IBM's Pseudo-Secret Grid Strategy

So, IBM has finally pushed its XIV clustering technology out, albeit in an extremely low-key note that recently appeared on the vendors Website.

Since acquiring XIV for a rumored $350 million earlier this year, IBM has maintained pretty much radio silence about its plans for the little-known Israeli startup.

Now, Armonk is adding some flesh to the bones of this strategy, although IBM execs, for some reason, opted to sneak their XIV technology out under the radar, with not so much as a press release.

The IBM XIV Storage System, which appeared on the IBM Website last week, is the rebranded version of XIV’s Nextra technology.

With 180 1-Tbyte SATA drives, 24 4-Gbit/s Fibre Channel ports, and six ports of 1-Gbit/s iSCSI, IBM is already touting the XIV System as the next big thing in grid computing. In a statement on its Website, the company said:

Aimed primarily at Web 2.0 and digital media applications, IBM’s broader XIV strategy still remains something of a mystery, prompting some interesting comments in the blogosphere.

“IBM intends to deliver several additional features for the XIV Storage System at some point in the future, including ‘best practice configuration guidance, change management, asset awareness, capacity utilization, performance trending, operational reporting capabilities, single sign-on capabilities, and to add support for XIV Storage System as a disk system managed by IBM System Storage SAN Volume Controller’. Sounds just a little like the product isn't quite done yet,” quipped EMC chief strategy officer Barry Burke on his blog.

Crucially, IBM not yet released any XIV pricing information.

Clearly, where XIV is concerned, there are still plenty of t’s left to be crossed by IBM.Have a comment on this story? Please click "Discuss" below. If you'd like to contact Byte and Switch's editors directly, send us a message.