IBM Combines All-Flash and Storage Software Optimized for Hortonworks

ARMONK, N.Y., July 24, 2017 — IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced a new all-flash, high-performance data and file management solution for enterprise clients running exabyte-scale big data analytics, cognitive and AI applications. IBM has also been recognized as a Leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Solid-State Arrays (SSA) for the fourth year in a row.

The combined flash and storage software solution has been certified with the Hortonworks Data Platform (HDP) to provide clients with more choice in selecting the right platform for their big data analytics on data processing engines like Hadoop and Spark.

The new IBM All-Flash Elastic Storage Server (ESS), powered by IBM Spectrum Scale exabyte-scale software defined storage, increases data throughput by 60 percent¹ over previous solutions. Performance improvements produce a storage solution powerful enough to run complex applications from machine and deep learning clusters to image recognition of cancer cells.

The IBM Spectrum Scale storage software combines data from silos across the enterprise into a single view in order to run analytics on Hadoop and Spark. Through unifying file, object and Hadoop HDFS data storage, IBM ESS with IBM Spectrum Scale combines to shorten time to results while contributing to reducing storage capacity requirements by more than 55 percent² for Hadoop and Spark workload data. Beyond performance and economic benefits, the solution provides user data with essential features such as redundant data paths, distributed erasure coding and end-to-end checksums. Based upon millions of hours of current production systems, reported over the past two years the IBM ESS design has delivered five nines of availability against unscheduled downtime.

“We’re seeing an increasing appetite on the part of clients to unlock value within their own business data where competitive advantage can be found but too often they face challenges that inhibit ready access to this information,” said Ed Walsh, general manager, IBM Storage and Software Defined Infrastructure. “IBM ESS with Spectrum Scale has been developed to make data available by reducing obstacles that prevent users from quickly accessing and processing the growing oceans of differing data types stored within their disparate, isolated storage systems.”

IBM All-Flash ESS represents a new generation of data and file management. To help clients more effectively manage their hot and cold data. IBM ESS with IBM Spectrum Scale, an exabyte-scale software defined storage solution, supports a wide variety of network protocols while providing clients the elasticity to transparently tier data across flash, disk, tape and cloud storage systems.

With all IBM ESS and IBM Spectrum Scale models certified on Hortonworks, we fulfill a commitment to deliver higher exabyte scale storage densities and related performance throughput required for programs like IBM’s support for the Department of Energy CORAL project. IBM ESS integration with IBM Spectrum Scale, which is being developed to support anticipated NVMe-based storage solutions from IBM, sets the stage for increased proficiency in managing throughput of Big Data analytics workloads. 

Availability

IBM will be taking orders on the new IBM All-Flash Elastic Storage Server (ESS) today but the solution will be generally available on August 25, 2017. To learn more about the IBM ESS portfolio please visit our website. For more details about the latest IBM All-Flash ESS, please see our blog “Fast data: the future of big data.”

Magic Quadrant

According to Gartner, “Vendors in the Leaders quadrant have the highest scores for their Ability to Execute and Completeness of Vision. A vendor in the Leaders quadrant has the market share, credibility, and marketing and sales capabilities needed to drive the acceptance of new technologies. These vendors demonstrate a clear understanding of market needs; they are innovators and thought leaders; and they have well-articulated plans that customers and prospects can use when designing their storage infrastructures and strategies. In addition, they have a presence in all four major geographical regions, consistent financial performance and broad platform support.”

IBM’s position as a leader comes after it announced its development of Non-Volatile Memory Express (NVMe) solutions to provide clients the ability to significantly lower latencies in an effort to speed data to and from storage solutions and systems as well as new hybrid-cloud, all-flash family of storage solutions for mainframe users, which helps automate the movement of data to and from the cloud.

Clients rely on these technologies to quickly access the mounting volumes. For example, Sidra, a groundbreaking hospital, biomedical research and educational institution, chose IBM solutions to manage and store clinical genome sequencing data as well as to provide the organization’s biomedical informatics technology infrastructure capabilities that will serve as a national resource. The IBM platform is used for data management and storage, bioinformatics and High Performance Computing (HPC).

A number of IBM solutions underpin Sidra’s analytics and data architecture, including:

• IBM Flash Storage systems to accelerate access to critical meta data by the Sidra community;
• IBM Software defined infrastructure as a workload and resource manager, to ease the management of big data analytics, and to scale up capabilities to manage HPC analytics involving hundreds of thousands of jobs and vast amounts of data.

“Client deployments, such as Sidra, demonstrate IBM’s differentiation with our wide range of storage solutions – both all flash and Software defined storage –  that bring clear advantage to client environments from medical and research facilities to in retail organizations,” said Ed Walsh, general manager, IBM Storage and Software Defined Infrastructure. “These clients drive our commitment to continually develop innovative solutions – for example NVMe – that will provide increased business value from our clients’ oceans of data, be that on premises or part of a hybrid cloud environment.”

Source: IBM