IBM releases new software storage layer

IBM today unveiled IBM Spectrum Storage, a new storage software portfolio designed to address data storage inefficiencies by introducing a layer of software to traditional hardware. 

Spectrum Storage incorporates more than 700 patents and is designed to help clients transform to a hybrid cloud business model by managing data from a single dashboard.

The software helps clients move data from flash storage for fast access to tape and cloud for the lowest cost.

IBM also announced plans to invest more than $1 billion in its storage software portfolio over the next five years.

The investment will focus on R&D of new cloud storage software, object storage and open standard technologies including OpenStack.

“A new approach is needed to help clients address the cost and complexity driven by tremendous data growth,” said Tom Rosamilia, Senior Vice President, IBM Systems. “Traditional storage is inefficient in today’s world where the value of each piece of data is changing all the time. IBM is revolutionising storage with our Spectrum Storage software that helps clients to more efficiently leverage their hardware investments to extract the full business value of data.”

Spectrum Accelerate is the first software product that the company has based on the software from its XIV storage appliance.

Spectrum Accelerate enables clients to layer their infrastructure with features derived from XIV.

The company is making IBM Spectrum Accelerate software open – based on industry standards and available to be used on commodity hardware.

Clients can use Spectrum Accelerate to pool existing data centre resources to build their own cloud environment.

IBM later this year plans to introduce a multi-cloud connecter as a software feature in IBM Spectrum Storage.3

This feature will be designed to help organisations to migrate data across multiple clouds, while keeping it confidential.

Spectrum Accelerate features various cloud-ready features and technologies, including snapshot, synchronous and asynchronous replication, multi-tenancy, automation through RESTful API and OpenStack, VMware vCloud Suite integration and self-provisioning.