IBM launched a high-density archival storage service that protects hybrid-cloud environments from ransomware while lowering total cost of ownership and carbon emissions.

The IBM Diamondback Tape Library is designed to lower organizations' carbon footprints when compared to using flash or disk storage, thanks to IBM's reduced power and cooling requirements. As opposed to traditional storage tech, tapes sit idle in automated libraries without consuming any energy until they need to be accessed.

According to Scott Baker, IBM Storage VP and CMO, the storage library "provides critical protection against a variety of threats, helping minimize data center floor space requirements and organizations' carbon footprint," he said, adding that this is part of "the end-to-end data protection and security solution that IBM can deliver."

As hyperscalers like Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and Google Cloud all claim to be focused on lowering their environmental impact and fossil-fuel based electricity consumption, IBM posits the Diamondback library as "an ally in managing energy efficient infrastructures."

IDC Research VP Phil Goodwin noted the explosion of data volume, ransomware, and increasing regulatory and sustainability requirements render hyperscale cloud providers the biggest consumers of tape storage and will "drive tape capacity shipments to new levels in 2023," he said.

Aside from its sustainability focus, the storage library also targets ransomware protection and cyber resiliency through physical air-gapped isolation of tapes, which increases threat resiliency. IBM claims its tape is just one-fourth of the cost of traditional spinning disk storage or public cloud archival services, which offers a significant cost advantage.

The storage launch rides on the heels of the company's third-quarter 2022 earnings results that showed total revenues of $14.1 billion.

"IBM delivered strong revenue growth in the quarter, reflecting our continued focus on the execution of our strategy," IBM CEO and Chairman Arvind Krishna said. "With our year-to-date performance, we now expect full-year revenue growth above our mid-single digit model," he added.

Software was the vendor's strongest revenue segment with $5.8 billion at a 7.5% year-over-year increase. Hybrid platform and solutions revenue increased 2% and Red Hat revenue – including the Red Hat storage portfolio IBM recently absorbed – jumped 12%. Automation revenue was down 2%, and data/artificial intelligence (AI) and security both dropped 1%.