IBM announces the inclusion of Red Hat Storage in the storage business unit, redefining hybrid cloud applications and data storage

On October 13, IBM announced that it will integrate Red Hat's storage product roadmap and its associated teams into the IBM Storage business unit to provide enterprises with consistent application and data storage across on-premises infrastructure and the cloud.

With this move, IBM will integrate Red Hat OpenShift Data Foundation (ODF) storage technology as the basis for IBM Spectrum Fusion. This, combined with IBM and Red Hat's containerized storage technology for data services, will help accelerate IBM's capabilities in the emerging Kubernetes platform market.

Additionally, IBM intends to offer new Ceph solutions that provide a unified software-defined storage platform that bridges the architectural gap between data center and cloud providers. This will further advance IBM's leadership in the software-defined storage and Kubernetes platform markets.

Under the agreement between IBM and Red Hat, IBM will assume principal sponsorship responsibility for the Ceph Foundation, whose members collaborate to drive innovation, development, marketing and community activities for the Ceph open source project. IBM Ceph and Red Hat OpenShift Data Foundation will remain 100% open source and will continue to follow an upstream-first model that reinforces IBM's commitment to these important communities. Involvement of the Ceph leadership team and other aspects of the open source project is a key priority for IBM to maintain and nurture Red Hat's ongoing innovation.

Red Hat and IBM intend to complete the transition by January 1, 2023, which will involve the storage roadmap and the transfer of Red Hat employees to the IBM Storage business unit. After this date, Red Hat OpenShift Platform Plus will continue to include OpenShift Data Foundation, sold by Red Hat and its partners. Additionally, Red Hat OpenStack customers will still be able to purchase Red Hat Ceph Storage from Red Hat and its partners. Red Hat OpenShift and Red Hat OpenStack customers with existing subscriptions will be able to maintain and expand their storage footprint as needed without changing their relationship with Red Hat.

The upcoming Ceph-based IBM Ceph and IBM Spectrum Fusion storage solutions are expected to start shipping in the first half of 2023.