In case you missed it, IBM just announced a new model of its popular FlashSystem family, the C200. While IBM product naming conventions remain a mystery, one could assume the “C” in C200 stands for capacity. In simple terms, think of a large deep disk pizza box (2U in rack size) that houses over 1 PB of data (raw) or 2 TB of data (effective). Not a new concept. But when all that capacity is IBM FlashCore Module (FCM) based, that is new. High on capacity, very fast, very low on energy used (2 kW, under 7 kBTU), and 100% IBM flash. No spinning disk, no SSD, just 100% NVMe flash storage.
Twenty-four 46 TB FCM4 modules provide the capacity noted above and the product features a simple scaling design. There is no need for expansion drawers — just buy and scale the C200 horizontally, with controller processing power and cache automatically scaling as the capacity increases. The old concept of balanced performance keeps coming back in new ways. This new implementation is called the FlashSystem grid and allows these subsystems to be centrally managed.
Since all FlashSystem products are supported by IBM Storage Insights, you have control via a single pane of glass for all of these products across your enterprise. As you may recall, Storage Insights (SI) is a cloud based, AI infused, monitoring and reporting tool for all IBM FlashSystem products as well as many others. Not only does SI monitor and report on the FS products, but it also surfaces information quickly to both the customer and IBM for quicker repair actions. It offers proactive threat detection, monitoring, and reporting as well (see my earlier blogs). Best of all, SI comes as standard part of IBM’s Expert Care Service (i.e., at no added cost).
Next, let’s go to where “rubber meets road” as they say. The list price for this solution, with five years of IBM 24x7 support, is $600K. That’s roughly $300 per TB TCO list price — including five years of 24x7 support —for an all-flash solution.
Other storage providers in the industry have nothing that can outperform the IBM FlashSystem products today, either in terms of raw performance or in cost/TB for compatible performance. This comment speaks to the IBM FS 5300, 7300, and 9500 products. But for the workloads that don’t need 100% of the blinding speed FCM technology can deliver, there is a new capacity option also available at about a third less cost per TB than the models above.
Interested? We would be happy to discuss. Contact us to learn more!