IBM made a splash this week with the launch of the Storwize V7000, a midrange storage system that incorporates elements of IBM’s (NYSE: IBM) SAN Volume Controller (SVC), as well as its Easy Tier technology and the XIV interface. But something’s missing. Even though the V7000 carries the Storwize name, it doesn’t include any of the capacity optimization technology IBM acquired when it bought Storwize earlier this year. In fact, IBM has ceased using the Storwize brand name altogether, except when it comes to the V7000 family.
“IBM recently acquired Storwize, which specialized in real-time data compression for primary storage. Big Blue has apparently scuttled the Storwize name as it applies to that company’s products. The products now fall into the IBM Real-time Compression (note the url on that page) operation, and the products are generally referred to as IBM Real-time Compression Appliances for NAS, although IBM seems to be keeping the specific model names; e.g., the STN 6500 (up to 16 Gigabit Ethernet connections) and STN 6800 (up to eight 10GbE connections).
“However, headlining today’s product blitz was the IBM Storwize V7000 array which, at least for now, apparently does not have any of the technology associated with the products from the former Storwize company.
“I thought I was missing something, so I checked in with Greg Schulz at The Server and StorageIO Group (formerly StorageIO), who was also confused on IBM’s re-purposing of the Storwize moniker. Here’s what Greg had to say:
“If IBM was trying to make a cloud storage announcement, they may have succeeded in creating a layer of fog around the renaming of the data footprint reduction (dfr) company formerly known as Storwize to Real-time Compression.
“‘That may be straightforward, but what’s confusing, or foggy, is the use or recycling of the Storwize brand name, which was gaining ground and awareness around real-time compression for primary storage, to name an SVC-based storage virtualization system. Are they trying to say that using the V7000 is storage wise, or smart? Are they trying to differentiate from SVC, or storage virtualization, or virtual storage? Or trying to ride the growing awareness around the Storwize brand name?’
“As mentioned, the confusing part is that the Storwize V7000 does not have Storwize’s (the company) real-time compression technology, at least not yet.
“The IBM Storwize V7000 is a mid-range storage system that incorporates elements of IBM’s SAN Volume Controller (SVC), as well as Big Blue’s Easy Tier technology and the XIV interface. (IBM claims that Easy Tier provides a performance improvement of up to 300% via automatic migration to solid-state disk drives, and the SVC functionality enables users to virtualize existing storage resources.) The Storwize V7000 also includes IBM technologies such as FlashCopy, Systems Director, ProtecTIER, and thin provisioning.”
For more, read “IBM: Goodbye Storwize, Hello Storwize” at InfoStor.
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