NEWS BRIEFS

Armonk, N.Y. — IBM announced the industry’s first capacity on demand capability for both disk and tape storage systems, allowing customers to increase their existing storage capacity by the equivalent of nearly 1,000,000 novels – in under five seconds.

The rapid adoption of e-business and the corresponding explosion of information being created and shared over the Web – from text to sound to video – is causing an unprecedented strain on customers’ e-business infrastructures. In ten years, the volume of online data accessible either on the Internet or on corporate networks is expected to approach a yottabyte, or 1 billion terabytes. IBM’s new storage capacity on demand options are designed to meet the changing storage needs of rapidly-growing e-businesses.

“Customers are transforming their enterprises into e-businesses, and then looking to integrate their enterprises with the world,” said Linda Sanford, senior vice president and group executive, IBM Storage Systems Group. “This is putting an almost backbreaking stress on their e-business infrastructure – especially storage. With capacity on demand, customers can tap into additional storage in Internet time.”

IBM offers the industry’s broadest array of storage capacity on demand with five new offerings: – The Step Ahead feature for the “Shark” Enterprise Storage Server, which allows customers to access additional storage instantly;

— IBM’s QuickShip program, in which customers receive additional storage capacity within just 72 hours;

— Managed Storage Services from IBM Global Services which enable customers to purchase storage capacity and storage management services on a usage basis;

— Tivoli Storage Network Manager software, which brings capacity on demand features to a storage area network (SAN);

— “Financing on Demand” options that let growing e-businesses add storage capacity as it is needed, while spreading out the cost to fit their budget requirements.

The Step Ahead program for the “Shark” Enterprise Storage Server allows customers to access extra storage capacity as needed. When a customer enables the extra capacity included with the Shark, the system automatically reports the increase in capacity usage by automatically calling in to an IBM technology center. Step Ahead storage capacities are available in increments of 210, 420, 490 and 980 gigabytes, depending upon the initial capacity shipped with the system.

Customers of the IBM Magstar Virtual Tape Server model B18 can access additional capacity by increasing – from four to eight – the number of ESCON channels used to attach to the host server. In addition, the Virtual Tape Server offers cache on demand, which increases performance without disruption. Tape volume cache capacity can be increased from 72 gigabytes to 432 gigabytes, nearly instantly.

New hosted storage solutions from IBM Global Services let customers purchase storage capacity on a usage basis. The storage can be housed and managed off-site at one of more than 175 IBM Hosting Data Centers located around the world or be housed on-site at the customer location. Customers may also choose a hybrid solution, keeping some data in-house and outsourcing the rest.

IBM’s Tivoli Storage Network Manager software brings capacity on demand capabilities to a SAN by automatically identifying and allocating storage resources to host systems. After policies are set, Tivoli Storage Network Manager provides continuous, automatic monitoring of assigned resources, increasing storage as needed within the SAN. The result is a significant reduction in IT administration workload, while maintaining continuous application processing.

IBM is also providing flexible financing options that let customers pay for additional storage capacity as their needs grow – either when they activate the additional storage, in fixed capacity increments or as a one-time charge. All elements of a solution – including hardware, software and services – are eligible for financing under a single contract provided by IBM Global Financing. For more information, visit http://www.ibm.com/storage .

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