IBM Flash Storage and Cyber Resiliency
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Flash storage has historically had a reputation for delivering large amounts of storage capacity and high performance in a relatively small package. But with the current threat landscape, it has become important to focus on the resilience of flash.
IBM's 2021 Cost of a Data Breach Report found that the average cost of a customer data breach is more than four million dollars, and recovery from such an event can take days or even weeks. IBM is responding to the need for protection and rapid recovery from ransomware and other cyber threats by releasing new data resilience capabilities for its FlashSystem family of all-flash arrays.
Flash storage with the power of data protection
Even if your company has a robust security strategy, you still need to be prepared if and when an attack succeeds. IBM empowers organizations to recover from this eventuality by enhancing its FlashSystem storage with IBM Safeguarded Copy.
Safeguarded Copy enables flash storage to play a role in recovery by automatically creating point-in-time snapshots on production storage on an administrator-defined schedule. Once snapshots have been created, they cannot be changed or deleted. These protections prevent malware and internal threats from tampering with backups.
With Safeguarded Copy, companies can recover from an attack quickly and completely. Safeguarded Copy snapshots reside on the same FlashSystem storage as operational data, which dramatically reduces recovery time when compared to tiered or offsite copy-based recovery solutions.
Rapid recovery with IBM FlashSystem Cyber Vault
IBM has also enhanced its FlashSystem storage with IBM FlashSystem Cyber Vault to enable it to quickly perform all three stages of the recovery process: detection, response and recovery.
Cyber Vault runs continuously and monitors snapshots as Safeguarded Copy creates them and uses standard database tools and other software to ensure Safeguarded Copy snapshots haven't been compromised. If Cyber Vault finds the snapshots have been corrupted, it interprets that as a sign of an attack. Cyber Vault can reduce recovery time from days to hours by quickly determining which snapshots to use.
Flash storage designed for resiliency
IBM has added members to its FlashSystem family that are built to deliver on performance while also providing resilience: FlashSystem 9500 and 7300.
The FlashSystem 9500 is IBM's flagship enterprise storage array, designed for environments that need the highest capability and resilience. It offers twice the performance, connectivity and capacity of its predecessor and 50 percent more cache. The 9500 also provides data resilience with numerous safeguards, including multi-factor authentication (MFA) and secure boot to help guarantee only IBM-authorized software runs on the system. Additionally, IBM's FlashCore Modules (FCMs) offer real-time hardware-based encryption and up to 7x increase in endurance compared to commodity SSDs.
The IBM FlashSystem 7300 offers about 25 percent better performance than the previous generation of FlashSystem storage. It has a smaller footprint than the 9500 but runs the same software and features, including 3:1 real-time compression and hardware encryption. The FlashSystem 7300 supports up to 2.2PB effective capacity per 2U control enclosure.
The IBM FlashSystem family offers two- and three-site replication along with configuration options that can include an optional 100 percent data availability guarantee for business continuity.
Explore next-generation flash storage
The IBM FlashSystem family is continuously evolving with expanded capabilities around capacity, performance and data protection.
WWT can help your company evaluate and choose the right flash storage solution to meet your needs. WWT is an IBM-designated global and regional systems integrator (SI) and solution provider, and we know how important data protection is for modern companies. We encourage your organization to take a holistic approach to data resilience.