It's Tuesday, and that means more IBM announcements!

I haven't even finished blogging about all the other stuff that got announced last week, and here we are with more announcements. Since IBM's big [Pulse 2010 Conference] is next week, I thought I would cover this week's announcement on Tivoli Storage Manager (TSM) v6.2 release. Here are the highlights:

Client-Side Data Deduplication

This is sometimes referred to as "source-side" deduplication, as storage admins can get confused on which servers are clients in a TSM client-server deployment. The idea is to identify duplicates at the TSM client node, before sending to the TSM server. This is done at the block level, so even files that are similar but not identical, such as slight variations from a master copy, can benefit. The dedupe process is based on a shared index across all clients, and the TSM server, so if you have a file that is similar to a file on a different node, the duplicate blocks that are identical in both would be deduplicated.

This feature is available for both backup and archive data, and can also be useful for archives using the IBM System Storage Archive Manager (SSAM) v6.2 interface.

Simplified management of Server virtualization

TSM 6.2 improves its support of VMware guests by adding auto-discovery. Now, when you spontaneously create a new virtual machine OS guest image, you won't have to tell TSM, it will discover this automatically! TSM's legendary support of VMware Consolidated Backup (VCB) now eliminates the manual process of keeping track of guest images.  TSM also added support of the Vstorage API for file level backup and recovery.

While IBM is the #1 reseller of VMware, we also support other forms of server virtualization. In this release, IBM adds support for Microsoft Hyper-V, including support using Microsoft's Volume Shadow Copy Services (VSS).

Automated Client Deployment

Do you have clients at all different levels of TSM backup-archive client code deployed all over the place? TSM v6.2 can upgrade these clients up to the latest client level automatically, using push technology, from any client running v5.4 and above. This can be scheduled so that only certain clients are upgraded at a time.

Simultaneous Background Tasks

The TSM server has many background administrative tasks:

• Migration of data from one storage pool to another, based on policies, such as moving backups and archives on a disk pool over to a tape pools to make room for new incoming data.
• Storage pool backup, typically data on a disk pool is copied to a tape pool to be kept off-site.
• Copy active data. In TSM terminology, if you have multiple backup versions, the most recent version is called the active version, and the older versions are called inactive. TSM can copy just the active versions to a separate, smaller disk pool.

In previous releases, these were done one at a time, so it could make for a long service window. With TSM v6.2, these three tasks are now run simultaneously, in parallel, so that they all get done in less time, greatly reducing the server maintenance window, and freeing up tape drives for incoming backup and archive data. Often, the same file on a disk pool is going to be processed by two or more of these scheduled tasks, so it makes sense to read it once and do all the copies and migrations at one time while the data is in buffer memory.

Enhanced Security during Data Transmission

Previous releases of TSM offered secure in-flight transmission of data for Windows and AIX clients. This security uses Secure Socket Layer (SSL) with 256-bit AES encryption. With TSM v6.2, this feature is expanded to support Linux, HP-UX and Solaris.

Improved support for Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) applications

I remember back when we used to call these TDPs (Tivoli Data Protectors). TSM for ERP allows backup of ERP applications, seemlessly integrating with database-specific tools like IBM DB2, Oracle RMAN, and SAP BR*Tools. This allows one-to-many and many-to-one configurations between SAP servers and TSM servers. In other words, you can have one SAP server backup to several TSM servers, or several SAP servers backup to a single TSM server. This is done by splitting up data bases into "sub-database objects", and then process each object separately. This can be extremely helpful if you have databases over 1TB in size. In the event that backing up an object fails and has to be re-started, it does not impact the backup of the other objects.

To learn more, read the [IBM Press Release], attend the Pulse 2010 conference next week, or participate in the [IBM Pulse community]!

technorati tags: , announcements, IBM, Pulse, conference, TSM, Tivoli, SSAM, backup, archive, VMware, VCB, Hyper-V, Microsoft, SSL, AES, encryption, in-flight, Linux, HP-UX, Solaris, ERP, DB2, Oracle, RMAN, SAP, BR*Tools, ibm-pulse, pulse2010

Tags:  pulse vcb br*tools hp-ux in-flight pulse2010 vmware rman hyper-v conference linux microsoft ibm archive announcements sap solaris ibm-pulse tivoli encryption ssl oracle ssam aes db2 backup erp tsm

Well, it's Tuesday again, but this time, today we had our third big storage launch of 2009! A lot got announced today as part of IBM's big "Dynamic Infrastructure" marketing campaign. I will just focus on the disk-related announcements today:

IBM System Storage DS8700

IBM adds a new model to its DS8000 series with the [IBM System Storage DS8700]. Earlier this month, fellow blogger and arch-nemesis Barry Burke from EMC posted [R.I.P DS8300] on this mistaken assumption that the new DS8700 meant that DS8300 was going away, or that anyone who bought a DS8300 recently would be out of luck.  Obviously, I could not respond until today's announcement, as the last thing I want to do is lose my job disclosing confidential information.  BarryB is wrong on both counts:

• IBM will continue to sell the DS8100 and DS8300, in addition to the new DS8700.
• Clients can upgrade their existing DS8100 or DS8300 systems to DS8700.

BarryB's latest post [What's In a Name - DS8700] is fair game, given all the fun and ridicule everyone had at his expense over EMC's "V-Max" name.

So the DS8700 is new hardware with only 4 percent new software. On the hardware side, it uses faster POWER6 processors instead of POWER5+, has faster PCI-e buses instead of the RIO-G loops, and faster four-port device adapters (DAs) for added bandwidth between cache and drives. The DS8700 can be ordered as a single-frame dual 2-way that supports up to 128 drives and 128GB of cache, or as a dual 4-way, consisting of one primary frame, and up to four expansion frames, with up to 384GB of cache and 1024 drives.

Not mentioned explicitly in the announcements were the things the DS8700 does not support:

• ESCON attachment - Now that FICON is well-established for the mainframe market, there is no need to support the slower, bulkier ESCON options. This greatly reduced testing effort. The 2-way DS8700 can support up to 16 four-port FICON/FCP host adapters, and the 4-way can support up to 32 host adapters, for a maximum of 128 ports. The FICON/FCP host adapter ports can auto-negotiate between 4Gbps, 2Gbps and 1Gbps as needed.


• LPAR mode - When IBM and HDS introduced LPAR mode back in 2004, it sounded like a great idea the engineers came up with. Most other major vendors followed our lead to offer similar "partitioning". However, it turned out to be what we call in the storage biz a "selling apple" not a "buying apple". In other words, something the salesman can offer as a differentiating feature, but that few clients actually use. It turned out that supporting both LPAR and non-LPAR modes merely doubled the testing effort, so IBM got rid of it for the DS8700.

Update: I have been reminded that both IBM and HDS delivered LPAR mode within a month of each other back in 2004, so it was wrong for me to imply that HDS followed IBM's lead when obviously development happened in both companies for the most part concurrently prior to that. EMC was late to the "partition" party, but who's keeping track?

Initial performance tests show up to 50 percent improvement for random workloads, and up to 150 percent improvement for sequential workloads, and up to 60 percent improvement in background data movement for FlashCopy functions. The results varied slightly between Fixed Block (FB) LUNs and Count-Key-Data (CKD) volumes, and I hope to see some SPC-1 and SPC-2 benchmark numbers published soon.

The DS8700 is compatible for Metro Mirror, Global Mirror, and Metro/Global Mirror with the rest of the DS8000 series, as well as the ESS model 750, ESS model 800 and DS6000 series.

New 600GB FC and FDE drives

IBM now offers [600GB drives] for the DS4700 and DS5020 disk systems, as well as the EXP520 and EXP810 expansion drawers. In each case, we are able to pack up to 16 drives into a 3U enclosure.

Personally, I think the DS5020 should have been given a DS4xxx designation, as it resembles the DS4700 more than the other models of the DS5000 series. Back in 2006-2007, I was the marketing strategist for IBM System Storage product line, and part of my job involved all of the meetings to name or rename products. Mostly I gave reasons why products should NOT be renamed, and why it was important to name the products correctly at the beginning.

IBM System Storage SAN Volume Controller hardware and software

Fellow IBM master inventory Barry Whyte has been covering the latest on the [SVC 2145-CF8 hardware]. IBM put out a press release last week on this, and today is the formal announcement with prices and details. Barry's latest post [SVC CF8 hardware and SSD in depth] covers just part of the entire announcement.

The other part of the announcement was the [SVC 5.1 software] which can be loaded on earlier SVC models 8F2, 8F4, and 8G4 to gain better performance and functionality.

To avoid confusion on what is hardware machine type/model (2145-CF8 or 2145-8A4) and what is software program (5639-VC5 or 5639-VW2), IBM has introduced two new [Solution Offering Identifiers]:

• 5465-028 Standard SAN Volume Controller
• 5465-029 Entry Edition SAN Volume Controller

The latter is designed for smaller deployments, supports only a single SVC node-pair managing up to 150 disk drives, available in Raven Black or Flamingo Pink.

EXN3000 and EXP5060 Expansion Drawers

IBM offers the [EXN3000 for the IBM N series]. These expansion drawers can pack 24 drives in a 4U enclosure. The drives can either be all-SAS, or all-SATA, supporting 300GB, 450GB, 500GB and 1TB size capacity drives.

The [EXP5060 for the IBM DS5000 series] is a high-density expansion drawer that can pack up to 60 drives into a 4U enclosure. A DS5100 or DS5300 can handle up to eight of these expansion drawers, for a total of 480 drives.

IBM System Storage Productivity Center v1.4

The latest [System Storage Productivity Center (SSPC) v1.4] can manage all of your DS3000, DS4000, DS5000, DS6000, DS8000 series disk, and SAN Volume Controller. You can get the SSPC built in two modes:

• Pre-installed with Tivoli Storage Productivity Center Basic Edition. Basic Edition can be upgraded with license keys to support Data, Disk and Standard Edition to extend support and functionality to report and manage XIV, N series, and non-IBM disk systems.
• Pre-installed with Tivoli Key Lifecycle Manager (TKLM). This can be used to manage the Full Disk Encryption (FDE) encryption-capable disk drives in the DS8000 and DS5000, as well as LTO and TS1100 series tape drives.

IBM Tivoli Storage FlashCopy Manager v2.1

The [IBM Tivoli Storage FlashCopy Manager V2.1] replaces two products in one. IBM used to offer IBM Tivoli Storage Manager for Copy Services (TSM for CS) that protected Windows application data, and IBM Tivoli Storage Manager for Advanced Copy Services (TSM for ACS) that protected AIX application data.

The new product has some excellent advantages. FlashCopy Manager offers application-aware backup of LUNs containing SAP, Oracle, DB2, SQL server and Microsoft Exchange data. It can support IBM DS8000, SVC and XIV point-in-time copy functions, as well as the Volume Shadow Copy Services (VSS) interfaces of the IBM DS5000, DS4000 and DS3000 series disk systems. It is priced by the amount of TB you copy, not on the speed or number of CPU processors inside the server.

Don't let the name fool you. IBM FlashCopy Manager does not require that you use Tivoli Storage Manager (TSM) as your backup product. You can run IBM FlashCopy Manager on its own, and it will manage your FlashCopy target versions on disk, and these can be backed up to tape or another disk using any backup product. However, if you are lucky enough to also be using TSM, then there is optional integration that allows TSM to manage the target copies, move them to tape, inventory them in its DB2 database, and provide complete reporting.

Yup, that's a lot to announce in one day. And this was just the disk-related portion of the launch!

technorati tags: ds8000, disk, ds8700, exn3, svc, cf8, 2145-c58, DS5000, DS4000, DS3000, DS5020, DS4700, DS5100, DS5300, SSPC, TKLM, FlashCopy+Manager, Tivoli, Storage+Manager, TSM, DB2, Oracle, SAP, SQL, Microsoft+Exchange, VSS, Windows, AIX, N+series, XIV

Tags:  oracle sspc 2145-c58 ds8700 disk storage+manager sql ds5020 aix ds5300 microsoft+exchange ds4700 tivoli exn3 flashcopy+manager ds5100 ds4000 db2 n+series xiv ds8000 svc tklm sap ds5000 cf8 vss windows tsm ds3000

A lot was announced this week, so I decided to break it up into several separate posts. This is part 3 in my 3-part series, focusing on our Tivoli Storage products. To read the rest of the series, see:

• [Part 1-Enterprise Systems: DS8000, TS7700 and XIV]
• [Part 2-Tape and Storage Hypervisor: Storwize V7000 Unified, LTO-6 and SmartCloud Virtual Storage Center]

Tivoli Storage FlashCopy Manager v3.2

The latest release of FlashCopy Manager now supports NetApp and IBM N series storage devices. This provides application-aware snapshots, coordinated with applications like SAP, DB2 and Oracle.

FlashCopy Manager now integrates with Metro and Global Mirror capabilities, so that application-consistent copies are available at remote sites for disaster recovery, or to off-load the FlashCopy destination copy from disk to Tivoli Storage Manager storage pools.

Tivoli Storage Manager v6.4

IBM Tivoli Storage Manager is part of IBM's Unifed Recovery Management. Here are some highlights:

• Enhanced Reporting. Cognos reporting to monitor backup and archive environments.
  
  
• TSM for ERP. I remember when these were called "Tivoli Data Protection" modules. We still refer to them as "TDPs". The TSM for ERP provides backup capability for SAP environments, and this latest release adds support for in-memory SAP HANA databases.
  
  
• TSM for Virtualization Environments IBM TSM is famous for its patented "Progressive Incremental Backup" which is far more efficient than full+incrementals or full+differentials. IBM now extends this method to VM images. With people consolidating more and more VMs onto fewer host servers, TSM-VE now offers multiple backup streams in parallel. TSM-VE can now take application-aware backups of Microsoft Exchange, SQL Server, and Active Directory running in VMs. TSM-VE will also support vApp and VM templates. If it takes you [a day and a half to build a VMware template], you would want to make sure all that work was backed up, right?
  
  
• Enhanced Security. Complex password support and improved user authentication and management by integration with Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP)

For more on this, read the [TSM v6.4 Announcement Letter]

To learn more about all of the announcements this week, see the [Storage Announcement Page].

technorati tags: IBM, TSM, FCM, TSM-VE, VMware, SAP, HANA

Tags:  vmware tsm-ve sap tsm fcm hana ibm

This week I am in Orlando, Florida for the IBM Edge conference. Here is a recap of Day 4 afternoon sessions which related to Cloud computing.

IBM SmartCloud Enterprise -- Object Storage

George Contino, IBM GTS Consultant for Cloud Storage Service Enablement, presented IBM's latest Object Storage offering, based on an alliance IBM formed with Nirvanix last October 2011, launched January 31, 2012. It is part of the IBM SmartCloud Enterprise system.

IBM currently has two datacenters for this now, Secaucus NJ and Frankfurt Germany, but will have five by end of 2012, and hopefully seven datacenters by nid-year 2013.

The storage is then divided in several layers:

• Customer master account, assigned a 128-bit encryption key
• Name spaces by department or LOB
• User sub-accounts
• User folders
• User file objects

The objects are given random names, with the real customer-assigned file names stored elsewhere, to provide additional privacy through obfuscation. For added security, it uses Two-Factor Authentication, requiring the users to provide both the 128-bit encryption key and the password.

There are three ways to access data:

• Proprietary API - An API is available on Windows and Linux. Symantec NetBackup, BackupExec and Commvault Simpana have already coded to the Nirvanix API to allow backups to be stored in the Nirvanix storage cloud. IBM InfoSphere Optim can archive data to the Nirvanix storage cloud.
• CloudNAS - Nirvanix provides software that provides CIFS and NFS interfaces, that converts to the Nivranix API. IBM Tivoli Storage Manager can send backups and archives to the Nirvanix storage cloud using this approach.
• Cloud Storage Gateway - Third parties have developed hardware that runs the CloudNAS software, or directly codes to the API, to provide standard interfaces to the local clients, and provides access to the Nirvanix storage cloud. Two examples were Panzura File System Controller and Twinstrata Cloud Array Gateway.

One of Nirvanix's partners is OxygenCloud, which allows mobile/laptop access to work files. This includes security checks on Active Directory or LDAP, AES-256 bit encryption and HTTPS protocol support. For example, if you had to give a bunch of PDF files to your clients outside your company, you could create a folder, and send out a URL link to the clients, and this link would be valid for the next 14 days for them to download the files.

How University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM) moved SAP to the Cloud

Maik Gasterstaedt, IBM Technical Enablement for SAP, Storage and Cloud solutions, presented this session on the deployment of an SAP cloud at UWM. Worldwide, SAP has established five University Competency Centers (UCC) to provide SAP cloud services to other universities, and UWM is one of these five UCC.

Basically, the UWM manages SAP instances that are then "rented out" to 107 other universities. An SAP instance represents a "sample company" that could be used in a course curriculum, for example, "Global Bikes, Inc.", "Fitter Snacker", or IDES. An SAP Client represents a fresh copy of the data for this sample company.

UWM charges each University per "SAP client" per semester. Suppose a professor will teach three classes on SAP. He can arrange the SAP clients depending on how much he is willing to spend.

• Get one SAP Client to be shared across all three classes. All three classes would be using the same sample company.
• Get an SAP Client for each class. Each class could be based on the same or different sample companies.
• Get one or more SAP Clients for each class. In this case, for example, a class could get two or more sample companies.

The problem was that they were running on Sun servers approaching end-of-life. They decided to switch to IBM, running 43 SAP Instances on AIX with two Power750 servers, 7 SAP instances on Windows guests of VMware across two BladeCenter chassis using HS22 blades, XIV storage, backed up by Tivoli Storage Manager and Tivoli Storage FlashCopy Manager. They can run 50 SAP clients on each SAP instance. Each client could be rented out to different professors at different universities.

They started installation April 1, and the entire system was running in production by August 15, less than five months end-to-end.

The results were stunning. SAP instance provisioning used to take 5 days, now takes 12 hours. Backups that used to take an hour complets in about 30 seconds.

The conference is almost over folks! Just a few sessions tomorrow and then it is all done.

technorati tags: IBM, SmartCloud Enterprise, object storage, George Contino, Nirvanix, CloudNAS, SAP, UWM

Tags:  object+storage smartcloud+enterprise uwm cloudnas ibm nirvanix sap george+contino