IBM's storage strategy is scale-up and scale-out. For scale-up, IBM has developed or bought-in a series of products that compete adequately in each storage class - high-end, modular, low-end, tape, VTL, etc. For scale-out, IBM has concentrated on developing technologies and services that provide a common framework for efficient management of these piece parts. The framework comes in the form of the SVC and specific management software.
The most important parts of this announcement were the shoring up of the high-end (scale-up), and incremental enhancements to the scale-out technology integration management framework or "the glue." This included enhancements to the SAN Volume Controller (SVC), the introduction of the System Storage Productivity Center, and the Virtual File Manager.™ On balance, IBM's integration strategy is the best in the business.
Action Item: IT management should expect vendors to perform the integration of storage piece parts. Integrating internally is not a sustainable long term strategy.
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