IBM FlashSystem vs Oracle Sun ZFS Storage Appliance comparison

"It's a mature product. It's like a BMW that evolves consistently."

"The most crucial feature of IBM FlashSystem is compression."

"I rate the technical support from IBM as a ten."

"IBM products at the enterprise level are stable solutions, with a score of nine out of ten for stability."

"The most valuable features are flexibility and performance."

"The initial setup is straightforward and can be done in an hour and a half by one person."

"IBM FlashSystem has an easy to use GUI, similar to the IBM Storewize family, which make it one of the best flash storage systems in the market."

"Stability-wise, this solution is fine."

"I like its storage capacity, quick access to the data, speed, and overall storage management."

"The only issue my team faced was transferring the data from the old system to IBM FlashSystem, which is an area for improvement in the solution."

"IBM should improve its data reduction development."

"Additional licenses might be added for the fundamental licenses, such as those for copying and flash copies."

"We use some open-source tools for monitoring, such as Grafana and it should be bundled along with IBM FlashSystem."

"The Data Reduction Pools (DRP) support could be better."

"They can include Amazon file system S3 protocol in the upcoming releases. It is a cloud file system. IBM FlashSystem doesn't have this feature in the box for high-end or mid-range. We have got requests for this from customers because we need to use S3 for EDI application storage. At the beginning of every year, IBM releases firmware. When I find any bugs in the firmware during the year, I am unable to find any information from IBM regarding the bug. I need to open a ticket, and the IBM engineering team makes a patch only for me. This patch is not public. By creating a customized patch for a client, they don't really solve the issue for everyone. If multiple users have the same bug, IBM should upload the patch on the official website so that we can download it. IBM FlashSystem has a monitoring tool in the box, but it is not advanced. I need a more advanced tool for more advanced equations and monitoring. All top three storage vendors, that is, EMC, IBM, and Pure Storage, don't have a powerful monitoring tool. To monitor our box to show the statistics for I/Os and latency, I need to pay for extra software. The built-in monitoring storage is not mature enough to handle all requests and generate all reports that I need. They can include the functionality to stretch a cluster natively without using any additional boxes. In addition, there are some features that EMC has integrated with the box. These features are not available in IBM FlashSystem."

"One area for improvement is in the GUI, where host clusters are not properly dealt with. With Hypervisor host clusters, all hosts must see the same volumes in the same order. Using the concept of a “host-group” has been around (even with IBM) for many years, so why not with the V7000?"

"I would like to see bigger modules."

"The main thing Oracle can improve is the cost. It would be better if Oracle opened up the system to enable integration with other vendors. Whether it's the database, application server, or storage appliance, they should make it easy to integrate them. They need to open up more to ensure that it can work in any environment and IT ecosystem."

"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."

"The price of IBM FlashSystem is a little high because you pay a premium because the solution is from IBM. We had paid for the SLA prior to using the solution."

"The total storage capacity vs price is still quite high for the IBM Flash Array."

"The pricing is reasonable."

"The price of IBM FlashSystem is reasonable."

"I price of IBM FlashSystem is reasonable and competitive."

"Pricing can be considered as per market competition."

"My customers got the IBM FlashSystem bundle offer. It was a one-time purchase for three years of service. The price would depend on the storage size and could reach between $25,000 to $55,000."

"The price could be better. We have many competing products now like Huawei and Dell EMC, and these are slightly cheaper."