Large savings for midsize workloads
May 13, 2019
Large savings for midsize workloads
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with IBM Storwize
We use IBM Storwize virtualized products to leverage storage efficiency practices to scale our storage to business demands. Data is endlessly growing, and being able to use virtualized products we can somewhat manage growth. We use multiple Storwize V7000 and V5000 devices behind SVC. The SVC allows us to seamlessly move data between storage devices without issues. Specifically, the V7k V5k, and as well as the V9Ks allow us to provision storage and over-allocate storage when workloads are not meeting the requests from the users.
- Data processing and IO. The Storwize devices are very resilient in how they process data and do not have a drop in IO when errors occur (common errors such as disk failures and lost paths).
- Storage efficiency management. We are able to use multiple efficiency techniques such as thin provisioning and data reduction to reduce our budget footprint.
- Easy to use interfaces. Creating a volume and mapping to a host has proven to be a very easy process and makes onboarding less stressful for our team.
- Support could use some improvement when there are major issues. Call home reaches level 1 support, but each error should probably reach a different team when a more major event occurs.
- There is a bit of confusion surrounding data reduction pools and leveraging DRP or using FCM. This may be confusion on my part, not necessarily the Storwize product.
- Saved money from storage purchases.
- Support has been overall better than most.
We prefer IBM over other solutions because IBM just seems to be more resilient, easy to use, and simple to deploy. Other products may have a steep learning curve, or may be start ups with not so much reliability.