Somers, (NY) – IBM says it has managed to improve system performance by up to 800 per cent through the introduction of Solid State Drives (SSDs) and new software.
The company also reckons that the use of SSDs can reduce the physical footprint of storage by approximately 80 per cent and energy consumption by up to 90 per cent. Solid-state storage can handle up to 20,000 transfers per second compared to around 200 on a conventional disk.
IBM’s Data Facility Storage Management Subsystem (DFSMS) provides ‘targeted data placement’ on SSDs in an IBM zSeries and DS8000 environment. As the company expects most customers to operate a hybrid environment using both SSDs and traditional disks, SSD Data Balancer software allows system administrators to move frequently accessed data to SSDs, while keeping less-used data on cheaper traditional hard drives.
IBM claims the use of its data management software will mean faster credit checks, real-time financial analytics and enhanced fraud detection with performance on IBM DB2 databases up by as much as 800 per cent.
Big Blue is also adding to its System x lineup of diskless drive options with new SATA-style SSDs. BladeCenter was updated with new 2.1 watt, 50GB SSD in a 2.5-inch disk package. A 50GB drive, designed for higher I/O performance, is available in either a 2.5-inch or 3.5-inch form factor for blades and System x rack and tower servers. The SSDs can support Windows, Linux, and ESX Server, VMware’s hypervisor.
