IBM unveils universal storage system

IBM has unveiled plans for Storage Tank, a product aimed at providing universal access to data and data sharing across diverse types of hardware, platforms and operating systems.

Storage Tank software would create a consolidated storage environment so that companies could use every storage subsystem on across their networks.

IBM is confident that Storage Tank, which will be rolled out in the second half of next year, will become the common language between storage and networked host systems.

Mike Harrison, director of storage alliance at IBM, said Storage Tank is the result of three-and-a-half years worth of research, and claimed it is the largest and most encompassing effort on this scale.

Storage Tank will provide open system platforms with the ability to plug in to the universal storage system, and to share both data and data storage. It will also provide for transparent scaling and ensure uptime by allowing new storage devices to be added dynamically.

"Storage Tank adds capacity as customers need it and reduces the costs over time delivering on universal access to data sharing," said Harrison. The technology is still running in IBM labs and no customers have yet tested the solutions.

The concept of an open system-managed storage solution with a single pool of virtualised storage allows for the most efficient use of storage resources, said Michael Karp, an analyst with researcher the Hurwitz Group.

"Customers need scalable multi-system storage solutions that offer high availability, application portability and economies of scale that previously only host systems have provided," he said.