News / 09 June 2026

IBM joins the iRODS Consortium



Global technology leader joins the consortium to help shape the future of open-source data management and collaboration

IBM has become the newest member of the iRODS Consortium, the membership-based organization that leads development and support of the integrated Rule-Oriented Data System (iRODS).

iRODS is an open-source, policy-based data management software used by research, commercial, and government organizations around the world. The iRODS software allows you to store, manage and share large amounts of data, including their metadata, between different organizations and platforms and provides a mechanism for defining rules for their storage, processing, and distribution. iRODS is designed to support collaboration, interoperability, and scalability of data infrastructures. The iRODS software has been deployed at thousands of locations worldwide for long-term management of data in various industries such as oil and gas, biosciences, physical sciences, archives, and media and entertainment.

IBM has joined the iRODS Consortium to work with its prestigious group of members to shape the roadmap for iRODS development. Through this membership, IBM will be able to leverage Technology Working Groups and the Planning Committee to collaborate across the consortium ecosystem on new features, standards, and architectural decisions that will guide the future of iRODS.

"We're excited to have IBM engage the Consortium at this level. We have worked alongside one another for many years in various deployments and projects around the world." said Terrell Russell, Executive Director, iRODS Consortium. "This vote of commitment validates the foundational work we have done and shows confidence in what we will do together."

"We're thrilled to join the iRODS Consortium to participate in the evolution of a widely used open-source data management platform alongside an incredible ecosystem of members," said Vincent Hsu, Vice President, IBM Fellow, CTO for IBM Storage. "We look forward to fostering collaboration across this ecosystem and exploring opportunities for new partnerships."

About the iRODS Consortium

The iRODS Consortium is a membership organization that supports the development of the integrated Rule-Oriented Data System (iRODS), free open-source software for data virtualization, data discovery, workflow automation, and secure collaboration. The iRODS Consortium provides a production-ready iRODS distribution and iRODS training, professional integration services, and support. The world's top researchers in life sciences, geosciences, and information management use iRODS to control their data.

The iRODS Consortium development team is based at the Renaissance Computing Institute (RENCI), which is affiliated with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA. To learn more about iRODS and the iRODS Consortium, please visit irods.org.


Jayasree Jaganatha