IBM Corp. is bringing some of its mainframe data protection to users of its flash storage arrays and also refreshing the flash line with new models that are faster and can share data transparently both on-premises and in the cloud.

The IBM FlashSystem Cyber Vault is a software offering aimed at helping businesses better detect and recover from ransomware and other cyberattacks. Citing Accenture Plc research from last summer that showed a 125% year-over-year increase in the volume of cyberattacks, IBM said Cyber Vault can reduce recovery times from days or weeks to hours using validated restore points.

The software can be used in concert with intrusion detection systems from IBM and other companies to identify more quickly that an attack is underway and recover a clean copy of data. The software runs on a set of virtual machines or virtual instances within a single VM that are used for analysis, validation and forensics.

The technology was originally released for mainframes about two years ago and is now being made available more broadly said Scott Baker, vice president of product marketing for IBM storage. “Cyber Vault is an air-gapped solution that runs a series of services that take a restore point and analyze activity to look for signs of a cyberthreat,” he said. “If you find a fingerprint of a threat [in a restored data set] or the restore doesn’t work properly we can move it to a workbench for further testing.”

Vendor-neutral

In keeping with its vendor-neutral strategy, IBM designed Cyber Vault to be used with any storage that works with by its Spectrum Virtualize software. It enables rapid deployment of block storage services for workloads that are located on-premises, off-premises or in a combination of both places.

“If it’s non-IBM storage it can be used behind the [storage-area network] volume controller with safeguarded copy capability,” Baker said. “You can replicate data from on-prem to the cloud so you have a cyber recovery solution that runs in the cloud.” IBM supports the Amazon Web Services Inc. public cloud, Microsoft Corp. Azure and its own cloud.

The new FlashSystem storage models, FlashSystem 7300 and 9500, are built upon Spectrum Virtualize and offer a Non-Volatile Memory Express storage density of 1.1 petabytes per rack. Based on a single architecture and a common operating environment, they provide edge-to-core-to-cloud compatibility, IBM said.

The FlashSystem 9500 comes in a 4u rack configuration with four petabytes of storage and IBM’s FlashWatch guarantee that promises downtime of fewer than 30 seconds per year as well as up to five-to-one data compression. It replaces the older FlashSystem 9200. The FlashSystem 7500 replaces the earlier 7200 model and comes in a 2u configuration.

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