In their ongoing coverage of IBM Edge Stu Miniman and Dave Vellante speak with Kevin Powell, Business Line FlashSystems Manager. The three discuss the many functions of Flash, IBM’s unique tech offerings and the importance of fully integrated solutions.

Powell explains that the focus of IBM Edge was not just Flash Systems products, but offerings across the Flash portfolio, including connecting Flash capability of storage with Flash capacity in the server. As clients transition from disk storage to Flash storage they enjoy the benefit of not having to address de-staging backup. IBM’s own storage array is all flash.

Miniman asks about the competitive difference between Dell and EMC. Powell suggests IBM tends to focus on trying to fully automate Flash technology. Their approach involves cooperative cacheing instead of individual servers doing cacheing. The advantage of this strategy, according to Powell, is that “if essentialized servers need to do a lot of copying, [they] can tell another server to update its cache. It gives cache a sort of centralized intelligence to coordinate multiple cacheing.”

Vellante inquires about hybrid systems. Powell states the IBM Flash portfolio is made up of different categories. Particularly, IBM Flash software and its direct attach portfolio.

Powell also explains how IBM is responding to client needs concerning performance. He notes, “customers want low latency high performance, they don’t want anything getting in their way.” Clients may also want copying, mirroring, and virtualization. In the future, Powell state IBM will “integrate so you can have pure performance or performance with enterprise capabilities.”

Given that Flash is so pervasive, Powell says, its not a matter of whether companies use Flash, but where (i.e. in storage or servers). Vellante asks, “at some point, why not just drop in an all flash array?” The idea of short-stroking spinning disks may seem arcane, but Powell believes disk will remain relevant. More specifically, disks will remain as larger capacity and Flash will really serve the performance layer.

theCube concludes with Powell’s advice to those who have not yet fully embraced Flash: “You gotta try it. I’ve been through multiple product generations and I’ve never seen anything like this that has the success ratio.”