White
Paper
IBM's Collaborative Integration of Micron
FortisFlashTechnology Delivers Business
Value via Enhanced Flash Optimization
By Mark Peters, Senior Analyst
February 2015
This ESG White Paper was commissioned by Micron.
and is distributed under license from ESG.
© 2015 by The Enterprise Strategy Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
White Paper: IBM’s Integration of Micron Delivers Business Value
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Contents
Flash Storage Continues to be Disruptive .................................................................................................... 3
A New Spin on “Flash-optimized” ................................................................................................................. 3
Micron FortisFlash Technology: The Storage Value ..................................................................................... 4
IBM FlashSystem Then and Now .................................................................................................................. 4
Delivering Value Through Integration .......................................................................................................... 5
The Bigger Truth ........................................................................................................................................... 6
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© 2015 by The Enterprise Strategy Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
White Paper: IBM’s Integration of Micron Delivers Business Value
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Flash Storage Continues to be Disruptive
Flash entered the contemporary portfolio picture for enterprise storage about 7 years ago when storage vendors
began to add it to their spinning disk-based systems to create hybrid arrays. Flash (initially packaged as an SSD….in
other words, to appear like an HDD in terms of form-factor and deployment) could be added with little or no
change to storage architectures, and the improvement in access times was, and is, dramatic.1 The physical
restrictions of disk—specifically, IOPS in the low hundreds per drive—lead to inefficiency and waste because more
and more disk has to be added to keep up with access demands. Each head and spindle can do only a set amount of
work; in order to gain I/O, users give up capacity, essentially throwing it—and money—away (this is the infamous
phenomenon of “short stroking”). Hybrid disk-and-flash solutions led to all-flash arrays, and the rest is
history….although it is still in the making as flash in some form or fashion is becoming a norm across storage
infrastructures.
Initially the price of flash (at least when viewed from a traditional capacity perspective) was high, but organizations
with low-latency requirements paid gladly for the performance. Now the price of flash is coming down, in part
because raw FAB technology, versions (often card-based these days rather than the SSD approach) and volumes
have all improved. Also, storage management tools such as deduplication and compression are improving the
effective capacity, and this drives down both per GB and per I/O costs further.
More than two-thirds of organizations surveyed in a recent ESG study have deployed flash storage somewhere in
their organizations.2 According to one respondent: “The tipping point is price-driven: It needs to be close to spinning
disk prices, although a percentage over spinning disk is okay.” Another respondent commented, "We view solidstate storage as a technology with widespread applicability today—if we could afford more of it, we'd deploy more
of it."
Putting this colloquially, the “battle” over the value and need for flash is won—now it is just a matter of the rate of
progress. Organizations want flash. It's a matter of when, not if, and the only obstacle is price. And this is where a
new strategic customer-focused technology collaboration between IBM and Micron comes in. It benefits all the
parties involved (IBM, Micron, and end-users) but specifically delivers compelling financial and operational
advantages to users.
A New Spin on “Flash-optimized”
Lots of companies purchase flash devices (packaged in many different forms and for different industries); and
indeed most any storage vendor can purchase flash from Micron Technology, Inc. Instead of engaging in just that
simple “vanilla” transaction, however, IBM and Micron have now taken their collaborative relationship further.
Micron has opened up APIs and connections that allow IBM to do multiple additional things that result in improved
performance, lower latency, and better endurance, all of which help to not only speed up ROI but also lower TCO.
Essentially, the two vendors are putting a new spin (pun intended!) on the overused phrase, “flash-optimized.” It's a
bit like automobile engineers working together with the spark-plug manufacturer to genuinely improve fuel
efficiency, acceleration, and cost compared to an automobile manufacturer just buying a set of spark plugs that
adhere to industry standards. It’s not that the latter, traditional, approach is bad….but simply that it leaves system
optimization (and hence end-user money and business value) unrealized.
A typical conversation about flash-optimized has to date focused on a particular application or environment, such
as VMware. In other words, it is optimization "up" to the management software and applications; but the
conversation rarely extends "down" into the integration of the flash itself. Yet both these elements are needed, and
this is precisely what the strategic collaboration between IBM and Micron delivers; IBM was already optimizing
“up,” but now Micron enables IBM to optimize “down” as well.
1
The exact improvement will depend on how much flash of what sort is deployed in what manner, and whether users consider just certain
workloads or the overall system, and indeed whether just latency is the focus or whether I/O bandwidth is also a driver; so, while an average
impact is impossible to provide, nonetheless the impact can range from single to double orders of magnitude of improvement in I/O.
2 Source: ESG Research Report, Next-generation Storage Architectures, December 2014.
© 2015 by The Enterprise Strategy Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
White Paper: IBM’s Integration of Micron Delivers Business Value
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Micron FortisFlash Technology: The Storage Value
Micron is a 35-year-old semiconductor manufacturer with operations in more than 20 countries and an annual
revenue of over US$16 billion in 2014. The company holds more than 20,000 patents, and it has earned numerous
industry awards. Its portfolio includes DRAM, NAND, and NOR flash memory technologies.
Micron developed its FortisFlash Technology as a part of its natural progress in better serving an ever-moredemanding market. But it also recognized that storage integrators like IBM need more specific and customized
abilities to adequately serve the needs of the enterprise storage market. One good example is in error
management. Historically, Micron (and others) used “hard-decode” error correction; but with the newer NAND
flash media, the multi-level cells can be in one of multiple states, meaning that more subtle and complex “soft
data” is needed. Micron FortisFlash Technology and its special modes provide the ability to get soft data from the
NAND—and thus an advanced soft decode can replace a “blunt” hard decode. The value to users is not just better
error correction, but also better utilization of the media, allowing them to get more—and more good—data from
their NAND investment.
Over recent years, the interim “eMLC” technology has similarly been targeted at enhancing the endurance of MLC
to make it more suitable for enterprise use, but it was achieved at the cost of a performance impact. Micron
FortisFlash Technology maximizes endurance without such a performance hit. Using Micron FortisFlash and the
Enhanced Read Optimization features, combined with IBM's error management techniques, can greatly increase
the program and erase cycles, extend the longevity, and elevate reliability. Indeed, Micron FortisFlash Technology
gives IBM top-to-bottom control of its “flash stack,” so it can tune the NAND for a system offering or even for
individual customers.
This would not all be possible with “plain old regular MLC,” nor with a “plain old systems integrator.” Very few
entities in the world have the ability to manipulate NAND and optimize it. But between IBM (it really knows what it
needs for its users) and Micron (it can actually do the hard NAND engineering), a secret sauce has been produced
that advances flash optimization.
IBM FlashSystem Then and Now
IBM recognized flash storage as a disruptive technology that could improve its
customers' environments. To pursue this opportunity it introduced some
early hybrid offerings (like many other vendors), and then it also acquired
Texas Memory Systems and over time introduced the resulting IBM
FlashSystem all-flash arrays and the initial version of FlashSystem softwaredefined flash (which wrapped in extensive and sophisticated software-based
data services). IBM also committed to a $1 billion investment in the
FlashSystem portfolio. It was this investment, in part, that led IBM to have
discussions with Micron.
IBM has now updated its portfolio with the FlashSystem 900 and FlashSystem
V9000. Both systems build on mature foundations of reliability, efficiency,
IBM's MicroLatency and performance. IBM also is announcing its Flash Core
Technology, which optimizes the system use of flash. The other element in
this flash-optimization quest is IBM’s use of Micron FortishFlash Technology,
together with the advanced integration that it has worked on in concert with
Micron.
IBM FlashSystem 900
This all-flash appliance delivers
up to 57 TB (of useable RAID 5
capacity) and 1.1 million IOPS
and offers:





Improved reliability,
availability, and
serviceability (RAS)
compared to the
previous generation
Front-load hot swap
modules
Concurrent code load
Full redundancy
throughout
GUI-based
management console
Field upgradability
The relationship with Micron lets IBM integrate the NAND flash device into its

system design more deeply than would have been possible with just standard
flash (however good such flash might be, and including the new Micron
FortisFlash Technology). What does this really mean for IBM and its end-users? IBM can differentiate its flash
portfolio with an improved cost/performance value proposition. Users can experience that value proposition in the
© 2015 by The Enterprise Strategy Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
White Paper: IBM’s Integration of Micron Delivers Business Value
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form of both improved ROI and TCO thanks to the improved write cycles, latency, capacity, and endurance cycles
that are the progeny of the IBM/Micron collaboration.
Delivering Value Through Integration
Optimized integration is the phrase that unlocks value for all three parties to this strategic customer technology
collaboration. The market differentiation and therefore potential business advantage to Micron and IBM is very
apparent. Better flash deployments at a better price (which is ultimately what all this boils down to, however it is
actually achieved) can drive market share since, as mentioned previously, this is what users want.
IBM FlashSystem V9000
This integrates FlashSystem 900 with IBM's
software-defined storage capabilities, and
offers full-featured storage virtualization (a
form of software-defined storage),
including:








Thin provisioning
Snapshots
Real-time compression
Disk mirroring
Synchronous and asynchronous
replication
High availability
Tiering
External virtualization to extend
the services listed above to other
IBM and third-party storage
Users receive endurance without a performance hit—but they can
even switch to “SLC mode” if it's needed for an extra performance
boost. They also receive improved management and control
capabilities with Micron FortishFlash Technology in the IBM mix.
Ultimately, it's the payoff in the form of operational and financial
outcomes that lines up nicely with the number two most-cited
enterprise priority3 when it comes to 2015 IT spending, which is
cost reduction initiatives (see Figure 1).4
The same research also asked respondents “Which of the
following considerations do you believe will be most important in
justifying IT investments to your organization’s business
management team over the next 12 months?” After security/risk
management (again, a predictable #1) the following three
considerations most often cited by respondents were: ROI,
business process improvement, and reduced OpEx5—these are all
areas where the Micron/IBM collaboration can direct significant
value, targeted as it will be into the heart of IBM’s global-reachsoftware-defined storage efforts that are focused on such things
as private clouds and analytics…places where reliable and
economically viable I/O performance really matters.
Micron FortisFlash Technology is non-exclusive technology, but the combination of Micron FortisFlash Storage and
the extra API hooks and custom enhancements are exclusively the result of the Micron and IBM collaboration and
only available to IBM FlashSystem users. IBM takes advantage of the technically nuanced capabilities of, and hooks
into, Micron FortisFlash Technology (some are generic to all users, and some are the specific result of the
IBM/Micron collaboration) so as to maintain the combination of endurance and performance and improved
economics for its users.
3
In the current news media environment and in the light of highly publicized security breaches, it is no surprise that “security” tops the IT
priorities poll, but cost reduction remains key, as it has for years prior.
4 Source: ESG Research Report, 2015 IT Spending Intentions Survey, to be published February 2015.
5 Ibid.
© 2015 by The Enterprise Strategy Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
White Paper: IBM’s Integration of Micron Delivers Business Value
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Figure 1. 2015 Business Initiatives with the Greatest Impact on IT Spending Decisions
Which of the following business initiatives do you believe will drive the most
technology spending in your organization over the next 12 months? (Percent of
respondents, N=601, five responses accepted)
Security/risk management initiatives
46%
Cost reduction initiatives
37%
Improved data analytics for real-time business
intelligence and customer insight
Providing our employees with the mobile devices and
applications they need
30%
27%
Regulatory compliance
26%
Improved internal collaboration capabilities
25%
Developing strategies to ensure we interact with our
customers on their mobile devices
Increased use of social media technology for marketing,
customer outreach, etc.
Business growth via mergers, acquisitions, or organic
expansion
23%
19%
17%
Research and development innovation/improvement
16%
Sales force enablement
15%
International expansion
13%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
Source: Enterprise Strategy Group, 2015.
The Bigger Truth
Flash storage is a rapidly growing market area. As the price of flash comes down and its economic benefits rise, it
will be implemented more broadly. IBM already is doing well, but the strategic customer technology collaboration
between two US Fortune 500 companies adds up to more than the sum of the parts. This integration is far more
than a custom-off-the-shelf packaging exercise. All parties to the collaboration—users, IBM and Micron—can
accrue business value. The achievement of lower latency and higher performance at a reasonable cost both “down”
the stack as well as “up” is going to be a tough act for others to replicate, and it gives new, and real, meaning to the
term flash-optimized.
© 2015 by The Enterprise Strategy Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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