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Implementation Guide for IBM Storage Scale System 6000

An IBM Redbooks publication

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Published on 03 February 2026

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ISBN-10: 0738462454
ISBN-13: 9780738462455
IBM Form #: SG24-8566-00


Authors: Chris Maestas, Luis Bolinches, Bruce Brown, Puneet Chaudhary, Mika Heino, John Lewars, Ricardo Zamora Ruvalcaba, Roger E. Sanders, Lindsay Todd and Farida Yaragatti

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    Abstract

    The business world is being transformed rapidly by artificial intelligence (AI), high-performance computing (HPC), analytics, and hybrid cloud technologies. Unlike traditional applications that work with structured data that is stored in databases, these new workloads operate on a vast ocean of unstructured data, such as documents, images, videos, audio recordings, log files, or any other information that can be generated by users, applications, or even machines.

    Therefore, organizations are having to rethink their data storage strategies and adapt to new ways of working, including how to use AI to unlock the value of their data wherever it might reside. IT leaders face many new challenges.

    • Accessing and analyzing data that is scattered across the globe
    • Increasing time and resources that are needed by AI model training and inferencing workloads
    • The cost and scarcity of resources, such as NVIDIA graphics processing units (GPUs).

    Addressing these challenges requires specialized software and hardware.

    • IBM Storage Scale. Software-defined file and object storage for both structured and unstructured data.
    • IBM Storage Scale System 3500. A hardware implementation of IBM Storage Scale software that is designed for organizations requiring enterprise-ready, entry-level, or mid-level storage system.
    • IBM Storage Scale System 6000. A hardware implementation of IBM Storage Scale software that is optimized for the most demanding AI, HPC, analytics, and hybrid cloud workloads.

    This document explores the latest IBM Storage Scale System hardware, which addresses these new and growing needs through many different system and storage configurations. This document is intended to be used by technical support staff, IT architects, IT specialists, and anyone who wants to know more about the latest IBM Storage Scale System offerings and system components.

    Table of Contents

    Chapter 1. Introduction

    Chapter 2. IBM Storage Scale System 6000 architecture and overview

    Chapter 3. Planning considerations

    Chapter 4. IBM Storage Scale System 6000 Configuration

    Chapter 5. Performance

    Chapter 6. Use cases

    Appendix A. Configuring a 48-port management network switch