IBM banks on virtualisation

Big Blue is banking on its storage virtualisation strategy to boost its e-business on demand

IBM is banking on its storage virtualisation strategy as the main driver for its e-Business on Demand (eBoD) vision.

Big Blue has added three storage virtualisation products to its TotalStorage range: SAN Volume Controller, SAN Integration Server and SAN File System.

It has claimed they will provide new revenue opportunities for channel partners while lowering costs for its customers.

Analyst Gartner has said the storage virtualisation software market will be worth $16.7bn by 2006. Brian Truskowski, general manager for storage software at IBM, said virtualisation software allows storage to be pooled across different systems.

"Without this capability, businesses have to manage storage within each system and are unable to leverage unused storage across disk systems without costly data movement and application down time," he said.

Steve Legg, senior architect for virtualisation products at IBM, claimed businesses are only using half of their current storage capability and could make considerable savings by implementing storage virtualisation.

He said: "We have been working on these products for three years. They will enable firms to pull storage together and improve use of existing space, rather than buying new software and appliances."

Legg added that resellers will not only be able to sell the software and hardware but will also be able to offer consultancy and storage management services.

A customer survey by IBM revealed businesses with medium-sized to large SANs can save up to $250,000 in the first year by improving disk utilisation and productivity.

Andy Slater, sales director at UK storage integrator Tectrade, said his firm had been testing beta versions of the software since December. "The software does offer money-saving facilities for customers. In the past the SAN market has been fairly over-hyped in terms of what has actually been delivered, but a product like Volume Controller will deliver," he said.

Slater added that the products will help firms reduce overall investment in storage hardware and become less dependent on single vendors, while at the same time providing value-add opportunities for IBM partners.