Out of the gate, the appeal of IBM's virtualization products will be limited to IBM shops: Initially they will support Enterprise Storage Server (a.k.a. Shark) and FastT storage systems. Sometime later in 2003, IBM plans to expand support for third-party storage systems, and the company says customers will be entitled to a "simple nondisruptive upgrade" as this support becomes available.
Barnett adds that IBM will start with "some of the more popular vendors." While he declines to name which ones those are, it seems a sure bet that HP and EMC Corp. (NYSE: EMC) will be on the short list.
Pricing for the SAN Volume Controller, which is delivered as two Linux-based IBM servers, is $60,000 for the ability to handle up to 2 Tbytes of storage. At the entry-level configuration, optional software includes FlashCopy, which is an additional $20,000, and Peer-to-Peer Remote Copy (PPRC), which is $30,000. "The pricing of the software scales with tiers of storage you're managing," Barnett notes. For example, a SAN Volume Controller for 5 Tbytes is $95,000.
The SAN integration Server, meanwhile, is a turnkey system that includes two SAN Volume Controllers, a FastT storage array, and two 16-port Brocade Communications Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: BRCD) switches. It is priced starting at $140,000, which includes 500 Gbytes of raw storage and installation services.
IBM is also touting the performance and scaleability of the SAN Volume Controller, which the company claims can pool up to 2 petabytes of storage. A two-node entry-level system provides up to 140,000 I/O operations per second (IOPS) and up to 890 MByte/s throughput, according to IBM. With four nodes, those performance metrics double, Barnett says.
To realize the benefits of cloud-native software, an application must actually be cloud-native—designed to run in the cloud, interacting with disaggregated cloud services, fully manageable as code—to deliver the expected benefits.
By combining resources and expertise, the AI-Enabled ICT Workforce Consortium will offer a blueprint for how industries can adapt to an AI-dominated future.
IT leaders should heed the guidance of cybersecurity insurance providers who think businesses should prioritize security education, incident preparedness, regular internal audits, and ongoing vulnerability scanning and patching.
