There aren't many manufacturers of state-of-the-art software-defined storage solutions that plan to invest more of their resources improving a product that's already regarded as one of the best available.
Then again, there's only one IBM Spectrum Storage Suite. Here's why an investment in this platform can yield return on investment for years to come.
Current available solutions
Conventional storage is an outdated technology for a couple of reasons. The first being the most obvious—storing valuable information on a tangible server extends the company to unforeseeable physical damage. This could be as extreme as an earthquake, or as innocuous as a spilled cup of water. Data has become the No. 1 resource for many companies, begging the question as to why an IT department would put itself in this dangerous position.
The second reason being that technology has grown by leaps and bounds over just the past decade alone. Software-defined storage has become a viable alternative to conventional, as it reduces overhead and improves speed in a number of key metrics and allows for greater spatial possibilities as it isn't marred by physical restrictions.
In 2015 IBM announced it would be allocating $1 billion to further enhance and develop its Spectrum Storage Suite solution, which had just been ranked the No. 1 software-defined storage solution in 2014 by IDC, a research firm, according to a press release. This ensures that a company's investment into its infrastructure won't be a one-time transaction, as that money will go directly toward improving the product itself.
Spectrum Storage removes the physical limitations of conventional methods.Breaking down Spectrum Storage Suite
At the core of software-defined storage is the idea it allows a company to simultaneously expand its operation, better utilize data, reduce overhead and improve functionality across the board. A tall task for a storage platform. Through its proprietary applications that can't be found on other products, it certainly accomplishes this goal.
There's six applications that form the IBM Spectrum Storage Suite according to IBM's official website. At the heart of this is Spectrum Scale, which frees companies of any size from the storage restrictions associated with hyper-growth. Accelerate and Virtualize work best in tandem to fully deploy virtualized environments that increase storage capacity by five times on average in a matter of minutes, IBM reported.
In an effort to quantify the business value, IBM provided these figures:
- Spectrum Archive reduces expense of archived data by 90 percent.
- Spectrum Protect cuts back-up costs by 53 percent.
- Spectrum Control trims storage costs by nearly 70 percent.
With so many features already available, it'll be exciting to see what IBM has in store next for businesses that have adopted Spectrum Storage already.
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