IBM Announces Midrange Storage Servers for the Telecommunications Industry

IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced the introduction of two new midrange storage servers designed for companies that require "hardened" infrastructures because of the industries they address or the data center environments where the equipment is located.

The new IBM® System Storage™ DS4700 Express, Models 70-DC and 72-DC, are designed to address requirements for companies in the telecommunications industry, as well as other segments, such as oil and gas. The new models, as well as the enhanced IBM System Storage DS4000 EXP810, are now Network Equipment Building System (NEBS) Level 3-compliant and optimally suited for environments with strict requirements.

The new DS4700 Express, Models 70-DC and 72-DC, and the EXP810 expansion unit, a high-bandwidth storage system and expansion unit for mid-market clients, feature built-in support for DC power and are compliant not only with the NEBS Level 3 standard for U.S. clients, but also with the NEBS Level 3 standard for the European Telecommunications Standards Institute. The new DS4700 and EXP810 are designed to deliver the benefits of automated networked storage to all customers, particularly to customers in the telecommunications industry, as the systems can be powered from a 48-volt DC telecommunications industry-standard power source.

"Telecommunications clients have ever increasing storage requirements, as well as restrictions on the types of systems they deploy," says Charlie Andrews, director, IBM system storage product marketing. "The enhanced DS4700 is designed to help address these needs and lower overall costs through high performance with less storage infrastructure through fast data access, fast backups, and fast restoration, copying and mirroring of data."

A bezel attachment option is also available for the enhanced DS4700 Express models as well as for the EXP810 expansion unit. This option contains an air filter that helps prevent harmful airborne particles from entering the DS4700 or EXP810 enclosure when these units are installed in rugged environments, such as earthquake-prone areas or buildings with significant amounts of dust and debris, often found in the oil and gas industries.

The enhanced DS4700 Express series is designed to provide users with high performance and connectivity with connectivity to 4 Gbps attached host systems, in addition to 16 disk drive bays inside the controller and up to 8 host ports. Clients can attach EXP810 expansion units, each containing another 16 drive bays, to the back-end to scale up to 56 Terabytes of physical capacity and 112 drives. The DS4700 Express will be available in two versions, Models 70-DC and 72-DC, which will feature different amounts of cache and number of host ports.

Pricing and Availability

The enhanced IBM System Storage DS4700 Express Models, 70-DC and 72-DC, will start at list prices of $26,100 and $52,000, respectively. The IBM System Storage DS4000 EXP810 will start at a list price of $12,100. Pricing includes Microsoft Windows host kit and storage partitions. All systems will be generally available on December 8, 2006.

For more information about IBM storage, visit http://www.ibm.com/storage