In order to attract clients from regulated sectors and organizations at the smaller end of the spectrum, IBM has updated its on premise Cloud Object Storage System, introducing what it calls ‘compliance-enabled vaults’ and an option for smaller customers to purchase a lower capacity, a ‘concentrated dispersal mode’ with the option of scaling up, from 72TB upwards.

Safe at home 

With the advent of increased data protection regulations and the growth of cross media, object storage is growing, fast: according to IDC, in the past year, it grew by 24.5 percent.

While customers often turn to the cloud for storage, on premise storage can be preferable for compliance and security purposes, and is sometimes used as a means of back-up.

IBM’s so called vaults are thus designed to meet compliance requirements by making data immutable, so it can neither be rewritten or erased, over a defined period of time.

As for the entry level storage, the company says it can offer a lower cost of deployment for smaller entities to use the service.

Rich Weber, chief product officer for IBM partner Panzura, sees it catering for use cases such as “data consolidation, departmental shares, home directories, application data storage over Network File System (NFS) and Windows server modernization.”