Enhanced Capabilities of IBM Cloud Object Storage Slicestor S2112A

IBM Cloud Object Storage Slicestor S2112A delivers enhanced capabilities for small Cloud Object Storage solutions

IBM Cloud Object Storage System hardware is comprised of following components:

IBM Cloud Storage System Manager
IBM Cloud Storage System Accesser
IBM Cloud Storage System Slicestor

These servers are all based on industry-standard x86 bare metal hardware. The servers have been certified to perform their functions appropriately.

IBM Cloud Storage System Manager is an out-of-band component. This means that it is important in setting up, provisioning, managing, and monitoring the system, but does not have active participation in the ingress, writing, or reading of the data.

The manager delivers the following functions:

Fault management
Reporting
Provisioning
Performance monitoring
Storage configuration

IBM Cloud Storage System Accesser is a stateless component that delivers the following functions:

Slices data
Disperses data
Retrieves data

IBM Cloud Storage System Slicestor delivers the following functions:

Storage for slices
Rebuilds slices

IBM Cloud Object Storage Slicestor S2212A is a 2U server that contains twelve HDDs. The HDDs can be 4TB, 6TB, 8TB, or 10TB in capacity. It is a medium-powered Slicestor that is for small cloud object storage solutions that could be classified as cold or warm storage. In a standard twelve-wide solution with an information dispersal algorithm (IDA) of 12/6/8, a dsNet using S2212A Slicestors can provide usable capacity ranging from 288TB to 720TB.

IBM Cloud Object Storage System hardware is comprised of three servers; a Manager, an Accesser, and a Slicestor.

When combined with IBM Cloud Object Storage System software, these servers comprise the IBM Cloud Object Storage System. Each of the servers is offered as a bare metal server. The Manager and Accessers are 1U and the Slicestors are either 2U, 4U, or 5U. Each of the servers contains a CPU, memory, network interface controller, disk storage controller, and the disk drives that are required for the unit. Each of these components are sold as a bare metal server, and with the addition of the ClevOS OS, become an appliance that is used to deliver the IBM Cloud Object Storage System.

IBM Cloud Object Storage System is a software-defined system that is also hardware aware. This means that although the ClevOS OS can run on any standard x86-based server, it will not run to its potential on hardware that has not been evaluated and certified by IBM to run ClevOS. Servers that have been certified to run ClevOS take full advantage of this hardware awareness by ensuring that the server performs optimally from a monitoring, management, and performance perspective.

In November 2015, IBM acquired Cleversafe, Inc, developer and manufacturer of object-based storage software and appliances. With this acquisition, Big Blue has incorporated the object storage technology from Cleversafe into its portfolio of solutions to enhance on-premise storage options for clients and service providers with large-scale, active archives and unstructured data content stores.

Key prerequisite
IBM Cloud Object Storage System hardware servers must be loaded with the appropriate subset of the IBM Cloud Object Storage System software (3.10.1, or later) that is designed for that server type.

These certified hardware servers can be deployed in a single site or across multiple, geographically dispersed locations, connected by public or private networks.

Planned availability date: April 21, 2017