Storage Assurance is a subscription service that offers premium support, guaranteed quality of service, and updates for both software and hardware, all with flexible term restrictions.

Benefits of IBM Storage Assurance

Ensure fiscal stability for IT

Budget predictability ensures financial optimization. From the outset, confidently plan your storage needs. Receive reasonable and flat rates for four or eight years, paid annually, quarterly, or monthly in advance.

Constant innovation that doesn’t cause a stir

At the time of purchase and going forward, when new features become available, you will receive guaranteed access to the most recent developments in IBM FlashSystem technology, along with an extensive software array and monitoring capabilities.

Increase your operational effectiveness

Your administrative team will be able to concentrate on higher-value work if lengthy vendor negotiations, procurement processes, and storage life-cycle management duties are eliminated.

Improve your agility

Around contract hardware guarantees, complete system upgrades are guaranteed automatically. Ability to swap in or upgrade your existing system whenever it’s not in use. Guaranteed non-disruptive system-to-system migrations with AI assistance.

Boost your energy efficiency

Cut back on your electricity usage. IBM guarantees that, at the specified capacity points, IBM will not surpass the declared W/TB. You can help your green initiatives with a maximum guaranteed as low as 1.76 W/TB with certain configurations.

Don’t buy too much right away

No more capacity overloading or overprovisioning. You’ll be able to forecast your capacity utilization more precisely for more economical operations if monitoring is integrated. You can increase the number of drives in your current system by one at a time at any point.

IBM Storage Defender With IBM FlashSystem and IBM Storage Defender, you can increase the effectiveness of your defences against cyberattacks.

Cybercrime is profitable these days. It occurs as a result of the minimal risks and great returns. Cybercrime is steadily rising instead than abating. In 2023, the FBI received a whopping 880,418 complaints containing potential damages in excess of USD 12.5 billion. The number of complaints has climbed by around 10% compared to 2022, while damages have risen by about 22%.

Ransomware assaults have been recognized as the most widespread threat worldwide since the 2024 IBM X-Force Threat Intelligence Index. Cybersecurity has become the most expensive investment in commercial technology right now, which is not unexpected considering the disastrous effects of ransomware and the efforts companies have taken to defend themselves against it.

The ransomware code collects data about target networks and important resources, including databases, important files, snapshots, and backups, when a hack occurs. With little action, the threat may infect hourly, daily, and monthly complete backups while going dormant for weeks or months. The ransomware starts the real assault by encrypting and rendering important files and databases useless when it has gathered all the data it need. Due to the speed of file encryption, an assault may severely damage vital corporate data in a matter of minutes.

Elevate the degree of data resiliency Thankfully, it is possible to identify ransomware attacks and establish many preventative measures beforehand in order to limit and manage the danger. IBM offers end-to-end data resilience solutions to effectively protect organizations against ransomware and other malware threats. These solutions assist organizations deal with the many types and techniques used to carry out an attack.

Logically separated from production settings, immutable copies of data serve as the foundation for storage protection offered by IBM Storage FlashSystem. Ransomware attacks, malevolent acts, or human mistake cannot alter or remove these Safeguarded Copies. Through its new Flash Core Modules 4 (FCM4), which continually monitor statistics acquired from every single I/O using machine learning models to early identify abnormalities at block level, IBM Storage FlashSystem now provides inline data corruption detection.

IBM Storage Defender, on the other hand, is an end-to-end solution designed specifically to streamline and coordinate business recovery procedures by providing a consolidated picture of data protection and cyber resilience status across the hybrid cloud and integrating easily into security dashboards. It uses AI-powered sensors to quickly identify irregularities in databases, file systems, virtual machines (VMs), and other applications that are hosted in Linux VMs.

Better in tandem Within the cyber resilience sector, these IBM Storage solutions are industry leaders. When combined, their complementary skills may significantly increase the capacity for early threat detection, data protection, and quick recovery. The following explains how they coordinate their interactions:

IBM Storage Defender uses a combination of its software sensors and the inline data corruption detection (IDCD) from the IBM FlashSystem Flash Core Modules to enhance threat detection. With more data from this dual source, the machine learning models are able to provide more accurate findings and fewer false positives.

Furthermore, IBM Storage Defender may assist customers in expediting the restoration of production systems by pinpointing the location of the most recent reliable copy. Both conventional backups and main storage may include these encrypted copies. Instead of waiting for restoration across the network, the client may use the value of the main storage if the copy is offered there to resume activities in a matter of minutes.

Workloads may be restored in a separate “Clean Room” environment as an extra measure of security so they can be examined and verified before being recovered to production systems. Clients may be assured that the data is clean and that business activities can be securely resumed thanks to this verification. Environments for clean rooms may be set up by seamlessly integrating partner solutions.

IBM Storage FlashSystem Benefits to business The following advantages are brought about by the combined activity of IBM Storage Defender and IBM Storage FlashSystem, which strengthens the defences against ransomware:

A consolidated and transparent picture of the entire state of data resilience for both main and secondary storage. Automatic generation of Safeguarded Copies, which are conceptually separated from production environments and are impervious to deletion or modification in the event of a ransomware attack. Block-level ransomware detection in 60 seconds or less. A thorough description of the location and validation status of Safeguarded Copies, allowing for their rapid recovery as a reliable source of data. The capacity to restore a Safeguarded Copy in no more than 60 seconds. To ensure that workloads can be safely returned to production, use a clean room environment. Notifications to incident teams and the Security Operations Centre (SOC) to assist in coordinating the implementation of recovery strategies. As of right now, only IBM offers complete data resilience across the hybrid cloud. In order to maximize business continuity in the face of ransomware attacks and other data loss concerns, IBM is still committed to enhancing the synergistic capabilities of IBM Storage Defender and IBM Storage FlashSystem.

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