IBM announced an open beta for its Spectrum Scale Transparent Cloud Tiering. The beta will allow users to test functionality and offer feedback for this new program. IBM will use the feedback to raise software-defined storage (SDS) to a higher level than just cost-effectiveness. IBM hopes to promote innovations in SDS that will improve overall economics, performance, resiliency and flexibility.
As we stated previously, IBM Spectrum Scale is a proven, scalable, high-performance file and object management solution delivering simplified data management and integrated information lifecycle tools capable of managing petabytes of data and billions of files, in order to manage the growing cost of dealing with ever increasing amounts of data. The new Transparent Cloud Tiering feature allows for the addition of public or private cloud object storage as a target for Spectrum Scale data. In other words, this is an integration of cloud-scale storage directly into Spectrum Scale. Data can be placed on Cleversafe, SoftLayer object storage, or Amazon S3 just as easily as it can be placed in a local storage array.
Cloud storage has lots of benefits but cost is generally the one that comes to mind first. However companies are hesitant to add cloud storage for fear of disrupting their current data operations. Here’s where transparent cloud tiering comes in. Companies can enjoy the benefits of cloud storage without losing track of data. And Spectrum Scale extends its policy-driven targeting, migration, encryption and unified access to the data in the cloud-scale object storage.
Amazon