IBM introduces Storage-as-a-Service on hybrid cloud

IBM has introduced a new Cloud Object Storage Service which it is claiming to be industry’s first Storage-as-a-Service. The launch of this service is evident as IBM acquired Cleversafe last year, a developer and manufacturer of object-based storage software and appliance company. Big Blue states that this acquisition has led the company to position itself in the storage space better. The new service will enable clients to scale big data across on-premises systems as well as public and private clouds quickly and easily. Cleversafe’s Dispersed Storage Network solutions enhance on-premise storage options for clients and service providers with low-cost, large scale active archives and unstructured data content stores and it complements IBM’s software portfolio for data protection and backup, tape archive, as well as a high performance file and object solution which is focused on response time. The storage service will increase the flexibility and security of IT systems. In a price comparison of identical object storage capacity running on a competitive cloud, the new IBM Cloud Object Storage demonstrated more than 25% lower costs for the capacity, environment and locations. The platform is built on SecureSlice and is specifically designed to make storing and managing that data on the IBM Cloud reliable and available across regions round the clock. SecureSlice combines encryption and erasure coding for greater security and information dispersal which enhances data availability. These fundamental technologies can help clients satisfy their data compliance security requirements and maintain access to critical data even in the face of a regional outage. Robert LeBlanc, Senior Vice President, IBM Cloud stated, “As clients continue to move massive workloads to hybrid clouds there is a need for an easier, more secure and economical way to store and manage mounting volumes of digital information. With today’s announcement, IBM becomes the leading cloud vendor to provide clients the flexibility and availability of object data storage across on-premises and public clouds.”

How does it work?

It transforms the content by encrypting, expanding, slicing and dispersing data and those slices are distributed to separate disks and commodity hardware across geographic locations. Real-time, bit-perfect data is highly available and can be retrieved with a subset of slices—even with individual servers or entire sites down. IBM claims that the service is easy to operate as it is:

• Flexible: User can move workloads across these environments to scale with the changing needs of business. In addition, a common software infrastructure can be used with complete license and interface flexibility.
• Scalable: The web-scale storage platform enables performance and capacity to scale independently reaching exabyte levels.
• Simple: Huge volume of data can be managed and streamlined with the simplified storage system and monitored accordingly.

According to the company, IBM Cloud Object Storage is being offered in two public, multi-tenant services: Cross Region Service, which sends the sliced data to at least three geographically dispersed regions across IBM Cloud data centers; and Regional Service, which holds the data in multiple data centers in a given region. IBM claims that for the first time IT organizations with on-premises storage will be able to move data to and from the cloud. IBM Cloud Object Storage is available now for enterprise clients across IBM Cloud data centers in the US and Europe and will be available in the Asia Pacific region in December.