IBM (IBM) is now placing its bets on software-defined storage (SDS) technology, a move directed toward tackling big data growth in 2014.

Big Blue on Monday rolled out a new portfolio of SDS products designed to provide customers with ways to exploit various forms of big data.

“Digital information is growing at such a rapid rate and in such dramatic volumes that traditional storage systems used to house and manage it will eventually run out of runway,” IBM Systems and Technology Group Senior Vice President Tom Rosamilia said in a statement.

By building on top of the technology that enabled Watson to sift through 200 million pages of structured and unstructured data during its televison appearance on Jeopardy, IBM is looking to target the most data-intensive applications, which often require high-speed access to massive volumes of information.

Dubbed Elastic Storage, this new software technology, developed in IBM Research Labs, can scan 10 billion files on a single cluster in just 43 minutes, the company said.

A key component of Elastic Storage, which is only one piece of technology in the portfolio, is that it can automatically transfer infrequently-used data to less expensive storage, while storing more frequently-accessed data on more expensive alternatives for faster access, IBM said.

Elastic Storage also enables customers to store, manage and access data across public, private and hybrid clouds through ts support of OpenStack cloud management software.

To comply with regulations such as HIPAA and Sarbanes-Oxley, the software features native encryption and secure erase.

Elastic Storage will also be available later in the year as a cloud service through IBM SoftLayer.

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