IBM FlashSystem Reviews

The solution is primarily a file infrastructure. It contains all the virtual machines for our company.

The solution is still new to us and needs to be explored more.

The documentation is excellent so far. 

The solution uses all flash. The connection to the server is a fiber connection. It's very fast. 

The possibility of expanding is very good. It offers very good flexibility.

The price point is pretty decent. 

The product is user-friendly. The setup process is easy.

We've found the solution to be very stable so far.

We need to spend more time with the solution in order to detect any shortcomings. So far, we haven't really seen any.

The design is a little old-fashioned and could be updated. The rack is very primitive and designed in an older style. 

I've only been using the solution for two months. It hasn't been that long just yet. It could be maybe less than that, as we just recently installed it and we decided to go for it about three months back. About one and a half months ago the implementation was completed and we started using it.

The stability of the solution is very good. We haven't detected any bugs or glitches. it doesn't crash or freeze. It's reliable. 

The solution has the potential to scale quite well. If a company needs to expand it, it can.

However, it is a hardware, and you do need to take scaling into account early on. We can grow with the hardware we have and put on new drives, et cetera.

We have approximately 200 employees, and anyone that's connected to the network, those files are stored on this particular solution. Therefore, even if they aren't aware they are using the product, they, in fact, are.

Personally, I haven't directly dealt with technical support. That said, apparently, it looks like it is quite good. The support is proactive. My system is already connected to IBM tech centers. They can highlight predictive failures, for example. My assumption is that they are quite good, although I can't yet peak from personal experience.

We previously used Dell EqualLogic. We switched, as we had used it for close to six years and it needed to be replaced. Initially, we thought to replace it with another Dell EqualLogic product, however, after comparing different brands, we landed on this.  

The initial setup is definitely not complex. It's not difficult. They make it straightforward and user-friendly. A company should have no problems implementing it.

The price is quite good. We find it to be rather reasonable overall. When you compare it to other brands especially, the price is quite good.

We did look at other solutions, including and updated Dell EqualLogic and HPE.

We are just a customer and an end-user.

We are using the latest version of the solution at this point.

I'd recommend the solution. Everything is fiber from start to finish. I don't need to use a fiber switch. It's an expensive component. However, IBM says I don't need it and I can do I direct line from my own source. It's a supported solution. It's very good.

I'd rate the solution at an eight out of ten so far.

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.

It is block storage. We basically use it for the storage units.

The compression and deduplication features are the most valuable. 

They can improve its initial configuration. The initial configuration is currently very difficult. There are multiple choices or alternative ways to configure based on the use case and what you are targeting out of the device, that is, more capacity or more performance. These multiple alternatives cause a lot of confusion.

They should increase the processing part of the nodes. Currently, you can cluster up to eight nodes. From my experience and the workload that I am facing in my environment currently, I would like to see either a bigger or stronger node or a larger number of nodes that can be clustered together. We formally communicated to them that we need to see either this or that, and they are working on something.

I have been using this solution for 14 to 15 months.

If you set it up correctly, it is very stable. After we configured it correctly, we didn't have any issues. I didn't have any issues after the first week of the configuration.

We haven't scaled it yet, but based on the documentation and specification, it is actually scalable.

I have been in touch with IBM support, and I did it a lot. Normally, they respond within an acceptable time with a sufficiently detailed answer. Around 90% of the time, you will get the answer straight back. In some rare cases, you need to ask them more. You send them a mail asking to clarify something or get more details about how to do a specific task, but normally, they provide a satisfactory answer.

We are a very large bank, and we have a lot of storage devices from multiple vendors. We have devices from Dell EMC, NetApp, and Pure Storage. Every product has its advantages and disadvantages. 

If you are targeting functionality, we get the most functionality from IBM FlashSystem, and then from Pure Storage, and then from Dell EMC boxes. If you are targeting performance, then Dell EMC will come first, then IBM FlashSystem, and then Pure Storage. If you are targeting compression deduplication that will generate more capacity, then Pure Storage will come at number one, IBM FlashSystem will come at number two, and Dell EMC will come at number three.

Its initial configuration is difficult. We went through the books and manuals, but we didn't do it correctly. Therefore, we had to start again from scratch. It took two or three attempts to do it correctly. 

We implemented it on our own. My team is managing all of the storage devices that we have, and there are six of us. IBM is responsible for its maintenance.

Among IBM, Dell EMC, and Pure Storage, IBM is the cheapest. The price is also based on our location, the size of our entity, and our regular annual purchases from them. We are a very big IBM customer, so we normally get very high discounts. We are not a big customer of Pure Storage. We don't buy that much from Pure Storage per year.

Everything is included in the price. There is no extra license for different functions.

I would advise others to get somebody to do it for you. Don't do it yourself, or read the book carefully. Our implementation was complicated, so we ended up doing it multiple times. Other colleagues I know in other institutes have much smaller systems than the one we bought. They implemented it in four hours. So, for complex and big implementations, either get an expert to do it for you or read the documentation multiple times before you start, which we didn't.

I would rate IBM FlashSystem an eight out of ten.

Most of the features for the reduction in data compression are useful. 

It is also very easy to use and administer. Its performance is also good.

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.

I have been using this solution for six years.

It is stable. 

It is scalable. All projects in my company use the IBM FlashSystem. I am working on high-end storage, not mid-range. I can scale out or scale up. IBM has introduced FlashSystem 9200 to the market in which I can scale SAS disk, NVMe disk, and SSCM disk. I have three options on one box, which are not available with EMC or Pure Storage.

You can also scale out storage in EMC. In Pure Storage, there are issues in scaling. Pure Storage has different boxes like X70, X90, X50, and if I need to scale or upgrade the box, I need to change our controllers. Every Pure Storage box has limited capacity, whereas, for IBM storage, the capacity of the box is not limited.

The response of technical support is good.

I have used NetApp storage and EMC storage. NetApp storage is very poor and bad. EMC is a good competitor of IBM in the market now, and in terms of the number of customers, EMC is number one. User Interface is the main big difference between IBM and EMC. IBM FlashSystem is very easy and friendly comparatively. EMC is very complicated. 

EMC is also closed, whereas IBM FlashSystem is very open. It provides a lot of communication over the internet for administrating and implementing the storage. I am working on a customer project that has EMC storage, and the customer daily complains regarding EMC Unity or XtremIO.

IBM is integrated with the different operating systems by a native operating system multipath. EMC works with PowerPath multipath. Until recently, EMC didn't have these features in the box, and you had to pay for a multipath license. In new technology and operating system versions of EMC, a separate multipath license is not required.

The initial setup was very easy.

I implemented it. I have experience of ten years in implementing IBM storage. It is very easy to implement. 

The integration is already included in the license cost of IBM FlashSystem. The integration is very easy. You get the IBM storage core with all software, firmware, and upgrades. EMC provides the features in the box, but they are not free for customers. There is a licensing cost for features.

We have yearly licensing, but IBM has also provided a new option where you pay as you go. They provide a big box, and I pay, for example, for 10 terabytes. If I exceed 10 terabytes, IBM will charge for the new storage after 10 terabytes. It is a good opportunity in the market for using the storage as a cloud and paying as you go. 

I work only on high-end storage. Before recommending a solution, I need to know about the workload, that is, application workload, backup workload, and database workload. IBM provides a free workload script that can be applied to any environment, such as Windows, Unix, or Linux. I need to see the I/O performance, and after which, I can provide the best solution for a customer from Pure Storage, EMC, or IBM. 

I would rate IBM FlashSystem a nine out of ten.

We use this solution for application and database coding.

This solution is really user friendly. It also offers good performance and is highly reliable. 

This solution could be improved by offering greater amounts of storage. 

I have been using this solution for three years. 

This is a stable solution. 

This is a scalable solution.

We switched to using IBM because we wanted an AI based solution. 

The entire hardware implementation was done by IBM.

I would recommend this solution to others because it is reliable, high performing and user friendly.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten. 

We use this solution for SAN storage.

This solution is user-friendly, convenient and reliable.

This solution is expensive compared to other systems. The interface of this solution could be improved.

I have been using this solution for 13 years. 

This solution is very stable. 

This solution is scalable. We have 400 users using it.

The support for this solution has fast response times.

Positive

We previously used Dell EMC and switched to this solution because the support, product and performance are of a higher standard. 

The initial setup is complex. Deployment took six months. 

This is an expensive solution compared to other similar solutions.

I would advise users of this solution to ensure they have the correct licensing and continue to maintain the product while using it.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

We are using IBM FlashSystem for Oracle E-Business Suite backups.

IBM FlashSystem is a powerful effective storage solution. Additionally, it is user-friendly, anyone can use it.

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

I have been using IBM FlashSystem for approximately two years.

IBM FlashSystem is stable, we have not found any issues.

The solution is scalable.

The solution can be used for any size of business.

I have not needed to contact the support.

The implementation is very simple.

The price of IBM FlashSystem is reasonable.

IBM FlashSystem is very simple and plug-and-play. I would recommend it.

I rate IBM FlashSystem a nine out of ten.

We were using the solution for storing data. Recently we were having problems not being able to do a flash when we attempted. We will need to relay to IBM the challenges with taking the flash. Once this problem is resolved, we can do a better comparison with other solutions.

When it comes to the interface of the solution we did not encounter any challenges. Additionally, the solution has good documentation. 

We had issues when attempting to do a flash, we hope to resolve it soon.

I have used the solution for approximately three years. 

The initial setup of the solution was easy. 

I find the pricing of the solution to be very reasonable. 

We are presently evaluating NetApp and this solution. By the time we finished with our evaluations, I will be able to come back to IBM on what challenges we have encountered. We use IBM in all other aspects, including service. That is why we think that combining the IBM storage will be much easier for us than other entirely new solutions.

I rate IBM FlashSystem a seven out of ten.