Currently, in the domestic storage industry, there is a coexistence of demand for storage capable of responding to newly emerging artificial intelligence (AI) and data-intensive projects, as well as for flash storage and tape storage that can perform traditional data storage roles.

IBM Korea's Storage Business Unit announced on the 22nd that it has introduced a new product, the IBM Storage Scale System 6000 (hereinafter IBM SSS 6000).

IBM has further solidified its extensive storage portfolio, including flash systems and tape libraries, to meet the diverse needs of enterprises.

According to a survey by global research firm IDC, IBM Korea's storage business saw revenue increase by approximately 115% in the second quarter of 2023 compared to the same period last year. This growth was attributed to a product lineup featuring new technologies based on a mid-to-long-term roadmap, backed by expertise in the hardware sector.

The flagship product driving growth in IBM Korea's storage business is the IBM Storage Scale System. It is particularly widely used in big data and AI projects, and new products are continuously being released.

Recently, IBM unveiled the IBM SSS 6000, a single platform optimized for graphics processing units (GPUs). The IBM SSS 6000 enables faster access to data with gigabytes per second (GB/s) throughput that is more than 2.5 times faster than competitors and more than double the IOPs performance.

Starting in the first half of 2024, the next-generation IBM FlashCore Module (FCM) will support 2.5 times the data capacity in the same floor space compared to previous generation systems, thereby increasing data efficiency and supporting the realization of economies of scale.

A representative example of IBM SSS utilization is NHN Cloud. NHN Cloud built the National AI Data Center in Gwangju. The National AI Data Center has a computing power of 88.5 PF (petaflops), which ranks among the top globally, and a storage capacity of 107 PB (petabytes).

This can perform 8.85 quadrillion operations per second and store 1.07 billion 10MB files. As the amount of data that needs to be processed and stored is large, requiring faster and more stable storage, NHN Cloud is utilizing IBM SSS storage.

It was also reported that as cost efficiency emerges as a challenge for management, the adoption of IBM Flash Systems is also active. IBM Flash Systems emphasized that its cost-efficiency is a key strength, noting that Safeguarded Copy, which provides essential flash storage features with a stable pricing policy, comes with major software such as internal and remote replication pre-installed.

Mirae Asset Securities adopted IBM Storage Flash System to accommodate the increasing data requirements of its business divisions and consolidate aging storage, securing storage capacity efficiency through Non-Volatile Memory Express (NVMe) Flash Core Modules (FCMs) equipped with IBM's performance-free real-time compression technology.

The Fire Industry Mutual Aid Association, which supports the independent economic activities of its members for the development of the fire industry, recently carried out a project to upgrade the large-capacity storage device of its integrated information system as the proportion and importance of online services have grown.

IBM Storage FlashSystem 7300 was introduced, and through IP replication solutions, the existing system operations between the main center and the disaster recovery (DR) center, which were operated in a complex structure, were simplified, services were stabilized in real time, and the backup system was upgraded.

With the exponential increase in the volume of data, cold data backup that is not immediately needed is also emerging as a major challenge. Accordingly, Maeil Broadcasting (MBN) selected IBM’s next-generation cloud storage, the IBM TS4500 tape library, to build an integrated archive system for news and production materials.

Accordingly, it is expected that broadcasting stability will be secured through the redundancy design of the entire system, and countermeasures can be quickly established in the event of system failure due to strong cybersecurity.

"As the corporate environment becomes increasingly complex, the need for solutions optimized for specific requirements is growing," said Park Dae-sung, Senior Vice President and Head of Storage Business at IBM Korea. "We were able to achieve rapid growth last year by supporting many leading domestic companies based on our comprehensive storage lineup capable of responding to diverse corporate needs and providing outstanding expertise within each product family."

IBM Korea is expected to focus on solutions that support enterprise AI projects in 2024, raising expectations as to whether it will demonstrate strong market dominance in the upcoming AI server era.