IBM Cuts Flash Copy Tags For Storwize V5000

January 20, 2014 Timothy Prickett Morgan

The midrange Storwize V5000 disk and flash arrays were just announced last November, aimed at small and midrange shops who need more than a V3700 but don’t need a full-on V7000. And IBM is already tweaking pricing on some of its features.

In particular, in announcement letter 314-002, you can see that IBM has cut tags on nine different feature codes relating to the Storwize software for this V5000 machine. IBM doesn’t ever tell you the description of the features with the price changes, which is maddening. But that’s why you have me. So, here is the chart of the price changes with their description:

The Flash Copy license in the first item in the table above includes one year of Software Maintenance (SWMA in the IBM lingo) included. Flash Copy, as the name suggests, allows for a disk or flash array to make a fairly instantaneous copy of a data set. This allows for the data to be then linked to another application or used as a backup instance. No other features, such as the Easy Tier (which keeps the hottest data on SSDs in the array) or remote mirroring modules, are getting discounts on their licenses or support for the V5000 under this promotion.

As we reported back in October, IBM was offering freebie bits of the Storwize software stack to V3700 customers, with a value that ranged from $2,999 to $8,499. Which just goes to show you: The value is in the software these days.