Last week, I had the pleasure of attending IBM’s Think 2024 in Boston. The event’s focus on Artificial Intelligence was inspiring, and the timing was particularly notable as it marked the two-year anniversary of our strategic partnership with IBM. Two years ago, we committed to going “all in” on IBM, and the conference provided an excellent opportunity to reflect on that commitment, assess where we are today, and consider what AI means for our future focus.
Where We’ve Been
For years, FalconStor has empowered IBM customers to optimize and modernize their Power workloads both on-premises and in the cloud. In early 2022, recognizing the immense potential in the IBM market, we made a strategic decision to focus company-wide on solutions around IBM Power and PowerVS. In May 2022, we announced our partnership, and soon after, IBM made StorSafe VTL available for PowerVS via the IBM Cloud Catalog as its native and enterprise-grade backup and recovery tool.
This partnership has made it simpler for clients to use StorSafe VTL with just a few clicks, enabling seamless migration and secure data management from on-premises environments to PowerVS cloud infrastructure. As Terry Thomas, Director of IBM Power Systems Public Cloud Product Management, said at the time, “We have embedded FalconStor’s StorSafe VTL technology within PowerVS cloud IaaS so clients can easily backup and restore their data reliably and seamlessly.”
Where We Are
Last week’s Think 2024 in Boston reinforced our optimism as we engaged with key IBM executives and learned more about the future of AI and hybrid cloud. Our commitment remains unwavering. We continue to focus on the needs of IBM Power customers, providing solutions for on-premises backup optimization, hybrid cloud backup and DR, workload migration to the cloud, native cloud backup, and ransomware protection using IBM COS.
While we started with the IBM i user base, which remains a cornerstone of our activities as IBM recommends StorSafe VTL for all but the smallest footprints of IBM i in PowerVS, AIX environments have become increasingly important. Recent experience shows that our highly beneficial dedupe ratio, which can reduce backend storage needs by up to 95%, works well for these clients too.
We are helping Managed Service Providers (MSPs) build services on IBM PowerVS for backup optimization and migration to the cloud. We have embraced a multi-cloud world with PowerVS anywhere through partnerships with Converge for Google Cloud Platform (GCP) with their IP4G offering, and Skytap/Azure. Our relationships with IBM partners across the globe have contributed to a remarkable 127% year-over-year growth in hybrid cloud annual recurring revenue.
What we heard at Think and in our conversations with IBM executives is how AI with watsonx is transforming the future. FalconStor intends to be a part of this story, with our solutions enabling customers’ “Journey to AI” through data access, migration, and availability. Today, I am thrilled to announce that our flagship StorSafe solution has now been certified by IBM with IBM Storage Ceph, enhancing our alignment with IBM’s growth initiatives in hybrid cloud and AI.
Where We’re Going
Looking ahead, FalconStor is dedicated to helping IBM Power customers unlock the power of AI with solutions that connect enterprise applications, protect data across hybrid and multi-cloud, and migrate data from heterogeneous storage into Ceph for AI access. Our first step is a project underway today developing a “digital expert” we’ve named Thomas, on watsonx to help navigate our vast information resources and provide expert advice on FalconStor.
But this is just the beginning. Stay tuned for more exciting announcements about how FalconStor products, including StorGuard, and Ceph will enable data availability for AI use.
Our goal for the next 12 months? Continuing to innovate and expand our capabilities by showcasing how FalconStor, Ceph, and WatsonX are accelerating IBM customers’ journey to AI! Hope to see you all soon but no later than Think 2025.
Thank you to our team, partners, and customers for an incredible two years. Here’s to many more years of success and innovation together!
