IBM to sell Elastic Storage in a Power-based box

An integrated Elastic StorageStorage system built around the IBMIBM Power platform, as well as support for Elastic Storage for Linux-based System Z mainframes, will be announced Monday at the IBM Enterprise14 conference in Las Vegas. Both are due to go on sale Dec. 5. They're the latest products based on Elastic Storage, which was introduced in May. Alles zu IBM auf CIO.de Alles zu Storage auf CIO.de

Elastic Storage is software that can turn file and object storage all across an enterprise, from tape to server-based flash, into a single, virtualized pool of capacity. Depending on the needs of applications, it can automatically shift data between those resources for faster access to the most critical data. IBM is now set to offer it as software for existing systems, as a cloud-based service and as a preconfigured system to roll into a data center.

The IBM Elastic Storage Server will be a combination of IBM Power Systems server hardware, storage enclosures and disks along with Elastic Storage software. It will come in a range of configurations to meet the needs of different size enterprises and will be scalable to hundreds of petabytes of capacity, the company said.

Also on Monday, IBM will announce Elastic Storage for Linux on System Z, ensuring customers can run the software in Linux virtual machines within the company's System Z mainframes.

Much as computing and networking have gone from being built into dedicated hardware to being implemented across shared capacity, some storage systems are now defined by software, too. EMC announced an ambitious entry into this field in May with its ViPR 2.0 software, which also brings together a vast array of storage resources. Like ViPR, Elastic Storage can be implemented on hardware from third-party vendors.