Taking the Mystery out of Flash [v1]

Some are sold purely on the basis of the clear
impact flash has on application performance at
similar or competing businesses. Others may need
comprehensive benchmarking before making a
purchase. IBM has created a suite of offerings that
help a customer at any stage of the buying process.
“Finding the ideal flash storage systems for your
environment is just the beginning,” says Jim
Surmacewicz, of Armonk, N.Y.-based IBM Corp.
“The harder part is figuring out where and how
to integrate them in your IT infrastructure for the
biggest possible effect.”
Surmacewicz ought to know. He’s business
development executive for IBM’s Flash Centers of
Competency (CoCs), a global network of state-of-
the-art technology labs dedicated to helping orga-
nizations determine precisely how solutions based
on IBM®
FlashSystem™ products will benefit them
and how to configure a FlashSystem solution for
maximum performance—before they’ve purchased
or deployed anything.
“We take the mystery out of flash storage,” Surma-
cewicz says. “We’ll help you see exactly what to
expect up front and exactly how to turn those
expectations into reality.”
STAIRWAY TO VALUE
That’s a mission IBM considers so important that it
announced its intention to build the Flash CoCs the
same day it introduced the FlashSystem product
line. “Flash is a transformative technology, and
IBM wanted to give customers an opportunity to
experience it firsthand,” Surmacewicz notes. “We
felt it was critical to establish the Flash Centers of
Competency for that purpose.”
SUCCESS BY DESIGN:
TAKING THE MYSTERY OUT OF
FLASH STORAGE WITH IBM FLASH
CENTERS OF COMPETENCY
IBM’S STATE-OF-THE-ART FLASH STORAGE TEST LABS GIVE
ENTERPRISES PROOF POINTS AND CONFIDENCE IN THE VALUE
OF AN IBM FLASHSYSTEM SOLUTION.
WHITE PAPER
Different organizations have different
comfort levels with flash technology.

simple to customized and complex. Briefings and
solution workshops are the first step. “We educate
the customer about flash, tell them where we think
it fits in the data center, and help them identify the
right combination of flash and related systems for
their specific needs,” he says.
Customers interested in taking the next step can
participate in the Flash CoCs’ interactive demos,
which IBM can deliver either in-house at the
CoC or remotely via the cloud. “They [interactive
demos] give people a feel for how our FlashSystem
products work, how to configure them, and how
they respond to common enterprise workloads,”
Mueller states.
Next up on the staircase are IBM’s proof-of-
technology and proof-of-concept engagements.
The former provide hands-on lab experience with
standard flash configurations. The latter allow visi-
tors to test flash storage on the same infrastructure
they use back home. “We can build an evaluation
environment for the customer before they arrive
that uses the same operating systems, servers,
and software they have in their data center, regard-
less of manufacturer,” Mueller says. Enterprises
come away knowing exactly where and how to
utilize flash for maximum impact, how to optimize
surrounding technologies such as networking and
virtualization, and what benefits to expect.
At the top of the Flash CoC staircase are IBM’s
ultra-customized benchmark studies. “In these,
the customer can bring their exact data and we
can duplicate their exact workload,” Mueller says.
“They see how our flash solutions perform under
conditions very, very specific to their environment.”
PROOF POSITIVE
In addition to those on-site engagements, the
Flash CoCs provide a range of off-site services.
“With the economy the way it is, we know that
some organizations can’t travel to one of our
centers,” Surmacewicz notes. In such cases,
specialists from IBM’s Systems and Technology
Lab Services Group can lead consultative studies
at the customer’s location instead. Working closely
with the customer’s IT staff, the IBM experts use
sophisticated modeling tools to calculate the
Today, IBM operates 12 Flash CoCs in countries
around the globe. All of them are designed from the
ground up to accommodate the enormously varied
needs of current and potential flash storage users.
“Some want to improve response times, while
others are consolidating their storage environment,
preparing their infrastructure for future growth, or
all of the above,” observes Bernd Mueller, manager
for advanced storage technical skills at IBM’s Flash
CoC in Mainz, Germany. Furthermore, he continues,
some customers are already familiar with flash
storage, while others are completely new to it.
The Flash CoCs, accordingly, have something for
everyone. “They provide access to expert knowl-
edge from flash storage specialists and a huge
variety of test hardware and software from IBM and
other suppliers, all under one roof,” Mueller says.
The end results for IBM’s flash customers are more
informed decision making and faster time-to-value.
Surmacewicz likens the Flash CoCs’ many offer-
ings to a staircase that runs from standardized and
2 WHITE PAPER ➔ Taking the Mystery Out of Flash Storage with IBM Flash Centers of Competency
“They can show you the accelerated
speeds you’ll experience in your busi-
ness-critical applications as well as the
cost savings you’ll realize in areas like
power usage, licensing, and floor space
consumption.”
—Jim Surmacewicz
business development executive for
IBM’s Flash Centers of Competency

3 WHITE PAPER ➔ Taking the Mystery Out of Flash Storage with IBM Flash Centers of Competency
performance gains flash storage will deliver and
how those improvements will affect the bottom
line. “They can show you the accelerated speeds
you’ll experience in your business-critical applica-
tions as well as the cost savings you’ll realize in
areas like power usage, licensing, and floor space
consumption,” Surmacewicz explains.
In a second kind of off-site assessment, IBM
consultants use software from Arxscan Inc., of
Asbury, N.J., to collect detailed analytics about an
enterprise’s data center and operating conditions.
“Drawing on that information, they can then quickly
pinpoint areas in the customer’s environment where
flash might make sense,” Surmacewicz says.
For organizations investigating flash storage,
utilizing the Flash CoCs translates into greater
confidence in the ROI a flash solution will provide.
“You know exactly what you’re getting in advance,
because you can optimize a deployment for your
specific requirements and see the advantages
with your own eyes before making the acquisition,”
Mueller says. That up-front information can make
securing budget for a flash investment easier too.
“You can prove to the C-suite that flash will deliver
real business value,” Mueller notes.
Proof, ultimately, is what the IBM Flash CoCs are
all about. Drawing on the expertise and knowl-
edge they provide, IT leaders can verify that flash
storage really will deliver the benefits they expect it
to. “We can help you directly link a flash rollout to
competitive advantage,” Mueller says. “At the end
of the day, there are few things a CIO wants more
than that.” n
For more information, visit
ibm.com/storage/flash
“You know exactly what you’re
getting in advance, because you
can optimize a deployment for
your specific requirements and
see the advantages with your
own eyes before making the
acquisition.”
—Bernd Mueller
manager for advanced storage technical
skills, IBM’s Flash CoC, Germany

EXECUTIVE
VIEWPOINT
IBM’s Flash Centers of Competency are some of
the most advanced facilities on earth for evaluating
flash storage. In this executive Q&A, IBM’s Jim Surma-
cewicz provides an insider’s look at what they do and
why they’re so effective at giving CIOs peace of mind
in their flash storage investments.
Q: Tell me about the origins of IBM’s Flash
Centers of Competency. Why did IBM
create them?
A: The Flash Centers of Competency date back to
the launch of our Flash Ahead initiative, a strategic
effort announced in April 2013 to help enterprises
better tackle challenges like big data using flash
technology. Specifically, we announced three things
that day: our new FlashSystem product line, a $1 billion
investment in flash-related research and develop-
ment, and a commitment to build 12 Flash Centers of
Competency around the globe to help our customers
test flash solutions and measure the projected perfor-
mance gains they deliver.
Q: What are some examples of typical
customer engagements? What kinds of things
do people tend to do and learn?
A: It’s hard to sum up everything customers do at the
Flash CoCs, but just to give you a taste I’ll talk about
two kinds of engagement, our benchmark studies and
our consultative-led assessments.
The benchmark studies happen on-site at one of our
Flash CoCs, and they’re the most comprehensive,
realistic proof-of-concept tests we do. Customers can
bring their actual data and run their exact workload
on the exact hardware and software they have in their
own data centers. We’ve done a number of these now
and customers find them really powerful, because
they’re seeing real results for a flash solution in the
same environment where they’re going to use it.
Low Risk, High Reward
“Our people identify the areas in your environment that will
benefit most from flash storage and then use cutting-edge
modeling techniques to calculate the potential performance
improvements and cost savings.”
Then there are the consultative-led assessments,
which take place at a customer’s site. In those, our
people identify the areas in your environment that will
benefit most from flash storage and then use cutting-
edge modeling techniques to calculate the potential
performance improvements and cost savings.
Seeing those numbers is kind of an “aha” moment for
most customers. We had a major research hospital
tell us once that our consultative-led assessment
made the decision to proceed with a flash solution a
no-brainer. When you hear that type of comment you
know you’ve done a good job of helping the customer
see just how big a difference a FlashSystem deploy-
ment can make.
Q: From a CIO’s perspective, what benefits do
the IBM Flash Centers of Competency offer?
A: Technology is important for CIOs, but mostly in
terms of the competitive advantage it enables. At the
Flash CoCs, we can help you measure that in really
precise terms. We can show you how many more
revenue-generating transactions you’ll do in a day, how
much you’ll lower your operational costs, how much
you’ll reduce downtime. So we can tie the technology’s
performance characteristics directly to business value
and competitive advantage.
The other thing that matters to CIOs, of course, is
risk, which they obviously want to reduce as much as
possible. By helping customers test and configure and
measure flash solutions before rollout, the Flash CoCs
take the risk out of a FlashSystem deployment. That’s
something CIOs really appreciate. n
JIM SURMACEWICZ
Jim is Business
Development
Executive in the Flash
Storage organization and
leads the Flash Center
of Competency global
mission. Jim has been
with IBM for 17 years and
has had numerous leader-
ship positions including:
Business Unit Executive
— Storage Lab Services,
Senior Storage Consulting
Manager, and Services
Sale and Opportunity
Manager. Jim is based out
of Raleigh NC.

Taking the Mystery out of Flash [v1]

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Taking the Mystery out of Flash [v1]