IBM Storage Insights and IBM Spectrum Control
Optimize your storage infrastructure with unparalleled visibility, analytics, and end-to-end monitoring for complex storage environments
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IBM Storage Insights and IBM Spectrum Control are two powerful components of the IBM Storage portfolio that allow you to monitor your storage infrastructure. 

  • IBM Storage Insights is a cloud-based service that allows you to analyze, protect and optimize your storage infrastructure.  
  • IBM Spectrum Control is an on-prem software solution that gathers more data for deeper analytics and automation to help manage even more complex storage environments.

Combining proven IBM data management leadership with proprietary analytics from IBM Research to analyze performance across storage, fabric, and hosts. Using AI-assisted technology, it can work with FlashSystem storage to identify potential threats in your environment and help you isolate them to protect your data.

Benefits End-to-end monitoring experience

Single pane monitoring across your storage, fabric, and hosts.  Detailed views of each device, easily track down the source of performance issues and preempt future service disruptions.

Get early warning of ransomware attacks

Using AI to do real time analysis of FlashSystem IO patterns, inline threat detection can warn you when an attack begins. 

Increase storage utilization and reduce costs

Cost-effective storage tiering using integrated storage monitoring and analytics-driven insights. Delay future purchases and reduce costs by identifying and reclaiming provisioned but unused storage.

Improve capacity planning

AI-driven advice uses historical consumption data to extrapolate data growth rates and capacity consumption.

 

Simplify reporting

Detailed reports on storage consumption, predicted growth and many other metrics can be produced with ease to help you focus on just the data that matters to you.

Enhanced IBM Support experience

Engage with a robust and simplified IBM Support experience avoiding potential problems with AI-driven advisories generated by the monitoring of your storage systems.

Features
Single-pane view across your storage environment

IBM Storage Insights provides single-pane monitoring of your storage environment—and quick views of storage from the server, application, SAN and file system perspective. Create custom views to group your resources together, for example by location, application, or department.  These views enable you to report on specific use of storage across your business, as well as provide opportunities to optimize performance and save money.


Valuable insight from predictive analytics

IBM Storage Insights Pro provides technology that makes tier recommendations based on actual data usage, regardless of original expectations. Data can be migrated from top-tier to mid-tier storage with confidence, knowing that service levels won’t be compromised. Significant savings are possible because the total cost of top-tier storage is much higher than just the initial invoice—with software and maintenance fees significantly higher than mid-range storage.

Learn about gaining insights

Simplified and proactive product support

IBM Storage Insights provides streamlined interaction with IBM support. Integrated with the FlashSystem call home functionality, it provides automatic support for log uploading, and easy ticket creation and management. IBM support staff use read-only access to diagnostic information about monitored storage systems to proactively help resolve problems and provide recommendations.


Single dashboard monitoring for non-IBM devices

IBM Storage Insights Pro supports select non-IBM storage systems: Dell-EMC VNX, VMAX and Unity, NetApp FAS and AFF, Pure Storage FlashArray//X and M, and HDS VSP G Series systems as well as Cisco and Broadcom switches and VMware hosts.


Comprehensive hybrid cloud capability

IBM Storage Insights supports IBM Storage Virtualize for Public Cloud on IBM Cloud and AWS. Monitor and report on your on-prem and public cloud storage from a single dashboard that provides a comprehensive view of your entire hybrid multi-cloud storage environment.


Rapid results when you need them

IBM Storage Insights is built to deliver fast results. The solution returns insights and recommendations quickly using metrics data that would typically take weeks to analyze on a spreadsheet.  Rather than accessing and archiving the data of individual devices in your environment, Storage Insights gives you the live status as well as allowing you to see historical data in a variety of formats for further processing.


Security and privacy

We understand that security and privacy are important to you and these concepts are built into the heart of IBM Storage Insights.  Foremost we gather just the meta data needed to help you understand what’s happening in your environment.  This data is shared securely with the IBM Storage Insights services, which we regularly subject to privacy and cyber threat assessments. You can read more about our approach to security and privacy at here.


Our products
Two editions that meet your needs
  • IBM Storage Insights offers a dashboard for monitoring the basic health, capacity, and performance of your IBM block storage, SAN Volume Controller devices, storage networking, and cloud storage managed by IBM Spectrum Virtualize for Public Cloud.  It also allows you to get an enhanced IBM Support experience.
  • IBM Storage Insights Pro adds more detailed information about each of the devices with up to 2 years history of configuration and performance data.  Alerts help you proactively manage your environment by receiving warning when something is running outside of its norms.  And inline threat detection allows you to get early warning for potential ransomware attacks.  With tools to help you understand and reclaim storage, Pro allows you to get a better understanding of your environment. 

IBM Storage Insights Pro is also available as part of Expert Care Premium maintenance contracts and is also bundled with Spectrum Control.


Efficiently Manage Complex Storage Environments

IBM Spectrum® Control provides on-prem monitoring and analytics for multiple-vendor storage environments. The comprehensive solution enables you to manage storage systems, software-defined storage, storage-area network (SAN) fabrics, devices and even cloud storage. You can view storage from multiple perspectives including by department, application, and server. It also allows customers to get the further improved historical data availability and a REST API for better integration into their workflows.  IBM Spectrum Control comes with the cloud-based IBM Storage Insights Pro, with this dual entitlement, customers can choose to take advantage of the convenience of IBM Storage Insights as well as using the increased capability of IBM Spectrum Control when they need it.

IBM Spectrum Control data sheet

Technical specifications
IBM Storage Insights (Cloud service) IBM Storage Insights Pro (Cloud service) Spectrum Control (On-premises application) Insights Pro Included

Inventory management

IBM Storage

IBM Storage, non-IBM storage, fabric and hosts

 

IBM Storage, non-IBM storage, fabric and hosts

Health

Metadata collection

Every 5 minutes

Every 5 minutes

User defined down to 1 minute

Capacity

Storage system level

Down to a volume level

Down to a volume level

Performance

Storage system level

Component level

Component level

Data availability

24 hours

Up to 2 years

User defined, stored on-prem

(IBM can see up to 2 years for support)

Performance data up to 1 year

Notification & advisory dashboards

Log collection

Raise tickets, see ticket history

Alerting

Pre-defined & custom

Pre-defined & custom, ability to trigger custom response

Reporting

Pre-defined templates

Pre-defined & custom templates, REST API Access

Pre-defined & custom templates, REST API access, Cognos Analytics integration

Best practice advice

Ransomware threat detection

Capacity reclamation

Resources Get started guide

Discover how easy it is to get started with IBM Storage Insights.

Upgrade warranty and maintenance for IBM Storage

Maintain the highest level of availability with best in-class IT support and keep your mission-critical systems running smoothly.

IDC MarketScape names IBM as a Leader in Support Services

Find out why 85% of enterprises mentioned support services as a key differentiator when choosing a vendor to purchase data center systems.

Optimize your support model with tiered service options

Learn how IBM Premium Support Services streamlines the entire support process by leveraging powerful analytics tools and the expertise of dedicated support specialists.

Enhancement with IBM Spectrum Control

Storage monitoring, advanced analytics and flexible deployment.

Enhancement with IBM Spectrum Control

Learn more about IBM Storage Insights and Storage Insights Pro.

Learn more about IBM Spectrum Control

Access useful documentation and get ready to get the best of your IBM Spectrum Control.

IBM Spectrum Control Tutorials

Use the tutorials to learn how to perform specific tasks and become familiar with IBM Spectrum Control.

Related products

As IBM Storage Insights enhances your IBM Storage ownership experience, it is also included in the Expert Care maintenance packages which come with IBM Storage FlashSystems or IBM Storage DS8900F.

IBM Storage DS8900F

IBM Storage DS8900F is designed to provide the performance and data resilience you need to increase customer satisfaction and transform data into business opportunities.

IBM Storage FlashSystem

IBM Storage Flash Systems provide performance – intensive business applications that are cyber-resilient, scalable, and high performance ensuring a power supply efficiency differentiation.

IBM Spectrum Storage Suite

IBM Spectrum Storage Suite helps you improve the way you manage data with a bundled suite of software-defined storage products at a cost-effective price.

Next steps

See IBM Storage Insights in action by booking a free guided demo, or try it yourself.  You can also schedule a no-cost 30-minute meeting with an IBM Storage representative.

Get started check list
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