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IBM Storage Scale System

Accelerated infrastructure for AI, analytics and high-performance computing

Building a global data platform

IBM Storage Scale System is a high-performance hardware platform that runs IBM Storage Scale software. It's designed to help organizations build a global data platform for their most demanding AI, HPC, analytics, and hybrid cloud workloads.

Unlike traditional applications that work with structured data stored in databases, today’s performance-intensive AI and analytics workloads operate on a vast ocean of unstructured data. This includes documents, audio, images, videos and other objects.

IBM Storage Scale System is designed to be the fastest and most flexible way for organizations to build a global data platform around their file and object data. It uses the power of IBM Storage Scale software that is combined with NVMe flash technology to deliver high-performance storage for AI, data analytics and other demanding workloads.

Storage Scale System is based on a massively parallel file system and can be deployed on multiple hardware platforms. These platforms include x86, IBM Power, IBM zSystem mainframes, ARM-based POSIX clients, virtual machines and Kubernetes. It provides exceptional performance for GPU infrastructure, including NVIDIA GPUDirect Storage support.

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Using IBM Storage Scale System to accelerate AI and analytics.

Whitepaper

Unlock your data at scale for AI

Solution brief

Accelerating Workloads with IBM Storage Scale & Storage Scale System

Explore the Future of HPC, Quantum, and AI at Supercomputing 2024

Join IBM at Supercomputing 2024 in Atlanta, GA, from November 17 to 22, as we showcase groundbreaking innovations in High-Performance Computing, Quantum Computing, and Advanced Storage Solutions.  

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IBM Storage Scale System 6000

Storage Scale System 6000 is designed for extreme performance. It features:

  • a single 4U node with active-active controllers and redundant hardware to maximize uptime;
  • up to 310 gigabytes per second (GB/S) throughput with low latency;
  • up to 13 million IOPS with the Hyper-Store NVMeoF performance tier; and
  • up to 3.4PBe (effective capacity) in a standard 4U rack space.

Storage Scale System 6000 is engineered to scale to thousands of nodes and petabytes of capacity. It runs IBM Storage Scale RAID erasure coding, which provides data efficiency, consistent high-performance, mitigation of storage hardware failures, intelligent monitoring and dynamic tuning of IBM Storage Scale System and IBM Storage Scale data. Installations and updates are delivered by containerized software that speeds and simplifies the maintenance process.

To accelerate the processing of globally distributed data, Storage Scale System 6000 supports the NVIDIA GPUdirect Storage protocol, which enables a direct data path between GPU memory and local or remote storage, such as NVMe or NVMe over Fabric (NVMe-oF).

Storage Scale System 6000 uses a simple building-block approach with performance that scales linearly, that is, a cluster of 10 Storage Scale System 6000 systems is capable of more than 3 terabytes per second throughput. It supports up to nine SAS hard disk drive expansion enclosures.

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IBM Storage Scale System 6000

IBM Storage Scale System 3500

IBM Storage Scale System 3500 is for customers who require an entry-level or mid-level system for less extreme product environments. It has many of the same capabilities as the Storage Scale System 6000, with differences mainly in size and capacity.

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IBM Storage Scale System 3500

IBM was recognized by Gartner® as an industry leader in distributed file and object storage for 9 consecutive years.
Benefits Accelerate AI and analytics

Deploy high-performance infrastructure to run multiple concurrent workloads.

Scale to thousands of nodes

Build a global data platform for the most performance-intensive applications.

Connect and optimize all your data

Connect diverse data sources and locations with global data abstraction services.

Features Turbocharge applications

Optimize data with TB/s parallel access to large files. Use the new turbo tier feature for faster access to small files with up to tens of millions of operations per second.

IBM Erasure Coding

Recover data in minutes rather than hours, while using less space compared to data replication. IBM Storage Scale Erasure Code Edition is a high-performance scale-out storage for commodity servers.  

Lockable data and audit trails

Access a detailed log of every action or activity within the system that is related to data or reports.

Cybersecurity

Protect file data and quickly recover from a cyberattack with IBM Storage Scale safeguarded copy.

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Policy-based tiering and data reduction

Move data between different storage tiers and enhance performance by freeing up primary storage.

Global sharing and collaboration

Enable low-latency read and write access to data from anywhere in the world by using AFM distributed routing and advanced caching technology.

Sustainability with energy efficiency

Achieve sustainability goals with IBM Storage Scale System, which follows IBM's commitment to environmental leadership in all its business activities, from operations, to design and to the use of its technology.

Read the product carbon footprint report
Case studies 
Conserving energy in a data-driven world

The Danish Meteorological Institute teams with IBM to adopt a modernized, more sustainable storage system.

Driving innovative research forward by taking control of data

The University of Birmingham works with IBM to comply with data protection rules at low cost and maintain data availability.

Accelerating insight into vehicle safety at Continental

Continental Automotive AG leverages IBM to develop autonomous driving solutions with faster, more flexible data storage and simplified management for AI.

Resources IBM Storage Scale

Learn more about the software storage that enables a global data platform.

Accelerating AI with a new NVIDIA DGX SuperPOD

Storage, engineered to accelerate AI and unlock value from your data with a global data platform.

Securing IBM Storage Scale with QRadar and IBM Cloud Pak for Security

Learn how the IBM Unified Data Foundation infrastructure plays an important role in delivering the persistence storage to containerized applications with IBM Storage Scale Container Native Storage Access.

IBM Storage Scale System Introduction Guide

Scalable, high-performance data and file management solution, are built on IBM Storage Scale technology. Providing reliability, performance, and scalability, can be implemented for a range of diverse requirements.

Related products IBM Storage Scale

Access high-performance scale-out storage software and enterprise data services with global federated capacity.

NVIDIA storage solutions

Leverage a global data platform optimized for NVIDIA AI performance.

IBM Storage Ceph®

Consolidate data with software efficiency and cloud scalability.

IBM Cloud Object Storage

Consolidate primary and secondary big data storage with industry-leading, on-premises object storage.

Next steps

Discover how to break barriers with a global data platform for AI and enterprise data with IBM Storage Scale System. Schedule a 30-minute meeting with an IBM Storage representative.

Read the introduction guide
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