IBM Storage Insights free vs IBM Storage Insights Pro
Compare the features of IBM Storage Insights and IBM Storage Insights Pro.
- The free version is called IBM Storage Insights and provides a unified view of a storage environment with diagnostic event information, an integrated support experience, and key capacity and performance metrics. This includes component health overviews for switches and fabrics with key performance metrics. IBM Storage Insights is available at no cost to IBM Storage Insights Pro subscribers and owners of IBM® block storage systems who sign up.
- The capacity-based, subscription version is called IBM Storage Insights Pro and includes all the features of IBM Storage Insights plus a more comprehensive view of the performance, capacity, and health of storage resources. This includes key health, performance, and diagnostic information for switches and fabrics. It also helps you reduce storage costs and optimize your data center by providing features like storage reclamation, storage tiering, and advanced performance metrics. The storage systems that you can monitor are expanded to include IBM file, object, software-defined storage (SDS) systems, and non-IBM block and file storage systems, such as Dell EMC storage systems.
For upgrading to IBM Storage Insights Pro and the entitlement options, see How to upgrade to IBM Storage Insights Pro?
Compare the features in these two offerings:
| Resource Management | Functions | IBM Storage Insights | IBM Storage Insights Pro |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monitoring | Inventory management | IBM block storage, switches, fabrics, and VMware ESXi hosts | IBM and non-IBM block storage, file storage, object storage, switches, fabrics, and VMware ESXi hosts |
| Logical configuration | Basic | Advanced | |
| Health | Call Home events | Call Home events | |
| Performance | Basic
|
Advanced
|
|
| Fleet level performance monitoring in modern UI |  |
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| Capacity | Basic
|
Advanced
|
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| Drill down performance workflows to enable deep troubleshooting | |
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| Explore virtualization relationships | |
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| Explore replication relationships | |
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| Retention of configuration and capacity data |
2 years
(Only the last 24 hours is shown) |
2 years | |
| Retention of performance data |
1 year
(Only the last 24 hours is shown) |
1 year | |
| Exporting performance data to a file | |
||
| REST API access | |
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| Monitoring IBM Storage Ceph® | Monitor information, such as cluster ID, IP address, version, status, probe data collection, and many more. | ||
| Storage as a Service (STaaS) dashboard | |
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| Warranty and maintenance dashboard | |
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| Performance deviation | |
|
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| AI | Performance planning | |
|
| Capacity planning | |
|
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| AI generated suggestions | |
|
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| Service | Filter events to quickly isolate trouble spots | |
|
| Hassle-free log collection | * |
|
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| Simplified ticketing | |
|
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| Show open and closed ticket history | * |
|
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| IBM Support | |
|
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| Workload placement advisor | Find best suited storage system for your new workloads or storage partition. | Find best suited storage system for your new workloads or storage partition. | |
| Monitoring storage partition migration | |
|
|
| FlashSystem grid | |
|
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| Log uploads to existing IBM Storage Ceph support tickets | |
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| Volume group | Container to manage a set of related volumes as a single object. | ||
| Reporting | Inventory, capacity, performance, and storage consumption reports |
|
All reports |
| Audit logging | |
|
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| Alerting | Predictive Alerts | |
|
| Ransomware threat detection for volumes and volume groups. | |
|
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| Workload anomaly detection | |
Receive an email notification at the configured email addresses whenever a workload anomaly alert is triggered. | |
| Customizable, multi-conditional alerting, including alert policies | |
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| Analytics | Business impact analysis (applications, departments, and groups) | |
|
| Distributing workloads across FlashSystem devices within a FlashSystem grid | |
|
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| Optimize capacity with reclamation | |
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| Security | ISO/IEC 27001 Information Security Management standards certified | |
|
| Security posture dashboard | |
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| Pricing | Entitlements | Free | Capacity-based subscription |
| Ecosystem integration | OpenTelemetry | |
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| Dynatrace | |
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| Jira | (Webhook support in the free version of IBM Storage
Insights to receive only ransomware threat detection
alerts.) |
|
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| ServiceNow | (Webhook support in the free version of IBM Storage
Insights to receive only ransomware threat detection
alerts.) |
|
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| Slack | (Webhook support in the free version of IBM Storage
Insights to receive only ransomware threat detection
alerts.) |
|
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| Microsoft Teams | (Webhook support in the free version of IBM Storage
Insights to receive only ransomware threat detection
alerts.) |
|
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| Prometheus | |
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| IBM Cloud Pak® for Security | |
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| Grafana | |
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| vSphere plugin | |
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| IBM Cloud Pak for AIOps | |
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| IBM Storage Defender | |
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| Chatbot | |
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| Model Context Protocol (MCP) | |
Restriction: *You must have a current warranty or maintenance agreement for
an IBM block storage system to open tickets and send log
packages.
In IBM Storage
Insights,
you can monitor IBM block storage only. In IBM Storage
Insights Pro, you can monitor IBM block storage, and the following additional storage:
* Support for IBM Storage Scale System is available only when the system is monitored through Call Home with cloud services.
* In the free version of IBM Storage Insights, support for IBM Storage Scale (ESS and GSS) is available only through a data collector, and the available views are limited.
* Support for XIV, IBM Storage Accelerate, IBM FlashSystem A9000, and IBM FlashSystem A9000R in IBM Storage Insights is deprecated. You cannot onboard new systems. IBM Storage Insights will remove existing systems by December 2026. Download and save any required telemetry data before removal.
* Support for Call Home with cloud services:
- Storage systems that run IBM Storage Virtualize 8.5.3 and later and have 128 GB of memory per node can be integrated with IBM Storage Insights by using Call Home with cloud services.
- Only IBM Storage Ceph systems with version 7 or later are supported for monitoring in IBM Storage Insights through Call Home with cloud services. You cannot add IBM Storage Ceph systems to IBM Storage Insights through data collector.
- The preferred method for device addition is through Call Home with cloud services. But, if you prefer to add the device through Data Collector, select IBM Storage FlashSystem C200.
For the complete list of devices that you can monitor, see Supported devices in IBM Storage Insights.