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IBM

IBM is the world's largest information technology services and consulting provider. Some 190,000 professionals in more than 160 countries help clients integrate information technology with business value -- from the business transformation and industry expertise of IBM Business Consulting Services to hosting, infrastructure, technology design and training services. IBM services business delivers integrated, flexible and resilient processes across companies and through business partners, enabling clients to save money and transform their businesses to be more competitive. For more information, visit www.ibm.com/services.

See also:- IBM - editor mentions on STORAGEsearch.com, IBM article comparing SAS SSDs with PCIe SSDs, IBM's flash SSD page
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Editor's comments:- re IBM and SSDs - September 2012

It took many years for IBM's SSD strategy to materialize into a recognizable shape.

Like other server companies - initially it was not in IBM's interests to educate customers about SSDs because they feared it would reduce server sales. But as I predicted in my 2003 SSD market adoption article - as soon as user knowledge about SSDs reached a critical mass and other server makers started to adopt them - server makers like IBM potentially realized they would lose server sales if they didn't support them.

Before their born-again enthusiasm for SSDs - IBM (in 2006) had publicly ridiculed products from SSD makers such as Texas Memory Systems - and / or claimed that other SSD products in the market weren't good enough to use yet. (A similar ploy to another SSD latecomer Seagate.)

Like many other server companies IBM initially went for the "safe" option of remarketing, reselling or rebadging proven SSD products from companies like Fusion-io, STEC, SanDisk and others.

IBM's recently announced agreement to acquire Texas Memory Systems (August 2012) has within it the potential to rapidly scale into a multi-billion dollar revenue SSD business unit.
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Recent IBM SSD milestones from SSD Market History.

July 2007 - SanDisk announced that its SATA 5000 2.5-inch SSD will be offered as an option in IBM's new BladeCenter HS21 XM.

April 2008 - IBM Previews Racetrack Solid State Storage

August 2008 - Fusion-io's SSDs were the secret ingredient in an IBM "million IOPS" story.

September 2008 - IBM announced a technology collaboration with Fusion-io

In February 2009 - IBM published a well written article - SSDs for Enterprise Storage (pdf) which introduces the need for SSD acceleration and explains IBM's strategy in this market.

In May 2009 - STEC confirmed that its SSDs are oemed in several popular IBM servers and storage systems.

In December 2009 - Fusion-io announced that its ioMemory PCIe SSD technology has been adapted by IBM who will remarket these solutions (initially with upto 320GB capacity) as its High IOPS SSD PCIe Adapters for use in System x servers.

In August 2012 - IBM announced it will acquire Texas Memory Systems
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more SSD articles you may be interested in - here on StorageSearch.com

Strategic Transitions in SSD
controllers for big SSD architecture
where are we now with SSD software?
an introduction to enterprise SSD silos
how fast can your SSD run backwards?
the Survivor's Guide to Enterprise SSDs
Auto-tuning SSD Accelerated Pools of storage
High availability fault tolerant SSD arrays market
usable flash SSD capacity - the iceberg syndrome
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IBM aims to be multi-billion dollar flash systems supplier
Editor:- April 12, 2013 - 3 years ago I wrote a blog about the confusing nature of the "RamSan" brand of SSDs from Texas Memory Systems given that all the recent models in the family were in fact flash memory rather than RAM based - and furthermore some of the models didn't connect via an FC SAN but used PCIe instead.

So it wasn't a surprise to see in yesterday's announcement by IBM (who acquired TMS last year) that the RamSan designation has been dropped in favor of the more accurate sounding "FlashSystem" in those models which migrated intact to IBM's enterprise flash product line.

So - for example in the category of high availability rackmount SSDs - the old RamSan-720 (SLC) and RamSan-820 (MLC) have become the new IBM FlashSystem 720 and 820.

If you're not already familiar with these fast HA SSDs - the thinking behind their design came out in an interview I has with Holly Frost, CEO of TMS when they were launched in December 2011.

Unless I missed them - then it doesn't look to me as though TMS's PCIe SSD models have been so fortunate. I couldn't see them in IBM's range of PCIe SSDs (High IOPS Modular Adapters) which are based on products and technologies from Fusion-io and LSI.

That no-show may be due to the fact that - unlike TMS's rackmount systems which were software agnostic - a lot more work is required to efficiently integrate server based SSDs into a wide range of server products. But I anticipate that TMS's big architecture SSD controller technology will resurface in future IBM SSD cards.

Much more significant was the news that IBM is investing $1 billion in research and development to design, create and integrate new flash solutions into its portfolio of servers, storage systems and middleware. IBM also announced plans to open 12 centers of flash competency around the globe. That demonstrates confidence in the future scale of the SSD market and its perspective related to computer history.
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