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IBM Transforms the Storage Ownership Experience with IBM Storage Assurance

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New program increases the lifetime of storage investments with purchase protection and flexibility

New IBM Flash Grid technology simplifies storage management

IBM today announced new storage capabilities that give clients choice and control in the data center to maximize performance. A new IT life cycle management option called IBM Storage Assurance provides access to IBM FlashSystem hardware and software innovations to help protect clients' investments from day one. IBM Storage Assurance supports the new IBM FlashSystem 5300 also announced today, as well as the FlashSystem 7300 and FlashSystem 9500.

According to recent research from TechTarget's Enterprise Strategy Group, 48% of companies expect to increase their IT spending in 2024. At the same time, IBM sees that organizations are looking for opportunities to maximize their spending without sacrificing performance. The IBM Storage Assurance program, which complements existing consumption models for IBM Storage as a Service and IBM Storage Utility, provides a path to simplifying the storage ownership experience with the expectation of extending the lifetime of clients' storage investments.

Learn more about IBM Storage Assurance

"Our research indicates that IT organizations are looking for greater flexibility in how they acquire and sustain their storage," said Simon Robinson, Principal Analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group, part of TechTarget. "IBM's Storage Assurance program is designed to provide ongoing hardware and software upgrades while also offering budget certainty. With IBM providing this additional level of support for their storage systems, organizations can focus on their business priorities."

Transforming Storage Ownership

IBM's Storage Assurance model offers a modern approach to IT lifecycle management with a subscription that provides regular hardware and software upgrades plus premium-level Expert Care support to help keep storage infrastructure up to date while seeking to address downtime, disruptive migrations, and recurring purchases. The new program is designed to minimize procurement obstacles and traditional storage lifecycle management challenges. Key benefits for the IBM FlashSystem 5300, 7300, and 9500 include the ability to:

  • Leverage whole system refreshes with comprehensive updates across drives, controllers, software, etc.
  • Plan storage needs from day one with a cutting-edge all-NVMe FlashSystem portfolio designed for the most performance and data-intensive workloads supporting today's businesses.
  • Protect business, applications, and data with IBM's patented computational storage architecture enabled with hardware-accelerated and AI-augmented cyber threat detection.
  • Safeguard storage purchases with a subscription that includes performance and lifecycle-based hardware and software upgrades over flat and transparently priced 4- or 8-year terms.1  
  • Get access to the latest IBM FlashSystem innovations in hardware and software with technology designed for non-disruptive migrations.
  • Experience contract flexibility with the ability to receive a trade-in credit for out-of-cycle upgrades.
  • Access IBM's premium-level Expert Care support program, which is included with IBM Storage Assurance.

"We are excited to introduce our customers to the new IBM Storage Assurance program. This program offers full-system hardware refreshes and software upgrades, all covered by SLAs and a flat pricing contract," said David Howard, Senior Consultant, Converge Technology Solutions. "With this new program, our clients can enjoy budget certainty and meet their business needs. We're confident that this new program will bring many benefits to our clients."

This new program is designed to help clients stay at the forefront of technological advances in IBM FlashSystem storage by providing an upgrade path to address end-of-support, capacity ceilings, and operating system requirements.

"IBM Storage Assurance challenges the status quo of enterprise storage with a program that delivers client focused guarantees, computational storage with AI-powered data services, and an all-inclusive software integration designed to address customers' most pressing problems, including a path for them to adopt future innovations from IBM," said Denis Kennelly, General Manager of IBM Storage. "As organizations feel increased pressures to maximize financial resources, improve operational agility, adopt energy efficient solutions, and safeguard their data, we are delivering with our intelligent, and simple all-flash portfolio."

To further simplify storage management, optimize workload performance, and promote non-disruptive operations, IBM is also announcing IBM Flash Grid technology and Policy Based High Availability enhancements. IBM Flash Grid allows clients to manage storage systems as a highly available and independently scalable environment, from a single control pane, with the ability to move workloads between FlashSystem devices. Key benefits include:

  • Simplified management: Clients can aggregate IBM FlashSystem devices and manage them as a single scalable storage grid, engineered for high availability, replication, and non-disruptive application data migrations.
  • AIOps automation and simulation: Clients can use AI-powered workload simulation to determine the best placement for workloads on the IBM Flash Grid.

In addition, IBM is announcing FlashSystem policy-based replication and high availability that is designed to provide easy-to-use, high-performance solutions for disaster recovery by enabling the system to automatically deploy and manage replication between two systems with minimal overhead, higher throughput, and lower latency. In the second half of 2024, IBM intends to further enhance these features to support highly available storage with replication to a third system, to simplify the tasks associated with configuring, managing, and monitoring replication.

IBM FlashSystem provides enhanced data resilience with the recently announced IBM FlashCore Module 4's cyber threat detection capabilities. All these capabilities will be available for the new IBM FlashSystem 5300 also unveiled today.

"We have IBM SAN Volume Controller sitting in front of all our storage, and IBM FlashSystem allows us to harness specific IBM functions. It's fast, reliable, secure, and easy to manage," said Kai Leibkuchler, Senior Manager of System & Network Engineering at Amadeus. "I am excited to see the new enhancements in IBM FlashSystem 5300."

Both IBM's Storage Assurance program and the IBM FlashSystem 5300 are now generally available. IBM Storage Assurance supports the new FlashSystem 5300, as well as FlashSystem 7300 and FlashSystem 9500. Learn more about IBM Storage Assurance here and the IBM FlashSystem 5300 here.

IBM's statements regarding its plans, directions, and intent are subject to change or withdrawal without notice at IBM's sole discretion. The development, release, and timing of any future features or functionality described for our products remain at our sole discretion.

IBM is a leading global hybrid cloud and AI, and business services provider, helping clients in more than 175 countries capitalize on insights from their data, streamline business processes, reduce costs and gain the competitive edge in their industries. Nearly 3,000 government and corporate entities in critical infrastructure areas such as financial services, telecommunications and healthcare rely on IBM's hybrid cloud platform and Red Hat OpenShift to affect their digital transformations quickly, efficiently, and securely. IBM's breakthrough innovations in AI, quantum computing, industry-specific cloud solutions and business services deliver open and flexible options to our clients. All of this is backed by IBM's legendary commitment to trust, transparency, responsibility, inclusivity, and service.

For more information, visit: www.ibm.com.

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