From 2017 to the first quarter of 2018, IBM's storage performance was impressive, ranking second in the global storage market, ranking first in the SDS software-defined storage market, and ranking among the top in many segments, and has achieved growth for four consecutive quarters, becoming the A beautiful landscape in IBM's many businesses. Why is IBM storage able to achieve such robust and excellent results? In the author's opinion, this is due to IBM's forward-looking vision, such as continuous innovation in important storage technology trends such as flash memory and software-defined storage, and its ability to be down-to-earth, such as providing market users with a flexible and convenient product portfolio.
01 Deeply cultivated flash memory, excellent results
As we all know, there are two most important technology trends in the global storage market: flash memory and software-defined storage (SDS). The two fastest growing areas of the market.
"Last year, 40% of IBM's storage products sold were all-flash arrays, and this year this figure is expected to reach 70%. " In an interview a few days ago, Doug Balog, general manager of IBM's global storage division, said.
In fact, IBM is one of the first storage manufacturers to deploy flash memory technology and cultivate the flash memory market. Starting from IBM's high-end storage DS8000 series adding flash technology to the acquisition of FlashSystem all-flash array company, IBM's grasp of flash memory trends leads the market. For example, FlashSystem took the lead in using 3D TLC flash media to bring quality to the capacity and storage density of all-flash arrays. The application of NVMe Over Fabric in IBM all-flash array products has greatly improved storage network performance and greatly reduced latency.
Doug Balog said: "Take the most popular artificial intelligence applications as an example, such as deep learning, which requires a large amount of data for training, the biggest challenge for storage is how to quickly access data, and NVMe technology can actually It solves the access speed very well and completes the training more quickly.”
Continued investment in flash memory has also brought good market feedback. According to the latest research data provided by Wells Fargo, IBM achieved a year-on-year growth of 22.3% in all-flash array sales in the fourth quarter of 2017, significantly higher than other competitors.
It is considered only a matter of time before flash memory replaces traditional disks in data centers. However, affected by the capacity of flash memory chips in the past two years, the price of all-flash arrays is still quite expensive, and the price is still the biggest challenge for users to use all-flash arrays. In this regard, Doug Balog believes that from the perspective of reliability, long-term cost and technology development, all-flash arrays must be superior to traditional disk systems, "If users buy a traditional disk storage system, they will find this in three or five years. The product is very outdated.”
"What's more critical is that flash technology has been constantly updated and developed. Now there are 7TB flash drives, and there will be 15TB flash drives soon. The flash industry is maturing, and the cost will be lower and lower. So in terms of cost and industry trends, all-flash arrays must be the best choice for users." Doug Balog added.
02 SDS to maximize the added value of storage
Software-defined storage (SDS) is one of the most important trends in storage. It can simplify the use of storage resources and maximize the value of storage. It is currently the field with the highest threshold in storage. It requires a lot of breakthroughs in the software level of storage manufacturers. and innovation.
Compared with other manufacturers, IBM has a very deep accumulation in the SDS field and has a complete series of SDS products, including Spectrum Scale, Spectrum Virtualize, Spectrum Protect/Plus, Spectrum Accelerate and other products, covering distributed file systems, virtualization , data protection, data management and other storage functions. In recent years, through the acquisition of CleverSafe, the No. 1 object storage company in the market, the strength of its object storage software has been greatly improved.
In addition to innovation in software functions, IBM Storage also attaches great importance to the change of user environment and usage habits. IBM hopes to use IBM's SDS functions well in any environment. Doug Balog said: "The added value of storage is all reflected at the software level. In addition to various private cloud environments, our Spectrum series products are easily migrated to different types of public cloud platforms to run."
03What makes IBM storage easy to use?
与IBM其他硬件产品会出现波动情况不同，IBM存储近年来都保持着极为稳健的增长，位列全球存储市场排名第二，同时在软件定义存储、对象存储、磁带存储等细分市场排名第一。之所以在存储市场表现的游刃有余，IBM认为完善、灵活的产品组合是关键所在。
过去有一些误解认为，IBM存储往往是依靠IBM Power或者主机这些硬件业务来带动销售的，但Doug Balog强调情况并非如此：“以IBM第四季度为例，主机、Power服务器以及存储三条产品线都有非常快的增长，但是这些增长的关联性其实并没有那么强。虽然存储的确会受益于主机等业务的增长，但这只是IBM存储增长的一小部分，IBM存储有着它独立的市场需求和独特的业务重点。”
IBM大中华区存储及软件定义基础架构总经理吴磊认为从客户价值的角度出发，提供完善、灵活的产品组合是整个市场的趋势。“我们需要给客户提供自由，这种自由就体现在完善和灵活的产品组合上，可以是硬件与硬件的组合，硬件与软件的组合，软件与软件的组合，可以支持传统的数据中心，也可以支持多云环境。”
在笔者看来，IBM存储迎来最佳的发展时期，竞争对手们要么处于并购整合期、市场表现不给力，要么开始向其他领域转型、存储不在成为核心业务，外加上2017年下半年，IBM Z14主机、Power9服务器等一批服务器新产品上市带来了联动效应，IBM存储业务的受益必然会只多不少。2018年IBM交出何种答卷，让我们拭目以待。