An ocean of possibilities with VersaStack
What lies just beneath the surface often surprises you.
For example, on its surface, the recently announced VersaStack for Hybrid Cloud is a powerful new solution for deploying both converged infrastructure and hybrid cloud resources all within one platform. That in itself is remarkable. But dive into VersaStack on one of the award-winning IBM FlashSystem or IBM Storwize all-flash arrays, use a little imagination as you peer down and you can see a broad spectrum of end user benefits, features and critical capabilities.
What you are seeing are the many software-defined storage solutions offered by IBM Spectrum Storage.
Offered jointly by IBM and Cisco, VersaStack brings together Cisco UCS integrated compute and network components with IBM Storage. All of the IBM Storage options for VersaStack are built with IBM Spectrum Storage software, which means that deploying FlashSystem V9000 or Storwize V5030F in your VersaStack solution opens the door to the entire suite of IBM Spectrum Storage software-defined storage solutions.
These solutions are already proven to work together in the most demanding mission-critical environments, not only on the IBM side, but between IBM and Cisco technologies as well. IBM Business Partners certainly recognize the significance of IBM Spectrum Storage in VersaStack solutions:
“VersaStack converged infrastructure solutions from IBM and Cisco help us simply, cost-effectively maximize the value our customers gain from the IT solutions we provide them. Because of their ability to integrate a broad range of IBM software-defined storage solutions with the versatility of Cisco UCS components, VersaStack solutions can address almost any performance and scalability requirements our customers bring to us, which gives Dynamix Group a substantial edge in every industry sector we support.”
-Chuck Hawkins, President of Dynamix Group, Inc
Designed for converged data center operations, Cisco UCS integrated platforms simplify hardware infrastructure, drastically reducing the number of devices requiring setup, management, power, cooling and cabling. The Cisco UCS platform provides superior performance, scalability, and high availability while also delivering a unified network fabric–all based on an application-centric design.
Your VersaStack solution will come with IBM Spectrum Storage capabilities, no matter how you configure it. IBM Spectrum Virtualize provides the foundation for a number of VersaStack storage options from both the IBM FlashSystem and Storwize families. IBM Spectrum Virtualize makes cloud connectivity possible through its Transparent Cloud Tiering. It provides data compression that can lower storage costs significantly and allows you to integrate nearly 400 different types of multi-vendor external storage systems to make them one storage resource with all the enterprise class data services included in IBM Spectrum Virtualize itself.
Once these IBM Spectrum Virtualize or IBM Spectrum Accelerate-based systems are part of your VersaStack platform, you can easily add IBM Spectrum Storage solutions to extend capabilities and functionality so that you can address almost any IT challenge, application workload or business use case. Do you need a high-performance file system and object storage solution? 
IBM Spectrum Scale provides the solution with global reach and a rich feature set that has been proven in the most demanding big data, AI and cognitive environments around the world. It can integrate well with IBM Cloud Object Storage to create a comprehensive file and object storage solution with native IBM Bluemix Infrastructure cloud integration that can make your unstructured data storage capacity seem essentially unlimited.
Want to transform your tape system into an active archive that makes petabytes of data surprisingly accessible while dramatically lowering storage costs? Consider deploying IBM Spectrum Archive. Is protecting your valuable data assets a top priority? Add IBM Spectrum Protect to manage leading-edge disaster recovery and data replication solutions. And if you want to drill down and analyze your storage systems so that you can make the best investment decisions, deploy IBM Spectrum Control either on premises or as a cloud service.
And remember, even if you deploy Cisco UCS servers independently of a VersaStack configuration, the entire family of IBM’s market-leading Spectrum Software Defined Storage portfolio will work on that UCS configuration – giving you even more opportunities to leverage the power of IBM storage. The full list of IBM Spectrum Storage solutions is as long as your list of storage challenges. If you have an ocean of data that feeds and supports your business and you’re planning to tame and manage it with VersaStack or independently deployed Cisco UCS servers, don’t forget to look beneath the surface. There you’ll find an ocean of solutions called IBM Spectrum Storage.
Read more about the announcement here and here.
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