IBM will release its two latest versions of its high-end storage
system, code named Shark, in August, making significant upgrades to
the overall performance and capacity of the system, the company
said. The move will place it head to head with rival Hitachi Data
Systems (HDS), according to an industry analyst.
The Model 800 and the beefier 800 Turbo will join the existing
models in IBM's TotalStorage Enterprise Storage Server range. The
systems will start shipping worldwide 16 August with some of the
company's most advanced processor, disc drive and interconnect
technology.
Overall, the improved technology should boost the system's
performance by as much 2.5 times over previous Shark systems, said
Jim Kelly, vice-president of marketing in IBM's storage products
division.
IBM's new high-end system will go up against the Lightning 9900a
V-Series storage server announced by HDS in May.
IBM has made enough improvement with the Model 800 to place it on
even ground against the widely-praised Lighting 9900a, said John
McArthur, group vice-president of worldwide market research at
analyst firm IDC.
"These systems will go head to head against each other," McArthur
said. "This will be a couple of giants going in and smacking each
other around. I'm not placing bets on either one."
Both IBM and HDS also compete against storage leader EMC, which has
not recently upgraded its high-end Symmetrix line. McArthur said he
expects EMC to refresh the Symmetrix products soon, to better
compete against the new systems from IBM and HDS.
IBM's new systems will be the first in the Shark line to use the
company's copper-based processors, one of the keys to the improved
performance, Kelly said. The Model 800 holds up to four of the
processors, while the 800 Turbo will ship with six. The Model 800
was designed for customers that need to store less than 9Tbytes of
data, while the 800 Turbo was built to handle larger amounts of
information.
The Shark systems can use 18Gbyte, 36Gbyte and 72Gbyte drives
running at 10,000 revolutions per minute (rpm) or 15,000 rpm, Kelly
said.
The new Shark also comes with some of IBM's Project eLiza
technology for automated management of the hardware. This
technology can notify administrators of potential problems with
components such as power supplies or hard discs, and can improve
the performance of the cache and I/O functions, for example.
A base configuration of the Model 800 will cost around $400,000
(£256,713).