IBM Corp. is on the path to acquiring Texas Memory, a company specializing in solid-state drives. Through the acquisition, IBM is hoping to add a bit of high-performance storage to its PureSystem platform, which runs on its Pure Application System boxes, touted by the company as a sort of cloud-in-a-box.
The appliances include server blades and storage all in one place. Presumably, part of that storage capacity will now be in the form of solid-state, running the most I/O intensive operations.
If IBM mainframes are Clydesdales, the Pure Application System boxes are quarter horses–meant to be nimble and carry moderate loads. Significantly, IBM has invested in SSD technology in its System z line as well, so it appears that this may be a trend to offer “high-performance” storage options in some of their leading data centre hardware.