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Greg and 3PAR's Marc Farley did an "ambush" interview with the folks at the IBM booth at SNW, including Paula Koziol about Twitter, and [Rich Swain] about IBM's latest SONAS product. Here is their post [Storage Monkey business with IBM]:
You can learn more about SONAS from my post [More Details about IBM Clustered NAS]. SONAS is based on software that has been available since 1996, on commodity off-the-shelf server and storage systems, but building a complete system was left as an exercise to the end-user, which many of the top 500 Supercomputers have done.
Back in November 2007, IBM announced Scale-Out File Services (SoFS) which was a set of IBM Global Technical Services to build a customized solution from the software and a set of servers, disk and tape storage. Customized configurations were done for a variety of workloads from Digital Media to Scientific Research High Performance Computing (HPC). Last year, SoFS was renamed to IBM Smart Business Storage Cloud (SBSC).
This year, IBM was able to package all of the software and hardware into an easy to order machine-type model that has everything cabled and ready to use. This is what SONAS is today.
Continuing my discussion of this week's announcements of IBM storage products, I will cover the announcements that double storage capacity per footprint.
Linear Tape Open - Generation 5
IBM announced [LTO-5 drives], the TS2250 half-height and the TS2350 full-height drives, as well as support for LTO-5 drives in its various tape libraries: TS3100, TS3200, and TS3500. The native 1.5TB capacity of the LTO-5 cartridge is nearly double the 800GB capacity of the LTO-4 predecessor. With 2:1 compression, that's 3TB of data per cartridge! Performance-wise, the data transfer rate is 140 MB/sec, about 17 percent improvement over the 120MB/sec of the LTO-4 technology. The TS2250, TS2350, TS3100 and TS3200 now all offer dual-SAS ports for higher availability.
LTO-5 carries forward many of the advancements of past generations. For example, LTO-5 continues the G-2/G-1 "backward compatibility" architecture, which means that the LTO-5 drive can read LTO-3 and LTO-4 cartridges, and can write LTO-4 cartridges. Like the LTO-3 and LTO-4, the same LTO-5 drive can read and write WORM or regular rewriteable cartridges. Like the LTO-4, the LTO-5 offers drive-level data-at-rest encryption. These use a symmetric 256-bit AES key, managed by IBM Tivoli Key Lifecycle Manager (TKLM).
One thing that is new in LTO-5 is the Long Term File System [LTFS] available on the TS2250 and TS2350, which allows you to treat the tape as a hierarchical file system, with files and folders, that you can drag and drop like any other file system.
XIV storage system
IBM [doubles the capacity of the XIV storage system] by supporting 2TB SATA drives. A full 15-module frame can hold up to 161TB of usable capacity. The smallest 6-module system with 2TB can hold up to 55TB of usable capacity. At this time, all of the drives in an XIV must be the same type, so we do not yet allow intermix of 1TB and 2TB in the same frame. The 2TB are more energy efficient, with a full 15-module frame consuming on average 6.7 kVA, compared to 7.8 kVA for the 1TB drives. The performance is roughly the same, so if, for example, your application workload got 3700 IOPS per module with 1TB drives, it will get about the same 3700 IOPS per module with 2TB drives.
TS7650 ProtecTIER Data Deduplication
IBM now supports [many-to-one virtual tape volume mirroring] on the ProtecTIER. In other words, you can have two or more locations sending data to a single ProtecTIER disaster recovery site.
N series disk system
The EXN1000 and EXN3000 can now double in capacity with 2TB SATA drives. These can be attached to the N3000 entry-level models, such as the N3400.
DS3000 disk system
The DS3200, DS3300 and DS3400, as well as their related expansion drawers, now supports 2TB SATA drives. This means that a single control unit with three expansion drawers can hold up to 96TB of raw capacity (48 drives).
DS8700 disk system
The DS8700 also now supports 2TB SATA drives, for a maximum raw capacity over 2PB, as well as new 600GB Fibre Channel drives. Now that IBM offers [Easy Tier] functionality, pairing Solid State Drives with slower, energy-efficient SATA disk makes a lot of financial sense.
That's a lot of announcements! As always, feel free to dig into each of the links to learn more about each product.
Well, it's Tuesday, and that means IBM announcements!
IBM kicks EMC in the teeth with the announcement of System Storage Easy Tier, a new feature available at no additional charge on the DS8700 with the R5.1 level microcode. Barry Whyte introduces the concept in his [post this morning]. I will use SLAM (sub-LUN automatic movement) to refer generically to IBM Easy Tier and EMC FAST v2. EMC has yet to deliver FAST v2, and given that they just recently got full-LUN FAST v1 working a few months ago, it might be next year before you see EMC sub-LUN FAST v2.
Here are the key features of Easy Tier on the DS8700:
Sub-LUN Automatic Movement
IBM made it really easy to implement this on the DS8700. Today, you have "extent pools" that can be either SSD-only or HDD-only. With this new announcement, we introduce "mixed" SSD+HDD extent pools. The hottest extents are moved to SSD, and cooler extents are moved down to HDD. The support applies to both Fixed block architecture (FBA) LUNs as well as Count-Key-Data (CKD) volumes. In other words, an individual LUN or CKD volume can have some of its 1GB extents on SSD and other extents on FC or SATA disk.
Entire-LUN Manual Relocation
Entire-LUN Manual Relocation (ELMR, pronounced "Elmer"?) is similar to what EMC offers now with FAST v1. With this feature, you can now relocate an entire LUN non-disruptively from any extent pool to any other extent pool. You can relocate LUNs from an SSD-only or HDD-only pool over to a new Easy Tier-managed "mixed" pool, or take a LUN out of Easy Tier management by moving it to an SSD-only or HDD-only pool. Of course, this support also applies to both Fixed block architecture (FBA) LUNs as well as Count-Key-Data (CKD) volumes.
This feature also can be used to relocate LUNs and CKD volumes from FC to SATA pools, from RAID-10 to RAID-5 pools, and so on.
Pool Mergers
What if you already have SSD-only and HDD-only pools and want to use Easy Tier? You can now merge pools to create a "mixed" pool.
SSD Mini-Packs
Before this announcement, you had to buy 16 solid-state drives at a time, called Mega-packs. Now, you can choose to buy just 8 SSD at a time, called Mini-packs. It turns out that just moving as little as 10 percent of your data from Fibre Channel disk over to Solid-State with Easy Tier can result in up to 300 to 400 percent performance improvement. IBM plans to publish formal SPC-1 benchmark results using Easy Tier-managed mixed extent pool in a few weeks.
Storage Tier Advisor Tool (STAT)
Don't have SSD yet, or not sure how awesome Easy Tier will be for your data center? The IBM Storage Tier Advisor Tool will analyze your extents and estimate how much benefit you will derive if you implement Easy Tier with various amounts of SSD. Those clients with R5.1 microcode on their DS8700 can download from the [DS8700 FTP site].
To learn more, see the [Easy Tier landing page] and the 10-page Easy Tier chapter in [DS8000 Introduction and Planning Guide]. IBM also had announcements regarding LTO-5 tape, N series and XIV storage systems, which I will get to in later posts.
They say "Great Minds think alike" and that imitation is "the sincerest form of flattery." Both of these quotes came to mind when I read fellow blogger Chuck Hollis' (EMC) excellent April 7th blog post [The 10 Big Ideas That Are Shaping IT Infrastructure Today]. Not surprisingly, some of his thoughts are similar to those I had presented two weeks ago in my March 22nd post [Cloud Computing for Accountants]. Here are two charts that caught my eye:
Telephone Operators
On page 13 of my deck, I had an old black and white photo of telephone operators, as part of a section on the history of selecting "cloud" as the iconic graphic to represent all networks. Chuck has this same graphic on his chart titled "#1 The Industrialization of IT Infrastructure".
Looks like Chuck and I use the same "stock photo" search facility!
Arms Dealers
On page 45 on my deck, I had a list of major "arms dealers" that deliver the hardware and software components needed to build Cloud Computing. Chuck has a similar chart, titled "#2 The Consolidation of the IT Industry", but with some interesting differences.
Let's look at some of the key differences:
The left-to-right order is slightly different. I chose a 1-2-4-2-1 symmetrical pattern purely on aesthetic reasons. My presentation was to a bunch of accountants, and so I was trying not to make it sound like an "Infomercial" for IBM products and offerings. My sequence is roughly chronological, in that Oracle announced its intention to acquire Sun, then Cisco, VMware and EMC announced their VCE coalition, followed closely by Cisco, VMware and NetApp announcing they work together well also, followed by [HP extended alliance with Microsoft] on Jan 13, 2010. As the IT marketplace is maturing, more and more customers are looking for an IBM-like one-stop shopping experience, and certainly various "mini-mall" alliances have formed to try to compete in this space.
I had HP and Microsoft in the same column, referring only to the above-mentioned January announcement. HP is all about private cloud hardware infrastructures, but Microsoft is all about "three screens and the public cloud", so not sure how well this alliance will work out from a Cloud Computing perspective. This was not to imply that the other stacks don't work well with Microsoft software. They all do. Perhaps to avoid that controversy, Chuck chose to highlight HP's acquisition of EDS services instead.
I used the vendor logos in their actual colors. Notice that the colors black, blue and red occur most often. These happen to be the three most popular ballpoint pen ink colors found on the very same paper documents these computer companies are trying to eliminate. Paper-less office, anyone? Chuck chose instead to colorize each stack with his own color scheme. While blue for IBM and orange for Sun Microsystems make some sense, it is not clear if he chose green for Cisco/VMware/EMC for any particular reason. Perhaps he was trying to subtly imply that the VCE stack is more energy efficient? Or maybe the green refers to money to indicate that the VCE stack is the most expensive? Either way, I would pit IBM's server/storage/software stack up against anything of comparable price from these other stacks in any energy efficiency bake-off.
What about the Cisco/VMware/NetApp combination? All three got together to assure customers this was a viable combination. IBM is the number one reseller of VMware, and VMware runs great with IBM's N series NAS storage, so I do not dispute Cisco's motivation here. It makes sense for Cisco to two-time EMC in this manner. Why should Cisco limit itself to a single storage supplier? Et tu VMware? Having VMware chose NetApp over its parent company EMC was a bit of a shock. No surprise that Chuck left NetApp out of his chart.
No love for Dell? I give Dell credit for their work with Virtual Desktop Images (VDI), and for embracing Ubuntu Linux for their servers. Dell's acquisitions of EqualLogic iSCSI-based disk systems and Perot Systems for services are also worth noting. Dell used to resell some of EMC's gear, but perhaps that relationship continues to fade away, as I [predicted back in 2007]. Chuck's decision to leave Dell off his chart speaks volumes to where this relationship stands, and where it is going.
Perhaps we are all in just one big ["echo chamber"], as we are all coming up with similar observations, talking to similar customers, and reviewing similar market analyst reports. I am glad, at least this time, that Chuck and I for the most part agree where the marketplace is going. We live in interesting times!
Now that the US Recession has been declared over, companies are looking to invest in IT again. To help you plan your upcoming investments, here are some upcoming events in April.
SNW Spring 2010, April 12-15
IBM is a Platinum Plus sponsor at this [Storage Networking World event], to be held April 12-15 at the Rosen Shingle Creek Resort in Orlando, Florida. If you are planning to go, here's what you can go look for:
IBM booth at the Solution Center featuring the DS8700 and XIV disk systems, SONAS and the Smart Business Storage Cloud (SBSC), and various Tivoli storage software
IBM kiosk at the Platinum Galleria focusing on storage solutions for SAP and Microsoft environments
IBM Senior Engineer Mark Fleming presenting "Understanding High Availability in the SAN"
IBM sponsored "Expo Lunch" on Tuesday, April 13, featuring Neville Yates, CTO of IBM ProtecTIER, presenting "Data Deduplication -- It's not Magic - It's Math!"
IBM CTO Vincent Hsu presenting "Intelligent Storage: High Performance and Hot Spot Elimination"
IBM Senior Technical Staff Member (STSM) Gordon Arnold presenting "Cloud Storage Security"
One-on-One meetings with IBM executives
I have personally worked with Mark, Neville, Vincent and Gordon, so I am sure they will do a great job in their presentations. Sadly, I won't be there myself, but fellow blogger [Rich Swain from IBM] will be at the event to blog about all the actviities there.
Systems for a Smarter Planet webinar, April 15
Can't travel to Orlando? On April 15, IBM will offer a [Systems for a Smarter Planet webinar] to highlight IBM's vision, strategy and latest offerings. Speakers include:
Jim Stallings - General Manager, Global Markets, IBM Systems and Technology Group
Scott Handy - Vice President, WW Marketing, Power Systems, IBM Systems and Technology Group
Dan Galvan - Vice President, Marketing & Strategy, Storage and Networking Systems, IBM Systems and Technology Group
Inna Kuznetsova - Vice President, Marketing and Sales Enablement, Systems Software, IBM Systems and Technology Group
Jeanine Cotter - Vice President, Systems Services, IBM Global Technology Services
The webinar will include client testimonials from various companies as well.
Dynamic Infrastructure Executive Summit, April 27-29
I will be there, at this this 2-and-a-half-day [Executive Summit] in Scottsdale, Arizona, to talk to company executives. Discover how IBM can help you manage your ever-increasing amount of information with an end-to-end, innovative approach to building a dynamic infrastructure. You will learn all of our innovative solutions and find out how you can effectively transform your enterprise for a smarter planet.
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