Tag: ds8000

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EMC VMAX 10K, looks like high-end storage systems are still alive

StorageIO industry trends cloud, virtualization and big data

This is the first in a multi-part series of posts looking at if large enterprise and legacy storage systems are dead, along with what todays EMC VMAX 10K updates means.

EMC has announced an upgrade, refresh or new version of their previously announced Virtual matrix (VMAX) 10,000 (10K), part of the VMAX family of enterprise class storage systems formerly known as DMX (Direct Matrix) and Symmetrix. I will get back to more coverage on the VMAX 10K and other EMC enhancements in a few moments in part two and three of this series.

Have you heard the industry myth about the demise or outright death of traditional storage systems? This has been particularly the case for high-end enterprise class systems, which by the way which were first, declared dead back in the mid-1990s then at the hands of emerging mid-range storage systems.

Enterprise class storage systems include EMC VMAX, Fujitsu Eternus DX8700, HDS, HP XP P9000 based on the HDS high-end product (OEM from HDS parent Hitachi Ltd.). Note that some HPers or their fans might argue that the P10000 (formerly known as 3PAR) declared as tier 1.5 should also be on the list; I will leave that up to you to decide.

Let us not forget the IBM DS8000 series (whose predecessors was known as the ESS and VSS before that); although some IBMers will tell you that XIV should also be in this list. High-end enterprise class storage systems such as those mentioned above are not alone in being declared dead at the hands of new all solid-state devices (SSD) and their startup vendors, or mixed and hybrid-based solutions.

Some are even declaring dead due to new SSD appliances or systems, and by storage hypervisor or virtual storage array (VSA) the traditional mid-range storage systems that were supposed to have killed off the enterprise systems a decade ago (hmm, DejaVu?).

The mid-range storage systems include among others block (SAN and DAS) and file (NAS) systems from Data Direct Networks (DDN), Dell Complement, EqualLogic and MD series (Netapp Engenio based), EMC VNX and Isilon, Fujitsu Eternus, and HDS HUS mid-range formerly known as AMS. Let us not forget about HP 3PAR or P2000 (DotHill based) or P6000 (EVA which is probably being put out to rest). Then there are the various IBM products (their own and what they OEM from others), NEC, NetApp (FAS and Engenio), Oracle and Starboard (formerly known as Reldata). Note that there are many startups that could be in the above list as well if they were not considering the above to be considered dead, thus causing themselves to also be extinct as well, how ironic ;).

What are some industry trends that I am seeing?

  • Some vendors and products might be nearing the ends of their useful lives
  • Some vendors, their products and portfolios continue to evolve and expand
  • Some vendors and their products are moving into new or adjacent markets
  • Some vendors are refining where and what to sell when and to who
  • Some vendors are moving up market, some down market
  • Some vendors are moving into new markets, others are moving out of markets
  • Some vendors are declaring others dead to create a new market for their products
  • One size or approach or technology does not fit all needs, avoid treating all the same
  • Leverage multiple tools and technology in creative ways
  • Maximize return on innovation (the new ROI) by using various tools, technologies in ways to boost productivity, effectiveness while removing complexity and cost
  • Realization that cutting cost can result in reduced resiliency, thus look for and remove complexity with benefit of removing costs without compromise
  • Storage arrays are moving into new roles, including as back-end storage for cloud, object and other software stacks running on commodity servers to replace JBOD (DejaVu anyone?).

Keep in mind that there is a difference between industry adoption (what is talked about) and customer deployment (what are actually bought and used). Likewise there is technology based on GQ (looks and image) and G2 (functionality, experience).

There is also an industry myth that SSD cannot or has not been successful in traditional storage systems which in some cases has been true with some products or vendors. Otoh, some vendors such as EMC, NetApp and Oracle (among others) are having good success with SSD in their storage systems. Some SSD startup vendors have been more successful on both the G2 and GQ front, while some focus on the GQ or image may not be as successful (or at least yet) in the industry adoption vs. customer deployment game.

For the above mentioned storage systems vendors and products (among others), or at least for most of them there is still have plenty of life in them, granted their role and usage is changing including in some cases being found as back-end storage systems behind servers running virtualization, cloud, object storage and other storage software stacks. Likewise, some of the new and emerging storage systems (hardware, software, valueware, services) and vendors have bright futures while others may end up on the where are they now list.

Are high-end enterprise class or other storage arrays and systems dead at the hands of new startups, virtual storage appliances (VSA), storage hypervisors, storage virtualization, virtual storage and SSD?

Are large storage arrays dead at the hands of SSD?

Have SSDs been unsuccessful with storage arrays (with poll)?

 

Here are links to two polls where you can cast your vote.

Cast your vote and see results of if large storage arrays and systems are dead here.

Cast your vote and see results of if SSD has not been successful in storage systems.

So what about it, are enterprise or large storage arrays and systems dead?

Perhaps in some tabloids or industry myths (or that some wish for) or in some customer environments, as well as for some vendors or their products that can be the case.

However, IMHO for many other environments (and vendors) the answer is no, granted some will continue to evolve from legacy high-end enterprise class storage systems to mid-range or to appliance or VSA or something else.

There is still life many of the storage systems architectures, platforms and products that have been declared dead for over a decade.

Continue reading about the specifics of the EMC VMAX 10K announcement in the next post in this series here. Also check out Chucks EMC blog to see what he has to say.

Ok, nuff said (for now).

Cheers gs

Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press, 2011), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press, 2009), and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier, 2004)

twitter @storageio

All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO LLC All Rights Reserved

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Congratulations to IBM for releasing XIV SPC results

Over the past several years I have done an annual post about IBM and their XIV storage system and this is the fourth in what has become a series. You can read the first one here, the second one here, and last years here and here after the announcement of the IBM V7000.

IBM XIV Gen3
IBM recently announced the generation 3 or Gen3 version of XIV along with releasing for the first time public performance comparison benchmarks using storage performance council (SPC) throughout SPC2 workload.

The XIV Gen3 is positioned by IBM as having up to four (4) times the performance of earlier generations of the storage system. In terms of speeds and feeds, the Gen3 XIV supports up to 180 2TB SAS hard disk drives (HDD) that provides up to 161TB of usable storage space capacity. For connectivity, the Gen3 XIV supports up to 24 8Gb Fibre Channel (8GFC) or for iSCSI 22 1Gb Ethernet (1 GbE) ports with a total of up to 360GBytes of system cache. In addition to the large cache to boost performance, other enhancements include leveraging multi core processors along with an internal InfiniBand  network to connect nodes replacing the former 1 GbE interconnect. Note, InfiniBand is only used to interconnect the various nodes in the XIV cluster and is not used for attachment to applications servers which is handled via iSCSI and Fibre Channel.

IBM and SPC storage performance history
IBM has a strong history if not leading the industry with benchmarking and workload simulation of their storage systems including Storage Performance Council (SPC) among others. The exception for IBM over the past couple of years has been the lack of SPC benchmarks for XIV. Last year when IBM released their new V7000 storage system benchmarks include SPC were available close to if not at the product launch. I have in the past commented about IBMs lack of SPC benchmarks for XIV to confirm their marketing claims given their history of publishing results for all of their other storage systems. Now that IBM has recently released SPC2 results for the XIV it is only fitting then that I compliment them for doing so.

Benchmark brouhaha
Performance workload simulation results can often lead to applies and oranges comparisons or benchmark brouhaha battles or storage performance games. For example a few years back NetApp submitted a SPC performance result on behalf of their competitor EMC. Now to be clear on something, Im not saying that SPC is the best or definitive benchmark or comparison tool for storage or other purpose as it is not. However it is representative and most storage vendors have released some SPC results for their storage systems in addition to TPC and Microsoft ESRP among others. SPC2 is focused on streaming such as video, backup or other throughput centric applications where SPC1 is centered around IOPS or transactional activity. The metrics for SPC2 are Megabytes per second (MBps) for large file processing (LFP), large database query (LDQ) and video on demand delivery (VOD) for a given price and protection level.

What is the best benchmark?
Simple, your own application in as close to as actual workload activity as possible. If that is not possible, then some simulation or workload simulation that closets resembles your needs.

Does this mean that XIV is still relevant?
Yes

Does this mean that XIV G3 should be used for every environment?
Generally speaking no. However its performance enhancements should allow it to be considered for more applications than in the past. Plus with the public comparisons now available, that should help to silence questions (including those from me) about what the systems can really do vs. marketing claims.

How does XIV compare to some other IBM storage systems using SPC2 comparisons?

System
SPC2 MBps
Cost per SPC2
Storage GBytes
Price tested
Discount
Protection
DS5300
5,634.17
$74.13
16,383
417,648
0%
R5
V7000
3,132.87
$71.32
29,914
$223,422
38-39%
R5
XIV G3
7,467.99
$152.34
154,619
1,137,641
63-64%
Mirror
DS8800
9,705.74
$270.38
71,537
2,624,257
40-50%
R5

In the above comparisons, the DS5300 (NetApp/Engenio based) is a dual controller (4GB of cache per controller) with 128 x 146.8GB 15K HDDs configured as RAID 5 with no discount applied to the price submitted. The V7000 system which is based on the IBM SVC along with other enhancements consists of dual controllers each with 8GB of cache and 120 x 10K 300GB HDDs configured as RAID 5 with just under a 40% discount off list price for system tested. For the XIV Gen3 system tested, discount off list price for the submission is about 63% with 15 nodes and a total of 360GB of cache and 180 2TB 7.2K SAS HDDs configured as mirrors. The DS8800 system with dual controllers has a 256GB of cache, 768 x 146GB 15K HDDs configured in RAID5 with a discount between 40 to 50% off of list.

What the various metrics do not show is the benefit of various features and functionality which should be considered to your particular needs. Likewise, if your applications are not centered around bandwidth or throughput, then the above performance comparisons would not be relevant. Also note that the systems above have various discount prices as submitted which can be a hint to a smart shopper where to begin negotiations at. You can also do some analysis of the various systems based on their performance, configuration, physical footprint, functionality and cost plus the links below take you to the complete reports with more information.

DS8800 SPC2 executive summary and full disclosure report

XIV SPC2 executive summary and full disclosure report

DS5300 SPC2 executive summary and full disclosure report

V7000 SPC2 executive summary and full disclosure report

Bottom line, benchmarks and performance comparisons are just that, a comparison that may or may not be relevant to your particular needs. Consequently they should be used as a tool combined with other information to see how a particular solution might be a fit for your specific needs. The best benchmark however is your own application running as close to possible realistic workload to get a representative perspective of a systems capabilities.

Ok, nuff said
Cheers gs

Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press, 2011), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press, 2009), and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier, 2004)

twitter @storageio

All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2011 StorageIO and UnlimitedIO All Rights Reserved

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Does IBM Power7 processor announcement signal storage upgrades?

IBM recently announced the Power7 as the latest generation of processors that the company uses in some of its mid range and high end compute servers including the iSeries and pSeries.


IBM Power7 processor wafers (chips)

 

What is the Power7 processor?
The Power7 is the latest generation of IBM processors (chips) that are used as the CPUs in IBM mid range and high end open systems (pSeries) for Unix (AIX) and Linux as well as for the iSeries (aka AS400 successor). Building on previous Power series processors, the Power7 increases the performance per core (CPU) along with the number of cores per socket (chip) footprint. For example, each Power7 chip that plugs into a socket on a processor card in a server can have up to 8 cores or CPUs. Note that sometimes cores are also known as micro CPUs as well as virtual CPUs not to be confused with their presented via Hypervisor abstraction.

Sometimes you may also here the term or phrase 2 way, 4 way (not to be confused with a Cincinnati style 4 way chili) or 8 way among others that refers to the number of cores on a chip. Hence, a dual 2 way would be a pair of processor chips each with 2 cores while a quad 8 way would be 4 processors chips each with 8 cores and so on.


IBM Power7 with up to eight cores per processor (chip)

In addition to faster and more cores in a denser footprint, there are also energy efficiency enhancements including Energy Star for enterprise servers qualification along with intelligent power management (IPM also see here) implementation. IPM is implanted in what IBM refers to as Intelligent Energy technology for turning on or off various parts of the system along with varying processor clock speeds. The benefit is when there is work to be done, get it down quickly or if there is less work, turn some cores off or slow clock speed down. This is similar to what other industry leaders including Intel have deployed with their Nehalem series of processors that also support IPM.

Additional features of the Power7 include (varies by system solutions):

  • Energy Star for server qualified providing enhanced performance and efficiency.

  • IBM Systems Director Express, Standard and Enterprise Editions for simplified management including virtualization capabilities across pools of Power servers as a single entity.

  • PowerVM (Hypervisor) virtualization for AIX, iSeries and Linux operating systems.

  • ActiveMemory enables effective memory capacity to be larger than physical memory, similar to how virtual memory works within many operating systems. The benefit is to enable a partition to have access to more memory which is important for virtual machines along with the ability to support more partitions in a given physical memory footprint.

  • TurboCore and Intelligent Threads enable workload optimization by selecting the applicable mode for the work to be done. For example, single thread per core along with simultaneous threads (2 or 4) modes per core. The trade off is to have more threads per core for concurrent processing, or, fewer threads to boost single stream performance.

IBM has announced several Power7 enabled or based server system models with various numbers of processors and cores along with standalone and clustered configurations including:

IBM Power7 family of server systems

  • Power 750 Express, 4U server with one to four socket server supporting up to 32 cores (3.0 to 3.5 GHz) and 128 threads (4 threads per core), PowerVM (Hypervisor) along with main memory capacity of 512GB or 1TByte of virtual memory using Active Memory Expansion.
  • Power 755, 32 3.3Ghz Power7 cores (8 cores per processor) with memory up to 256GB along with AltiVec and VSX SIMD instruction set support. Up to 64 755 nodes each with 32 cores can be clustered together for high performance applications.
  • Power 770, Up to 64 Power7 cores providing more performance while consuming less energy per core compared to previous Power6 generations. Support for up to 2TB of main memory or RAM using 32GB DIMM when available later in 2010.
  • Power 780, 64 Power7 cores with TurboCore workload optimization providing performance boost per core. With TurboCore, 64 cores can operate at 3.8 GHz, or, enable up to 32 cores at 4.1 GHz and twice the amount of cache when more speed per thread is needed. Support for up to 2TB of main memory or RAM using 32GB DIMM when available later in 2010.

Additional Power7 specifications and details can be found here.

 

What is the DS8000?
The DS8000 is the latest generation of a family of high end enterprise class storage systems supporting IBM mainframe (zSeries), Open systems along with mixed workloads. Being high end open systems or mainframe, the DS8000 competes with similar systems from EMC (Symmetrix/DMX/VMAX), Fujitsu (Eternus DX8000), HDS (Hitachi) and HP (XP series OEM from Hitachi). Previous generations of the DS8000 (aka predecessors) include the ESS (Enterprise Storage System) Model 2105 (aka Shark) and VSS (Versatile Storage Server). Current generation family members include the Power5 based DS8100 and DS8300 along with the Power6 based DS8700.

IBM DS8000 Storage System

Learn more about the DS8000 here, here, here and here.

 

What is the association between the Power7 and DS8000?
Disclosure: Before I go any further, lets be clear on something, what I am about to post on is based entirely on researching, analyzing, correlating (connecting the dots) of what is publicly and freely available from IBM on the Web (e.g. there is no NDA material being disclosed here that I am aware of) along with prior trends and tendency of IBM and their solutions. In other words, you can call it speculation, a prediction, industry analysis perspective, looking into the proverbial crystal ball or educated guess and thus should not be taken as an indicator of what IBM may actually do or be working on. As to what may actually be done or not done, for that you will need to contact one of the IBM truth squad members.

As to what is the linkage between Power7 and the DS8000?

The linkage between the Power7 and the DS8000 is just that, the Power processors!

At the heart of the DS8000 are Power series processors coupled or clustered together in pairs for performance and availability that run IBM developed storage systems software. While the spin doctors may not agree, essentially the DS8000 and its predecessors are based on and around Power series processors clustered together with a high speed interconnect that combine to host an operating system and IBM developed storage system application software.

Thus IBM has been able to for over a decade leverage technology improvement curve advantages with faster processors, increased memory and I/O connectivity in denser footprints while enhancing their storage system application software.

Given that the current DS8000 family members utilize 2 way (2 core) or 4 way (4 core) Power5 and Power6 processors, similar to how their predecessors utilized previous generation Power4, Power3 and so forth processors, it only makes sense that IBM might possibly use a Power7 processor in a future DS8000 (or derivative perhaps even with a different name or model number). Again, this is just based all on historical trends and patterns of IBM storage systems group leveraging the latest generation of Power processors; after all, they are a large customer of the Power systems group.

Consequently it would make sense for IBM storage folks to leverage the new Power7 processors and features similar to how EMC is leveraging Intel processor enhances along with what other vendors are doing.

There is certainly room in the DS8000 architecture for growth in terms of supporting additional nodes or complexes or controllers (or whatever your term preference of choice is for describing a server) each equipped with multiple processors (chips or sockets) that have multiple cores. While IBM has only commercially released two complex or dual server versions of the DS8000 with various numbers of cores per server, they have come nowhere close to their architecture limit of nodes. In fact with this release of Power7, as an example, the model 755 can be clustered via InfiniBand with up to 64 nodes, with each node having 4 sockets (e.g. 4 way) with up to 8 cores each. That means on paper, 64 x 4 x 8 = 2048 cores and each core could have up to 4 threads for concurrency, or half as many cores for more cache performance. Now will IBM ever come out with a 64 node DS8000 on steroids?

Tough to say, maybe possibly some day to play specmanship vs EMC VMAX 256 node architectural limit, however Im not holding my breath just yet. Thus with more and faster cores per processor, ability to increase number of processors per server or node, along with architectural capabilities to boost the number of nodes in an instance or cluster, on paper alone, there is lots of head room for the DS8000 or a future derivative.

What about software and functionality, sure IBM could in theory simply turn the crank and use a new hardware platform that is faster, more capacity, denser, better energy efficiency, however what about new features?

Can IBM enhance its storage systems application software that it evolved from the ESS with new features to leverage underlying hardware capabilities including TurboCore, PowerVM, device and I/O sharing, Intelligent Energy efficiency along with threads enhancements?

Can IBM leverage those and other features to support not only scaling of performance, availability, capacity and energy efficiency in an economical manner, however also add features for advanced automated tiering or data movement plus other popular industry buzzword functionality?

 

Additional thoughts and perspectives
One of the things I find interesting is that some IBM folks along with their channel partners will go to great lengths to explain why and how the DS8000 is not just a pair of Power enabled based servers tightly coupled together. Yet, on the other hand, some of those folks will go to great lengths touting the advantages of leveraging off the shelf or commercial enabled servers based on Intel or AMD based systems such as IBMs own XIV storage solution.

I can understand in the past when the likes of EMC, Hitachi and Fujitsu were all competing with IBM building bigger and more function rich monolithic systems, however that trend is shifting. The trend now as is being seen with EMC and VMAX is to decouple and leverage more off the shelf commercially available technology combined with custom ASICs where and when needed.

Thus at a time where more attention and discussion is around clustered, grid, scalable storage systems, will we see or hear the IBM folks change their tune about the architectural scale up and out capabilities of the Power enabled DS8000 family?

There had been some industry speculation that the DS8000 would be the end of the line if the Power7 had not been released which will now (assuming that IBM leverages the Power7 for storage) shift to if there will be a Power8 or Power9 and so forth.

From a storage perspective, is the DS8K still relevant?

I say yes given its installed base and need for IBM to have an enterprise solution (sorry, IMHO XIV does not fit that bill just yet) of their own, lest they cut an OEM deal with the likes of Hitachi or Fujitsu which while possible, I do not see it as likely near term. Another soft point on its relevance is to gauge reaction from their competitors including EMC and HDS.

From a server perspective, what is the benefit of the new Power7 enabled servers from IBM?

Simple, increase scale of performance for single thread as well as concurrent or parallel application workloads.

In other words, supporting more web sites, partitions for virtual machines and guest operating system instances, databases, compute and other applications that demand performance and economy of scale.

This also means that IBM has a platform to aggressively go after Sun Solaris server customers with a lifeline during the Oracle transition, not to mention being a platform for running Oracle in addition to its own UDB/DB2 database. In addition to being a platform for Unix AIX as well as Linux, the Power7 series also are at the heart of current generation iSeries (the server formerly known as the AS400).

Additional links and resources:

Closing comments (for now):
Given IBMs history of following a Power chip enhancement with a new upgraded version of the DS8000 (or ESS/2105 aka Shark/VSS) and its predecessors by a reasonable amount of time, I would be surprised if we do not see a new DS8000 (perhaps even renamed or renumbered) within the year.

This is similar to how other vendors leverage new processor chip technology evolution to pace their systems upgrades for example how many vendors who leverage Intel processes have done announcements over the past year since the Nehalem series rolled out including EMC among others.

Lets see what the IBM truth squads have to say, or, not have to say :)

Ok, nuff said.

Cheers gs

Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press) and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier)
twitter @storageio

All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO LLC All Rights Reserved

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Is IBM XIV still relevant?

That is a question I get asked quite a bit and based on discussions in other blogs and twitter tweets; it appears that Im not alone.

A little over a year ago I did a blog post about IBM and XIV, now seems like a good time to revisit, look back and look forward.

Is IBM XIV still relevant?

Given the time, money as well as effort IBM has poured into promoting and generating awareness around XIV, it must be relevant to someone.

IBM recently released another round of momentum news, customer testimonials and product enhancements while making a point that there are now over 1,000 XIV systems installed around the world. 1,000 systems installed (regardless of if revenue or trial) in the just under 2 years since IBM bought XIV would be a triumph for most startups.

However for a major player with the resources of IBM, I would have expected the number of installed systems to be more in the 5,000 to perhaps 10,000 systems when looking at the progress of Dell (EqualLogic), HP (LeftHand) or others.

Now granted, XIV is not IBMs only storage solution focus as there is the high-end DS8000 series, mid-range DS5000/DS4000/DS3000, NAS based N-Series, SVC for SAN virtualization, DR550 for archiving not to mention the TS series of virtual tape systems (VTS) and virtual tape libraries (VTLs) including the Diligent based technologies.

Ok, fair enough, good job for IBM in placing 1,000 XIV systems in just under two years.

Another trend I regularly see is that of an approach of if you are not on the XIV bandwagon, that is not in love with their message, then you are against it with no room in between.

However, are these successes at the expense of other IBM storage solutions being placed?

The reason I bring this up is in discussions, I regularly hear stories where XIVs competition is not only 3PAR, Dell, EMC, Fujitsu, HDS, HP, NetApp or Sun among others, its also IBMs other products, those with five or six digit installed bases being targeted.

Im continually amazed when I talk with XIV prospects along with vars who have either not been told about other IBM products, or, provided with apples to oranges comparison as well as even FUD against its own solutions.

Does this mean that Im against XIV?

Die hard XIV believers will say yes to which I will respond, ok fine if that is what you believe.

However to everyone else, I also say look before you leap as well as checkout alternatives from others include IBM, not to mention being careful of the possible hangover from drinking too much cool aid.

To everyone else, give XIV a look; however as with any solution, do your due diligence, ask tough questions along with talking to others.

As to the long term future of XIV, given all of the money and marketing effort that has been put into it, I don’t see it going away near-term. However, Im still on the fence as to its long term future and if it might join other IBM storage solutions in the holding pen such as the DS6000.

Would I recommend XIV to IT customers?

What I tell those that I talk to is due your homework regarding XIV, ask tough questions including asking about other or alternative IBM products, where they fit and their caveats as you would do with any other vendor.

I do believe that IBM storage in general is still very relevant.

I think that IBM has some great storage and data management solutions.

I think that IBM needs to take the blinders off or at least take the ropes off, remove the fences and let their teams and vars sell the whole solution set letting the customer decide perhaps in the course growing their storage business instead of helping their competitors.

Is IBM XIV still relevant?

Bottom line, I probably wont be getting any holiday cards from many IBM or XIV folks along with some of their die hard supporters, however it is what it is and I have said what I have to say for now while continuing to listening as well as following the progress of the solution.

Ultimately you will be the judge of if XIV is still relevant, cast your vote here.

Here are some additional resource links:

https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/mydeveloperworks/blogs/InsideSystemStorage/entry/ibm_acquires_xiv?lang=en

Ok, nuff said.

Cheers gs

Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press) and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier)
twitter @storageio

All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO LLC All Rights Reserved