IBM Expands Storage Software to Help Companies Meet Hybrid Cloud Requirements

IBM Spectrum Protect adds new cloud backup; helps companies reduce backup infrastructure costs

IBM Spectrum Accelerate now available as a service on IBM Cloud

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Aug 26, 2015, 09:30 ET

ARMONK, N.Y., Aug. 26, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced that it is adding new cloud features to two IBM Spectrum Storage offerings as part of the company's investment in software defined storage. Over the last six months, more than 1,000 new clients have chosen products from the IBM Spectrum Storage portfolio for their data storage needs.

IBM Spectrum Protect Backs Up More Data in the Cloud

IBM has been recognized as a "Leader" in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Backup Software and Integrated Appliances¹ for five consecutive years for IBM Spectrum Protect. With new features, IBM Spectrum Protect can now help businesses back up data to on-premises object storage or the cloud, without the need for cloud-gateway appliances. IBM Spectrum Protect supports IBM Cloud infrastructure today with a plan to expand the support to other public clouds in future.

A single IBM Spectrum Protect server performs the work of up to 15 CommVault servers.² This means that large enterprises can consolidate backup servers to reduce cost and complexity, while managing data growth from mobile, social and Internet of Things. Small and medium size businesses (SMBs) can eliminate the need for additional backup servers, media servers or deduplication appliances. Cost analysis with several beta customers indicates that the enhanced IBM Spectrum Protect software can help clients reduce backup infrastructure costs on average by up to 53 percent.³

Cloud service provider Tectrade, backs up more than 13,000 systems per day using IBM Spectrum Protect:

"IBM Spectrum Protect offers significant enhancements and richer functionality than many other virtual backup technologies that are available in the market today," said William Bush, technical services manager, Tectrade. "You don't have to run a separate virtualization-only technology to supplement IBM Spectrum Protect, so you get a single comprehensive management and storage experience."

In the fourth quarter of 2015, IBM Spectrum Protect will be offered as an option on the VersaStack solutions jointly developed by IBM and Cisco.

IBM Spectrum Accelerate Brings Hyperscale Storage to the Cloud

IBM Spectrum Accelerate on Cloud provides IBM Spectrum Accelerate as a service to IBM Cloud customers via its SoftLayer infrastructure. It helps companies to deploy block storage on SoftLayer without having to buy new storage hardware or manage a large appliance farm.

"IBM Spectrum Accelerate on Cloud enables us to do off-site copies, snapshots and asynchronous replication of data from our data centers to IBM Cloud from a unified management dashboard," said Juha Kukka, services design manager of cloud service provider Enfo Oyj. "This helps simplify management, reduce administration and lower costs, allowing us to bring efficiency to our clients."

IBM is also enhancing the software-only version of IBM Spectrum Accelerate to reduce costs by consolidating storage and compute resources on the same servers. IBM Spectrum Accelerate is now available with portable licensing across XIV systems, on- premises servers, and cloud environments to offer greater operational flexibility and help support clients as they transform their IT infrastructures to software defined storage.

About IBM Spectrum Storage

IBM's Spectrum Storage portfolio can centrally manage more than 300 different storage devices and yottabytes of data. This device interoperability is the broadest in the industry – incorporating both IBM and non-IBM hardware and tape systems. IBM Spectrum Storage can help reduce storage costs up to 90 percent in certain environments by automatically moving data onto the most economical storage device – either from IBM or non-IBM flash, disk and tape systems.

IBM Spectrum Storage portfolio includes key storage software such as IBM Spectrum Accelerate, Spectrum Virtualize, Spectrum Scale, Spectrum Control, Spectrum Protect and Spectrum Archive.

For more information about software defined storage offerings from IBM, visit www.ibm.com/spectrumstorage.

¹ Gartner, Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Backup Software and Integrated Appliances, June 15, 2015 Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner's research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

² Based on CommVault sizing and configuration guidelines, compared to IBM, http://docs.commvault.com/commvault/v10/article?p=system_requirements/commcell_sizing.htm

³ IBM customer assessments using Butterfly software.

Contact: Chaiti Sen, [email protected]

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SOURCE IBM