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.
In both versions, when problems occur on your storage, you can get help to identify and resolve those problems and minimize potential downtime, where and when you need it.

Compare the features in these two offerings:

Table 1. Features in IBM Storage Insights and IBM Storage Insights Pro
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
  • 3 storage system metrics: I/O rate, data rate, and response times
  • 4 switches metrics: port saturation, port congestion, port hardware errors, and port logical errors
  • 3 host metrics: host I/O rate, host data rate, host response time
  • 3 virtual machine metrics: I/O rate, data rate, response time
 Advanced
  • 100+ metrics for storage systems and their components
  • 40+ metrics for switches and related components
  • 10+ metrics for hosts and related components
  • 10+ metrics for virtual machines and related components
Capacity Basic
  • 4 metrics: used capacity, available capacity, total capacity, and compression savings aggregated for storage systems
  • 2 host metrics: SAN capacity, used SAN capacity
  • 2 virtual machine metrics: SAN capacity, used SAN capacity
 Advanced
  • 25+ metrics for storage systems and their components
  • 10+ metrics for hosts and related components
  • 10+ metrics for virtual machines and related components
Drill down performance workflows to enable deep troubleshooting   Checkmark
Explore virtualization relationships   Checkmark
Explore replication relationships   Checkmark
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   Checkmark
REST API access   Checkmark
Dynatrace   Checkmark
OpenTelemetry   Checkmark
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   Checkmark
Warranty and maintenance dashboard   Checkmark
Performance deviation Checkmark Checkmark
Service Filter events to quickly isolate trouble spots Checkmark Checkmark
Hassle-free log collection Checkmark* Checkmark
Simplified ticketing Checkmark Checkmark
Show open and closed ticket history Checkmark* Checkmark
IBM Support Checkmark Checkmark
Chatbot   Checkmark
Jira   Checkmark
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.
Storage partition migration Non-disruptive migration of storage partitions from source to the target IBM Storage FlashSystem. Non-disruptive migration of storage partitions from source to the target IBM Storage FlashSystem.
FlashSystem grid Checkmark Checkmark
Log uploads to existing IBM Storage Ceph support tickets   Checkmark
Volume group   Container to manage a set of related volumes as a single object.
Reporting Inventory, capacity, performance, and storage consumption reports
  • Capacity reports for block storage systems and pools
  • Inventory reports for block storage systems, switches, chassis, and switch ports
 All reports
Audit logging Checkmark Checkmark
Alerting Predictive Alerts Checkmark Checkmark
Service Now   Checkmark
Slack   Checkmark
Prometheus   Checkmark
IBM Cloud Pak for AIOps   Checkmark
IBM Cloud Pak® for Security   Checkmark
Ransomware threat detection for volumes and volume groups.   Triggers an alert when a potential ransomware threat is detected.
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   Checkmark
Inline threat detection (potential ransomware alerts)   Checkmark
Realtime ransomware threat detection used with FlashCore Module 4
Webhook integration   Checkmark
IBM Storage Defender integration   Checkmark
Analytics Performance planning   Checkmark
Capacity planning Checkmark Checkmark
Business impact analysis (applications, departments, and groups)   Checkmark
Distributing workloads across FlashSystem devices within a FlashSystem grid Checkmark Checkmark
Optimize capacity with reclamation   Checkmark
Grafana   Checkmark
vSphere plugin   Checkmark
Security ISO/IEC 27001 Information Security Management standards certified Checkmark Checkmark
IBM Cloud Pak for security   Checkmark
Pricing Entitlements Free Capacity-based subscription
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:
Table 2. Storage systems that can be monitored in IBM Storage Insights and IBM Storage Insights Pro
Storage System IBM Storage Insights IBM Storage Insights Pro
Click a storage system to view its supported versions.    
DS8000 Checkmark Checkmark
Dell EMC Unity   Checkmark
Dell EMC VMAX   Checkmark
Dell EMC VNX, VNXe   Checkmark
IBM Storage FlashSystem 5000 Checkmark Checkmark
IBM Storage FlashSystem 5100 Checkmark Checkmark
IBM Storage FlashSystem 5200* Checkmark Checkmark
IBM Storage FlashSystem 5300 * Checkmark Checkmark
IBM Storage FlashSystem 7200* Checkmark Checkmark
IBM Storage FlashSystem 7300* Checkmark Checkmark
IBM Storage FlashSystem 9100* Checkmark Checkmark
IBM Storage FlashSystem 9200* Checkmark Checkmark
IBM Storage FlashSystem 9500* Checkmark Checkmark
IBM Storage FlashSystem V9000 Checkmark Checkmark
IBM Storage FlashSystem 900 Checkmark Checkmark
IBM Storage FlashSystem C200 Checkmark Checkmark
IBM FlashSystem A9000 Checkmark Checkmark
IBM FlashSystem A9000R Checkmark Checkmark
Hitachi VSP   Checkmark
Start of changeIBM Storage Ceph*End of change   Start of changeCheckmarkEnd of change
IBM Cloud Object Storage   Checkmark
IBM Storage Accelerate Checkmark Checkmark
IBM Storage Scale (ESS and GSS)   Checkmark
IBM Storage Virtualize software-only clusters Checkmark Checkmark
IBM Storage Virtualize for Public Cloud Checkmark Checkmark
Lenovo Storage V3700 V2
Lenovo Storage V3700 V2 XP
Lenovo Storage V5030
   Checkmark
NetApp ONTAP 9   Checkmark
Pure FlashArray//M and FlashArray//X   Checkmark
SAN Volume Controller* Checkmark Checkmark
Storwize V3500 Checkmark Checkmark
Storwize V3700 Checkmark Checkmark
Storwize V5000 Checkmark Checkmark
Storwize V7000 Checkmark Checkmark
Storwize V3500 for Lenovo
Storwize V3700 for Lenovo
Storwize V5000 for Lenovo
Storwize V7000 for Lenovo
   Checkmark
IBM Flex SystemFlashSystem V7000 Storage Node Checkmark Checkmark
Storwize V7000 Unified Checkmark
(block storage only)
 Checkmark
XIV Checkmark Checkmark
* 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 more information about Call Home with cloud services, see Enabling Call Home with cloud services.

For the complete list of devices that you can monitor, see Supported devices in IBM Storage Insights.