The product is quite optimized. It is relatively easy to use and set up. Compared to other storage vendors, the solution is quite convenient to use. It is very flexible for data migration. SAN Volume Controller is a really great place to move data based on mobility.

I like that it can virtualize more than three hundred storage providers. I enjoy the performance, replication, and compression. I value all of the features.

I like all the features, but the most impressive recently has been the introduction of IBM's Flash Core Modules. They are a form of a flash drive, but they have many more features. They actually have embedded computers in them. Each drive has its own computer and performs compression and encryption. It also manages the flash chips inside it, including multiple low levels of the raid. They typically have a response time of 70 microseconds. They also have NVMR attached.

• The replication
• The flash copies
  

Using SBC, a valuable feature is the mirroring, which is the virtualization of the disk between disparate places.

One of the things that we use it for, is that we can bring any storage underneath it. Not only will it recognize it and put it in the pool and add it to the storage, but it also allows me to mirror that storage across the campus, a mile and a half away.

Neither my applications, my servers, nor my hosts even know that the disk is actually split between the two places. It just sees it as the normal disk that it uses. If one side goes away, whether it is disaster recovery or if is normal every day operations, if we're restarting something or there's an issue, we have to do updates, or upgrades, and it doesn't even know it.

The abstraction. Hands down, it is the top reason for having it. 

The ability to add the virtual machine on the Spectrum environment to sort out the data movers(DMs) and their schedules is a valuable feature. You are able to have, for example, four data movers to balance them so you do not have too much work on one data mover.

Once you know how to run the commands it tells you what has been backed up and which DM did not get backed up. You have what you call DSM errors. The system talks to the schedule and then it knows why and what happened with a certain backup that was not completed. When you are trying to troubleshoot you are able to go back to the DSM or OPT error files and scroll down and see why the backup did not run. It gives you the error number allowing you to go back to see what the issue was.

There are many benefits to this solution. Storage virtualization and the ability to migrate massive amounts of data to other systems without impacting your client are the most valuable. It is non-disruptive for my users. We migrated 350 terabytes of data in one night to a new machine without a small system going down and a single user complaining about the performance.

You have to fine-tune a lot of storage machines constantly for performance and for making sure that they are optimal, but IBM Spectrum Virtualize does this by itself. It does the adjustment on its own, and it does it right. That's what makes it different. I had a huge VSP from Hitachi, which is also a type of virtualization-based engine but with a decent size. It was a continuous performance-tuning exercise. I never had that issue with IBM Spectrum Virtualize.

The SVC gives excellent performance with tiered storage behind it, and the Spectrum Control suite. The newest versions that I have now are very useful in terms of managing, monitoring, and alerting. The full suite handles everything I need. We have had a lot of success through the years with Virtualize, which was originally just SVC, and we use it heavily. My environments are extremely large and busy, and it does the job without any problems. So, we are very happy with it.

1. The virtualization layer
2. Easy tier
3. The ability to have a feature-rich software set which extends the capabilities of the back-end storage arrays.

The product helps us to manage our storage in a way that allows us to put different frames inside or out of our storage infrastructure and migrate.

• Ease of use
• Scalability 
• The product comes in hardware, software, and appliance models, so I have a lot of choice on how we deploy it and its interoperability.

The most valuable features are the simplicity of use, the flexibility, and the options included. I mean, it's just a big time saver.

The product is very flexible, and it is very easy to add any additional product from the background; so we can use any multi-vendor backend storages and virtualize the product. It becomes a powerful virtualization engine for migrating data, for provisioning data and any type of data migration is easy.

The most valuable features are disaster recovery, replication, and multi-site setup. Being able to quickly recover in a disaster and knowing that your data is protected across multiple sites is important.

One of the main features of Spectrum Virtualize is it virtualizes the servers from the storage. We have a very large infrastructure. A major advantage is when you get the aged storage arrays and you have to replace all of those. Last summer, we replaced four petabytes of aged storage arrays. They were old and past end-of-life. But we did that seamlessly, without affecting any of the server applications. There were no system admin times; nothing required at all. It was really quite good for our client. That was perfect for them.

Our team operates four 8-Node IBM Spectrum Virtualize (SVC) clusters (32nodes total), two clusters at one site and two at a sister site with replication between the two sites.

These four clusters have a number of storage arrays behind them to yield a total storage capacity across the four cluster of approximately ~6 petabytes of Platinum, Gold, Silver and Bronze Data Classes. The Storage Cloud uses IBM's EasyTier feature to create different performing storage classes and uses Thin Provisioning to lower our clients requested 8 petabytes of capacity to a much less costly 5 petabytes of consumed capacity. The remaining ~1 petabyte is elasticity which is built into the Cloud.

Our client does not have any classical maintenance windows where systems or storage can be taken down for upgrades, repairs, expansion, or replacement. Servers require 24x7x365 data access (actually 4 days are planned power outages for power testing - but no IT changes are permitted).

So when I say our storage services to our client were provided continuously - non-stop - for 12 months, it means that all customer servers had 100% uninterrupted, online SAN access to their data 24x7x365 (minus the power down). During that time, our team provided on-demand capacity provisioning of about 700TB of new client growth and expansion, updated all cluster softwares, decommissioned ~4 petabytes of aging storage arrays, installed ~5 petabytes of new replacement / expansion arrays, and repaired a couple failed components. It really shows the power, utility, versatility and availability of our Cloud Storage design.

The second feature that it is software-defined. Every year, we select a new release and we get new features. This gives us time to test them out. It's just very amenable to our type of delivery of services to the clients that use storage.

In addition to that, they've been able to add some really cool functions. It started out with the usual stuff, such as thin provisioning. Then they added features like compression. Now they're actually adding transparent cloud tiering, so they can put data up in the cloud, just by taking it off of the SVC and sending to the cloud. This is very, very good for us in being able to put together a roadmap for functions for our clients of what they can do with their data.

It enables us to virtualize the entire data center for the Internal Revenue Service. We have about seven or eight terabytes of data behind SVC right now. Before we took this over as a managed service, they had about 120 silo storage areas. Right now, everything is virtualized behind SVC.

To be able to seamlessly migrate storage sub-systems underneath Spectrum Virtualize.

It's flexibility. It gives us the ability to move the data across multiple storage devices. That makes our lives as the implementers easy during data migration.

The most valuable feature is the abstraction layer. Basically, it gives us a single pane of glass between our host and our back-end storage, regardless of what the back-end storage actually is.

Beyond that, I would also add the flexibility of the management itself.

• Capability of putting lots of heterogeneous storage systems all in one management pane
• Being able to substitute them out and move between them
• The ability to put it all in one management and fix them into something that's much more usable.

It's just been handy with a lot of customers that have, over the years, developed a mess of storage.

The most valuable feature is its reliability.

Being able to move things around from one array to the other has been the biggest feature for us.

The most valuable feature is probably data migration so we can bring in back-end systems and swap data out. Our end-users, and even our other system administrators, don't have any idea that we've moved storage around.

It's got full features, so we can compress volumes. We can do thin volumes and we can change them on the fly.

Nobody knows that we've migrated that data around. We can ship it off to our DR site. This is all under the hood of Spectrum Virtualize.

We don't have to worry about what type of block is underneath it at the time. It's all being done at that layer.

Its versatility, as it has a lot of advanced functions for a reasonable price.

There are several good features, many of which have similarities to that of competitive offerings from other vendors (replication, snapshot). Compression is quite useful, but for me the most useful has been the virtualisation of back-end SAN disk systems, from almost any vendor. This enables easy upgrading and updating of storage, across vendors, by moving the storage pools between the back end disk systems. Migration from configurations where servers have storage provisioned from older SAN disk systems to newer storage systems is almost seamless using image mode migration techniques, with only a short outage of the servers. The hybrid storage pools, with SSD and the hard-disk drives, together with the Easy Tier feature, give high IOPs performance for most loads, without the customer needing to purchase all flash storage solutions.

• The ability to use different storage products in the back-end
• Having only one code base for mirroring and all other enterprise features

It is easy to deploy and use. It's very calm. The GUI goes right across the entire platform.

The most valuable feature for sure is the abstraction of the storage. In this way, we can basically stick any storage solution that we want on the back-end. Then we've got a rich feature set above that. We can basically move the data where we need it to be. We have a lot of control. It's a good product.

Where does one begin? Although the GUI from the XIV was used (in my view), IBM has polished and refined the GUI providing a pleasant and easy to navigate GUI experience. The IBM Spectrum Virtualize has gone from strength to strength but at the same time setting the bar for what's possible in the storage virtualization market. IBM have just recently released the new SV1 nodes which boasts integrated flash and processor power, thus providing far better response times overall.

It gives us a lot of flexibility and ease of management. We have all the tools in one place. We pretty much do all our storage using the Spectrum Virtualize. It makes it really easy for us to manage all our storage.

The most valuable feature for is its ease of use.

Not having to take any kind of outage to do a storage data migration.

The ability to virtualize multiple storage components is a valuable feature.

It gives flexibility to the customers to view the entire storage infrastructure, as a single entity.

It is really a good product which can virtualize your whole data center. It is a road to a whole different software data center. It's a wonderful product for total cost of ownership, production, and providing ease of management.

It is very good for compatibility and stability.