IBM has launched System Storage DS5020 Express, a new storage disk offering that is expected to deliver enterprise-class storage capabilities to midrange businesses.
The company said that the new offering is designed for mid-sized companies in retail, healthcare, insurance, manufacturing and government organisations that require to securely analyse increasing flow of data.
According to IBM, the new DS5020 Express supports all its current premium features, including FlashCopy to take point-in-time copies of logical volumes; VolumeCopy to provide full replication of one logical volume to another; and Remote Mirroring for multi-LUN applications and partitioning.
The DS5020 comes with four 8Gbps Fibre Channel (FC) interfaces for connectivity to hosts or storage area networks, and can support an additional four ports, which can be either 8Gbps FC or 1Gbps iSCSI. It supports up to 112 drives with EXP520 expansion units. Drive options include Fibre Channel, self-encrypting Fibre Channel, and SATA.
The new system supports virtualised environments such as IBM PowerVM, Microsoft Windows 2008 Hyper-V and VMware vSphere 4, the company said.
Doug Balog, vice president of disk storage and business line executive at IBM, said: “Midsized businesses are no different than their larger counterparts, as they are facing relentless data growth and shrinking budgets, which is why they’re seeking storage solutions that will help reduce costs through efficiencies. The IBM System Storage DS5020 Express addresses those needs, while its full-disk encryption also makes it ideal for hosting business-critical applications.”
The System Storage DS5020 Express will be available from September 4th and is expected to be priced at $22,500, which includes IBM service support and a three-year warranty.
