Celebrating a family of software-defined storage leaders
Software-defined storage (SDS) is a solution that separates storage intelligence from the underlying infrastructure. It is intended to enable optimal hardware flexibility as applications interact only with the software, potentially creating many cost and deployment advantages.
With SDS driving substantial savings in CAPEX, OPEX and operational manpower needs, enterprises of all types and sizes are embracing SDS-based solutions. SDS is designed to use less expensive hardware, allows 
for the extension of the life and value of existing storage infrastructure and provides consistent features across off-the-shelf infrastructure or multi-vendor storage array environments. In short, SDS can bring enterprise class data services and storage functions to storage deployments: block, file and object. Capabilities such as automated and transparent data movement, heterogeneous storage virtualization, storage disaster and replication technology, data encryption, and comprehensive data reduction are part of the IBM award-winning Spectrum Storage SDS family.
IBM has long been an SDS leader. The IBM Spectrum Storage initiative began with a statement to invest more than one billion dollars over five years to unify and simplify disparate storage software product lines. In late 2015, IBM acquired Cleversafe and moved assertively into the object storage space. By early 2016, all IBM Spectrum Storage offerings — and now IBM Cloud Object storage software — had been unified under one licensing model. Extensive hybrid cloud capability has spread across the IBM Spectrum Storage portfolio.
IBM Spectrum Storage has been very successful from the very beginning. The family has won numerous awards and been named a “leader” by several of the largest storage industry analyst firms since its launch. More important, enterprises around the globe have actively embraced and adopted IBM Spectrum Storage solutions. Now, 87 of the Fortune Global 100 use IBM Spectrum Storage, including:
- 49 of the top 50 banks
- 14 of the top 15 telecommunications companies
- 18 of the top 20 energy companies
- 9 of the top 10 global healthcare companies
- 8 of the top 10 automobile manufacturers
In fact, almost 80 new clients choose IBM Spectrum Storage every week.
But IBM Spectrum Storage is certainly not resting on its accomplishments. This week, the second anniversary of the launch of the IBM Spectrum Storage family is being celebrated with a broad “spectrum” of announcements about new upgrades, features and capabilities. IBM Spectrum Storage family members will now offer support for key private and hybrid cloud infrastructure technologies. This includes VMware 6 support in IBM Spectrum Accelerate and support for Supermicro servers in IBM Spectrum Virtualize. By prioritizing an open ecosystem approach, IBM Spectrum Virtualize now supports over 400 storage systems. IBM Spectrum Control Storage Insights has added EMC support. And IBM Cloud Object Storage now supports native NFS file access and IPv6. These are just a few of the many innovations and improvements being rolled out to customers.
Around the world, IBM Spectrum Storage Suite continues to be the leading software defined storage foundation for object storage, hybrid cloud and hosted private cloud environments. Please join me this week in recognizing and celebrating these many accomplishments, as the IBM Spectrum Storage family prepares to deliver even more capability in 2017.
Find out how IBM Spectrum Storage can deliver a hybrid cloud solution for you.
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