IBM is planning to invest about $1bn in research and development to design, create and integrate new Flash technologies into the enterprise to assist organisations in dealing with increasing Big Data challenges.
Additionally, the firm has revealed plans to establish 12 Centres of Competency globally including China, France, Germany, India, Japan, Singapore, South America, UK and the US by late 2013.
The established centres will allow consumers to run proof-of-concept scenarios with real-world data to determine the performance gains that can be achieved through Flash applications.
IBM Systems & Technology Group Systems Storage general manager Ambuj Goyal said the economics and performance of Flash are at a point where the technology can have a revolutionary impact on enterprises, especially for transaction-intensive applications.
"The confluence of Big Data, social, mobile and cloud technologies is creating an environment in the enterprise that demands faster, more efficient, access to business insights, and Flash can provide that access quickly," Goyal said.
The firm has also launched the FlashSystem line of all-Flash storage appliances that incorporate the technology acquired from the Texas Memory Systems and join the company’s existing line of Flash and hybrid offerings such as Storwize V7000, System Storage DS8870, and the XIV Storage System.
IBM claims that Flash systems can offer a cut in transaction times for applications like banking, trading, and telecommunications; batch processing times in applications like enterprise resource planning and business analytics; and reductions of energy consumption in data centre consolidations and cloud deployments.
