IBM is to merge Red Hat and its IBM Storage business unit as a single group, bringing consistent application and data storage across on-premises infrastructure and cloud.
Big Blue will integrate the storage technologies from Red Hat OpenShift Data Foundation (ODF) as the foundation for IBM Spectrum Fusion. This combines IBM and Red Hat’s container storage technologies for data services and helps accelerate IBM’s capabilities in the burgeoning Kubernetes platform market.
Additionally, IBM intends to offer new Ceph solutions delivering a unified and software defined storage platform that bridges the architectural divide between the data centre and cloud providers. Clients can leverage a consistent set of storage services while preserving data resilience, security, and governance across bare metal, virtualized and containerized environments.
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Services made possible by the merger include: a unified storage experience for all containerized apps running on Red Hat OpenShift, a consistent hybrid cloud experience at enterprise levels of scale and resiliency with IBM Ceph, a single data lakehouse to aggregate and derive intelligence from unstructured data on IBM Spectrum Scale, and capability to build in the cloud and deploy on-premises with automation.
Denis Kennelly, general manager of IBM Storage, IBM Systems, said: “Red Hat and IBM have been working closely for many years, and today’s announcement enhances our partnership and streamlines our portfolios. By bringing together the teams and integrating our products under one roof, we are accelerating the IBM’s hybrid cloud storage strategy while maintaining commitments to Red Hat customers and the open-source community.”
Joe Fernandes, vice president of hybrid platforms, Red Hat, said: “Red Hat and IBM have a shared belief in the mission of hybrid cloud-native storage and its potential to help customers transform their applications and data. With IBM Storage taking stewardship of Red Hat Ceph Storage and OpenShift Data Foundation, IBM will help accelerate open-source storage innovation and expand the market opportunity beyond what each of us could deliver on our own.
“We believe this is a clear win for customers who can gain a more comprehensive platform with new hybrid cloud-native storage capabilities.”
