Improving software installation and licensing retrieval would make using IBM System Storage DS5000 series easier for customers.

IBM talks about integration when we talk about Safeguarded Copy. It integrates with QRadar, but it seems as though IBM still is too separate, that is, the way IBM is measured on software and hardware.

There is integration between the hardware and the Safeguarded Copy. When you use it together with QA, log management, and prices, it takes too long to fulfill it, and we end up doing it ourselves.

With regard to software bundles and where to find them, there are still some difficulties.

IBM's competitors bundle their products with servers. Though the IBM System Storage DS5000 Series is a much better product, not being able to bundle it with a server has been an issue.

IBM should have more integration between their departments so that problems can be solved in a timely manner.

The solution's integration with other tools could be improved.

The product should improve its support. 

IBM System Storage DS5000 is expensive when compared to other vendors.

The product is very costly. Very few can afford it. 

The renewal or maintenance of the solution is also expensive. Once things come down, users tend to look to other options.

The solution needs better alerts. If there is a problem, there needs to be a good alert system in place.

Regarding improvements, there's a common perception, primarily during pre-sales, that IBM storage solutions are expensive, though studies often prove otherwise. As for additional functionality, supporting two to three sites for applications might be a potential enhancement.

The price of the product is an area of concern where improvements are required. From an improvement perspective, the price of the product needs to change.

IBM is not always as agile as other competitors when it is about cloud integration and user interfaces. They're not renewing themselves very often. They have been slow to evolve from the old GUI. The user interface should be improved, especially regarding performance analysis, which has always been a little bit weak as compared to other solutions.

As a global solution, it lacks the feature for containing integration object storage. Even though they have now started to offer this feature, it is quite young and not as developed as some other vendors. There are also no mass possibilities at all. 

They have a lot of competition in the mid-range segment. They need to have a NAS gateway or something like that. It doesn't specifically need to be integrated into the controllers that are keys to the gateway.

The amount of storage could be increased.

It would be nice if duplication was possible at the hardware level. As it is now, duplication is a software feature, whereas compression is a hardware feature.

Our current system is outdated, almost full, and has limitations with storage. Therefore, replacing the current system with a new one is the only solution. The solution's scalability can also be improved.

I didn't make the comparison between the solution and other brands because I'm just preparing the document considering our requirements.

I find the solution isn't so easy to understand. A user must be quite knowledgeable in the product. It isn't like HPE 3PAR, which you can use quite easily without too much storage experience. In that solution, you can just simply follow instructions. 

They need to add instructions inside the storage the way 3PAR has them. If they can add this usability on the storage web console, it will be very easy to follow.