IBM FlashSystem Reviews

We use the solution to link the VMware environment. It is used to share documents between the departments.

The valuable feature is autoscalling. It's able to do hardware compression and encryption.

The product could be cheaper.

I have been using IBM FlashSystem for over five years.

There's no performance issue. It provides low latency and good performance.

I rate the solution's stability an eight out of ten.

I rate the solution's scalability as eight out of ten.

The deployment takes six hours to complete. It involves setting up and configuring the IP and updating the firmware. It connects to sensors, does doting, and assigns the volume to the servers.
I rate the setup process as eight out of ten, with one being difficult and ten being easy.

The product is expensive. It costs around 150k for five years.

Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

Using IBM storwize V7000 as storage to be used in daily operation as well using the virtualization capability along with doing data migrations of old storage data.

IBM Storwize It makes management of the IT environment much easier, 

High availability and enhanced security; Proven dependability; Data compression with hardware acceleration; Advanced copy services features are all in this product.

Virtualization and Data Migration.

V7000 is built with IBM Spectrum Virtualized software, which is part of the IBM Spectrum Storage family.

V7000 software:

• Provides a single or multiple pool(s) of storage
• Provides logical unit virtualization
• Manages logical volumes
• Mirrors logical volumes

V7000 hardware provide the below features:

• Large scalable cache: thru IO groups methodology
• Copy services: metro mirror, global mirror, Data Migration, point in time copy, active-active copy (Hyperwap)
• Space management: thin provisioning, Easy Tier, and compression

The Storwize V7000 nodes in a clustered system operate as a single system and present a single point of control for system management and service.

GUI interface should be enhanced more as there is some issues in copy services GUI interfaces should be enhanced as this will not let the customer doing wrong configurations

Yes, some bugs in the system, like nodes warm-started.

No.

Nine out of 10.

No, I have only used used IBM solutions.

Two methods of initial setup are straightforward, either by using USB port through Init tool or by using the technical port. sgafd

In-House implementation

15 - 20 %

Storwize software for Storwize V7000 license has the following feature codes:

• Base software
• Full feature set
• Easy Tier
• FlashCopy
• Remote Mirroring
• Compression

IBM V7000 has a new license and price structure which provides intuitive licensing based on the functions customers wish to enable and use the most.

No.

I advise everyone to have a look at their current use of storage and think of single management and live migrations of their data, and how they will save money instead of having multiple vendors to reinstall and migrate data.

We are living in IBM FlashSystem. We have more than eight flash storage devices deployed in our environment for different kinds of workloads such as applications, core systems, core banking applications, et cetera. 

Overall, the product is good. 

We've been using it for the last five years, and we haven't had any issues at all. 

The power systems are very reliable if you are running 24/7 operations. For ongoing mission-critical applications, it's the best solution. 

We have been using the V9000 storage for the last five years. It's been very reliable. It's robust from a redundancy and reliability point of view. 

Recently, we deployed SS9100. At the core level that is deployed on that storage, it is not stable. We had an incident not too long ago. Both controllers rebooted simultaneously, within 15 seconds. There was some threshold value defined in the core level, and the system exceeded that threshold value. 

We logged the case to IBM. IBM did internal checks, which we deployed. The permanent fix will be available in the first quarter of 2021. It seems to be an issue on IBM's side. Obviously, we were surprised by how both controllers rebooted. We faced downtime on our applications and on our services. 

The issue which we had recently faced relates to the core level. It should be first tested at IBM labs and then introduced for general release.

IBM should improve its data reduction development.

Overall, I have 14 years of experience in implementing enterprise solutions, and also managing them. We've been using IBM Flash Storage for the last five years.

While the 9000 series has been robust and reliable, the SS9100 hasn't been so stable. IBM is currently working on a patch that should be out soon to handle the issues we've had.

The solution is quite scalable. A company can expand it if they need to.

We are a financial institution with two million customers. This is the storage we use behind all of our solutions.

While we don't plan to expand usage in the near future, we have recently acquired new storage solutions for an upcoming upgrade.

I have experience with a variety of other solutions. On storage, I have experience with IBM FlashSystem, IBM block storage, Dell EMC, block storage VMAX, VNX5600, and unified storage. Also, I have experience with Huawei storage, like Dorado and OceanStor. I've also worked on HPE Enterprise Virtual Array.

If you're talking about flash storage, we have FlashSystem IBM V9000, SS910091, 9200. On cloud storage, we have VMAX 10K, 20K. On unified storage, we have VNX5600 EMC.

We required a homogenous environment that's end to end. We chose to use IBM. 

The initial setup is not overly complex. IBM makes the process very smooth. It's very straightforward and quite easy to accomplish. A company shouldn't have any issues with the setup process.

A company could benefit from bringing on a reseller or consultant. They could help with the process.

When we procure enterprise storage solutions, the license is always be bundled with the deal. There are different licenses for encryption, replication, deduplication, data reduction pools, et cetera, and all should be included in one bundle when we buy a new solution. It's part of that deal.

We are a customer and end-user.

We are using the V9000, and currently, we have deployed SS9100.

This is a financial Institute. As per regulatory compliance, we cannot share our customer data. We keep our confidential customer data on the cloud that is deployed on-premises.

Overall, we have been happy with the solution. I would rate it at a nine out of ten.

We are running private clouds for various customers on top of VMware with IBM on the storage layer

Performance is not a problem anymore and the space available is enough for about 5 years of operations. Wa are now busy with cross dc failover which will use the capabilities of this system extensively.

A valuable feature of this solution is the metro/global mirror for synchronous/asynchronous copying of data between data centres.

ISCSI/ISER Bandwidth is at 25gbps. Would be nice if that can keep track with the bandwidth currently available in new dc networking deployments.

We are a 100% satisfied with the stability of the solution.

The system can be expanded with additional trays. Current we have about 2,000 users on the system. They are mostly end users, database administrator, and developers. 

We are happy with the technical support.

We used hyper-converged storage in the past and the reason we switched was because the reliability was not as good as we had hoped with the bigger workloads.

The initial setup was straightforward and it took us about two days to implement it. We did everything ourselves.

The biggest lesson we've learned so far is that hyper-converged storage is good for smaller workloads, but the re-syncing after a failure will be a problem for big workloads.

The IBM System is top-notch and offers all the features we need to keep going for another 5 years.

Our primary use case for the solution is virtualization.

The most valuable feature of the solution is compression.

The marketing could be improved. Additionally, awareness in the marketplace could be improved.

We have been using the solution since it was introduced and currently use the latest version.

The solution is stable. I rate it an eight out of ten.

The solution is scalable, and approximately 100 clients are utilizing it. I rate the scalability an eight out of ten.

We have had a good experience with customer service and support, but it sometimes takes a while to resolve an issue. I rate them an eight out of ten.

Positive

The initial setup was straightforward and took three days. I rate it an eight out of ten.

We implemented it with a vendor team and in-house staff.

I rate the pricing an eight out of ten.

I rate the solution a nine out of ten. The solution is good, but its marketing awareness can be improved.

The general use cases depend on the size of a company. I work with the commercial sector, the FlashSystem 5000 and its different models. It suits the small to medium, or SME, companies. The FlashSystem 9200 goes mainly to big enterprises, like banking or governmental sectors. The 7200 plays sometimes in SME and sometimes in bigger enterprises. 

One of the most valuable features is that it's very easy to use and configure. It used to be more difficult, but now it's almost flawless. 

The pricing could be improved, but I think it's getting better and better with each version. 

IBM needs to implement NAS storage again, as this is a big flaw. Dell EMC is very good at this and if you compared them based on NAS storage, Dell EMC would win right away. IBM's solution for NAS storage is very complicated. We don't have a storage box that provides file sharing from itself, we have to put software on it and go through a whole complicated process. It should be simplified. 

I have been working with IBM FlashSystem for around seven years. 

It's really stable, and many customers have experienced this as well. 

It's easy to scale, but it depends on the model. The 5100 is obsolete, but the 5200 has line expansions, up to two controllers, and can scale out both ways. The 7000 and 9000 can scale to 20 expansions and four controllers. It's very scalable, both horizontal and vertical. 

I believe the second line and third line are very responsive here. It depends on the customer's warranty level, if it's 9x5—it can't be like 24x7, which is immediately. 

IBM has some features that don't exist in other brands. External virtualization, for example—Dell EMC has the same feature, but it's applied differently. IBM's approach is to make it usable in many different scenarios so that the customer can work with multiple vendors under the IBM controller. Dell EMC can't do that. The external virtualization stacks with Dell EMC, and the features stack to every box. If I have a main box with high specs and I virtualize another box with minimum specs, that means I'm stuck with the minimum specs. With IBM, if I'm working with the virtualization engine with higher specs, I get the benefits from these higher specs, even if the virtualized box has minimum specs.

The initial setup is very straightforward and user-friendly. The FlashSystem 5000 can be deployed in around 20 to 30 minutes, but it depends on the number of volumes and the tools we set up afterward. On average, it can be installed and initiated within an hour, including microcode updating. If you calculate from the time I begin unpacking to the time I start to configure volumes, it will not exceed around 45 minutes. 

I implemented myself. 

The pricing may be a bit higher than other brands. If you compare the IBM FlashSystems in midrange with Dell EMC in midrange, IBM costs a bit more, but I prefer IBM because it has more specs that I can benefit from. 

Two years ago, we had all features installed in the midrange box without any need for extra licensing. However, lately we have features like Easy Tier and FlashCopy, which need extra licensing. We can purchase it with the box or afterward, and it's a smooth process. 

In my experience, IBM doesn't need maintenance at all. Every year, there is a microcode update to get a new feature or fix a bug, but I know some customers who have had the box for more than five or six years without updating it and it still runs well. 

To anyone who's looking into implementing IBM FlashSystem, I would advise you to read the instructions on the box. If you follow the instructions, implementation will be very smooth and easy, even if you're not a professional. 

I would rate this product a ten out of ten. 

The valuable features are high availability, compression, and a failover mechanism. It's a very highly available storage solution.

It can virtualize external rewrites and you have a single pane of management. Instead of having multiple managements for different storage products, you can have a single pane to manage everything. The external virtualization is a really good feature.

High Availability – any server, physical or virtualized accessing the IBM Storwize can be in a high-availability configurations. This will make applications available all the time to provide service to the end users.

Real-time Compression – it reduces storage costs by compressing it up to 80%, therefore saves rack space and power consumption.
Storage Virtualization – it can virtualize different storage from different vendors, thus helps ease of use by providing single pane of management and device drivers.

Storage Tiering – automatically migrates data between different storage tiers depending on the usage of the data. This will help reduce costs by avoiding to purchase dedicated SSD or Flash drives to applications that needed performance.

It allows the company to be highly available and be able to recover the storage if there are some issues.

I would like to see the snapshot management embedded within the GUI. Right now, the snapshot management, if you want to schedule, or do multiple scheduling in a day, you have to use scripting. Customers are not highly technical, and they really cannot do scripting. If IBM could include the snapshot management within the interface, then that would be good.

I know they have a flashcopy manager, but it is extra software, an additional license, and some customers don't like to add addition costs to their infrastructure. If IBM could create, or include snapshot management within the GUI, that would really be helpful.

I have a lot of customers who are really interested in the Storewize product and they are using snapshot management. It's really good to have this kind of investment, because this product is really good.

It's a very stable product. I like it, and I have a lot of customers using it.

Storewize is scalable, especially the V-7000. The GEN-28 can scale up to 20 expansions. It's highly scalable and you can have a maximum of 8 nodes.

I have used the technical support on occasion, but not a lot. It's good. As long as you provide them with the correct information about the problem, they will respond very quickly.

The initial setup was easy, very easy.

I highly recommend it.

The most important feature that our customers are very interested in is the virtualization. Being able to have the flexibility as they grow, without having to just lift and replace everything that they're doing.

Where it's moving into now is a unified set of advanced features that they're able to lay across their enterprise, without it being different in every single product that they're dealing with.

The virtualization, the flattening, and those advanced characteristics of the product are really what our customers have gravitated towards on the V9000.

When it comes to our benefits from this solution, a lot of it comes down to simplicity. If we take a look at a lot of these complex IT solutions today, they're very hard to maintain and to administer. However, the V9000 and the investment that IBM has made to the user experience, makes it very easy for our customers to be able to self-maintain and self-administer their own environment. They don't have to always go to a storage consultant or have to call into support. That's been very beneficial to our clients.

We think that IBM has to continue to invest in additional data reduction capabilities which are on their roadmap. Being able to use flash most efficiently, where the least amount of data is physically being stored on the V9000 is really where IBM needs to make additional investment. They are doing that.

The stability's been rock solid. If we take a look at the V9000 and the base of what it's built on, it is the heritage of IBM Storwize. This goes back to IBM SAN Volume Controller or SVC. We're on a very mature code base and it is a code base that's been very extendable.

So over the years, they've been able to inject new capabilities in the product line while still keeping the product very stable. We've had customers who have been through multiple upgrade cycles over the life of the product with no issues at all.

The scalability of the V9000 product is really where it shines. Being able to add additional capacity to the unit, without having to come up with a different management of lots of separate units, has been very beneficial to clients.

That idea of starting small with their current flash rollout and then being able to grow as the budget allows, has been very beneficial to clients.

We've been absolutely happy with the technical support.

From an IBM perspective for technical support, they really love the V9000, especially when you're going to do some enhanced service offerings that IBM has.

When it comes to using things like the technical advisor, being able to have more of a concierge service with support has been very beneficial to clients.

A lot of our customers were previously using either all disk or hybrid solutions for their storage. Moving towards an all-flash V9000, allowed them to take performance management and stop having to worry about that in their everyday tasks.

Moving to an all-flash array allowed them to spend more time dealing with application integration and dealing with their end users. This is rather than having to do performance management and moving data around. The all-flash array made their life a lot simpler.

We were involved with all aspects:

• Initial design
• Setup
• Rollout
• Integration with the different operating systems and different hosts through the storage fabric

It was straightforward. What we really like about the V9000 is that we're able to take implementation engineers who had experience with other members of the Storwize family.

They are able to take those skills that they learned within other product sets and directly translate those to the V9000.

They are able to very quickly come up to speed on the product without having to learn a brand new skill set.

From a CAS Severn perspective, IBM continues to be our premier supplier of storage. We do have a lot of experience with other vendors in the industry, including Pure Storage, EMC, and HP.

When it comes to recommending a vendor, the entire lifecycle of supporting a system is important. That's everything from design, to implementation, to ongoing support. IBM provides a strong package on all three aspects of the lifecycle of the equipment.

Folks that are looking to implement the V9000 really should take a look at the simplicity that an all-flash array can bring to their environment. They should look at the efficiency of being able to take skills that they might have learned within other Storwize products and be able to directly translate those into the V9000.

To summarize: Similar interface, similar support interaction, and the way they can take knowledge that they previously had and be able to directly translate that to their all-flash array decision.