IBM Releases New Object Storage Service

Today IBM introduced what it is calling the first cloud object storage service to redefine the security, availability, and economics of storing, managing and accessing massive amounts of digital information across hybrid clouds, IBM Object Storage Service. This new offering will include over 400 patents that IBM claims will deliver clients better value in the industry’s most secure environment.

Today IBM introduced what it is calling the first cloud object storage service to redefine the security, availability, and economics of storing, managing and accessing massive amounts of digital information across hybrid clouds, IBM Object Storage Service. This new offering will include over 400 patents that IBM claims will deliver clients better value in the industry’s most secure environment.

Adoption to the cloud for enterprises is growing faster than ever. While the cloud provides better agility and efficiencies, there are still some issues with storing large volumes of data. These large volumes of data are increasing and companies are taking a hybrid approach to tackle it, storing it both on and off-premises. While this method is effective it does hinder agility and flexibility. IBM’s new Object Storage Service is designed for just such concerns.

The IBM Object Storage Service is a Storage-as-a-Service (SaaS) offering that enables customers to quickly and easily scale large unstructured data volumes across on-premises systems and public and private clouds. IBM states that this ability will bring back flexibility while saving on costs of storage, the company claims up to 25% savings on storage compared to competitive offerings. IBM Object Storage Service is built off of Cleversafe, which was acquired by IBM last year. Taking the innovation of Cleversafe, IBM has developed SecureSlice to store and manage data in a reliable manner across regions on the IBM cloud.

SecureSlice is at the heart of IBM Object Storage Service. SecureSlice combines encryption, erasure coding and geo-dispersal of data for greater security, availability, economics, and flexibility. The key points of SecureSlice include:

• Security – IBM has combined erasure coding with encryption and decryption. IBM Object Storage Service automatically encrypts data before it is erasure coded and dispersed. Users will be able to re-assemble data at their primary data center using IBM Cloud’s “Accesser” technology and have it decrypted by SecureSlice.
• Availability – IBM states that its Object Storage Service can withstand catastrophic regional outages without any interruption in access to data or the need for customer intervention. The second copy of data for fault tolerance is created and maintained by SecureSlice as opposed to the customer.
• Economics – IBM also claims that its SaaS can deliver better economics than competitive offerings. IBM ran an internal benchmark comparing its Object Storage Service versus Amazon S3. Managing half a petabyte of data in head-to-head Cross Regional service, IBM Object Storage Service was nearly 24% less expensive than S3, once the data was bumped up to 5PB, Object Storage Service was 25% less expensive.
• Flexibility – IBM Cloud Object Storage is offered in two modes: Cross Regional Service, which sends the sliced data to at least three geographically dispersed regions across IBM Cloud data centers; and Regional Service, which holds the data in multiple data centers in a given region. Both services provide encrypted erasure coding via SecureSlice. And IBM Cloud Object Storage offers on or off-premises support Amazon S3 and OpenStack Swift interfaces.

Availability

IBM Cloud Object Storage is available now for enterprise clients across IBM Cloud data centers in the US and Europe and will be available in the Asia Pacific region in December. Availability via digital channels, with swipe-and-go credit card support, will begin in the US starting in December and Europe soon thereafter.

IBM Cloud Object Storage services

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