IBM Storage  general manager Denis Kennelly said that IT organisations training AI models using data which can’t be put onto a cloud need this sort of onsight storage.

The FlashSystem 5200i, with data capacity starting at 38 TB, is now the entry-level member of the IBM all-flash family of storage system that IBM is now offering for 20 per cent less than its predecessor. IBM is adding additional 2u models to the FlashSystem series that are designed to deliver higher I/O performance.

The IBM storage systems run the IBM Spectrum storage management software that IBM makes available on its cloud as well as Amazon Web Services (AWS).

Kennelly said IBM was committed to making IBM Spectrum Virtualise for Public Cloud software available on the Microsoft Azure Cloud in the third quarter. That capability is critical because it enables IT teams to replicate and migrate data across hybrid cloud computing environments, he said.

Next month, IBM will add support for IBM Cloud Satellite to its FlashSystem systems as well as IBM SAN Volume Controller, IBM Elastic Storage System, and IBM Spectrum Scale software next month.

IBM Cloud Satellite, currently in beta, is a management platform that IBM created to centralise the management of hybrid cloud computing environments. IBM Cloud Satellite is built on an instance of the Red Hat OpenShift platform running on Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), which makes it possible to deploy the management platform anywhere.