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Flash storage is a game changer

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DQI Bureau
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India's storage landscape is influenced by the data flows which have significantly gone up. Enterprises are putting in a lot of money in buying storage devices that help them streamline their data. However, frenzy is around what kind of storage technology they should invest in. Flash storage is also gaining strength globally and seems to have a lot of value for companies where data is growing significantly. To discuss how flash storage can change the way enterprises store data in India, Dataquest caught up with Sandeep Dutta, country manager, storage system & technology group, IBM India / SA

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How does IBM look at the storage market in India?

We do a lot of investment in research and hold a number of patents in this regard. There is a requirement for storage in different segments. IBM makes sure that the customers are aware of the storage architecture that they require. With trends like BYOD, 24*7 availability, etc, it is making companies look at storage much more seriously. IBM is making people aware of the fact that the right kind of data is sitting on the right kind of storage for maximum optimization of space. We call it data-tiering. Also, there is a need among customers for simplification of storage since we advocate smarter storage.

What steps are you taking to boost the customer confidence?

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IBM looks at the entire spectrum of the market cutting across SMBs to large enterprises. Each organization has a different storage requirement. We offer the Storage Infrastructure Optimization study to analyze the storage architecture and help customers make informed buying decisions. We conduct these studies for our customers to see their storage requirements and the existing storage optimization. The results of the study have been taken by the customers with a "wow" factor. The SIO study gives the customers a clear picture of the storage architecture. We also engage with their customers, bring them resources from our Labs and present them with the right set of results or findings. Also the storage architecture that we recommend is future proof since we create virtualized storage architecture.

What are the storage trends catching up fast considering all hue and cry in the market?

Some of the trends that IBM sees catching up are: Storage efficiency or optimization, virtualization, tiering of data, and flash storage. While tiering of data is very important since a company should know the location of data stored on the disk, flash storage is the next big thing which will surely see a rising trend.

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What makes you believe that flash storage will be an instrument of change in the enterprise segment?

Flash is catching up with the enterprise segment very fast. Flash is a game changer as the enterprises feel it has the capability to solve performance issues. Also, there is reduction in infrastructure footprint. So, flash is the new wave that enterprises will ride on.

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How is flash different from SSD, disk or tape storage? What are the advantages for customers by investing in flash?

Flash is more durable and efficient. Also, the power consumption in flash is very less compared to disks. Flash is a size of a card. So, a company would ultimately spend less on space footprint. Performance of flash is superior to disk or SSDs. For eg, if 800 to 1,000 disks are required for 500,000 IOPS, then 1U is required for the same performance in flash. Also, the cost per IOP in flash is $1. Even the power consumption in flash is tremendously low. In a separate research, we configured one full rack of flash storage, which delivered 20 mn IOPS for which the power consumption was 236 times lower than conventional disk-based system. So, it consumed 19 kw of power against 4.5 mw for a disk-based system.

How do you place your outlook for the coming year? What verticals do you think will buy more?

As per an example, network speed has increased from 1 mbps to 10 gbps now. Also, the software defined layer is very critical for performance in storage. Flash is a huge game changer in the storage space as well. And, it is definitely going to gain a lot of traction. SMBs are beginning to see immense value in flash. Government, manufacturing, and the BFSI sectors are well-poised to take optimum advantage of the technology.

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