Inside System Storage -- by Tony Pearson

Yesterday, I presented [The Future of Storage] at the [Metro Atlanta Chamber].

The Metro Atlanta Chamber (MAC) is focused on bringing businesses and jobs into the Metro Atalanta area, and to help its members connect with other companies that can help them thrive. The MAC cover the Metropolitan region of Atlanta (5.8 million people) and 28 counties in Georgia.

The event was called "Technology Thursday", where the MAC holds a meeting on the third Thursday of every month, to discuss technology issues. The audience was a mix of business owners, sales executives, and managers. The event allowed for people to network with each other, as well as learn something new from a subject matter expert. This was the last one for 2011, to avoid conflicts with upcoming holidays in November and December.

I spoke for an hour, then we raffled off two copies of my latest book, ["Inside System Storage: Volume II"].

Special thanks to Catherine Pearson, Nancy Whatley, and Jim Beach from the MAC, and Karen Harrison from IBM for their support of this event!

technorati tags: IBM, Metro Atlanta Chamber, MAC, Future, Storage

IBM had over a dozen storage-related announcements this week. This is my third and final part in my series to provide a quick overview of the announcements.

IBM Tivoli® Storage Manager v6.3

IBM Tivoli Storage Manager is market-leading software that provides not just backup, but also HSM and archive capabilities across a wide variety of operating systems. Originally developed in the IBM Almaden Research Center, it then moved about 15 years ago to Tucson to become a commercial product.

The new TSM v6.3 introduces site-to-site hot-standby disaster recovery feature that replicates the TSM meta data and data for fast recovery. The maximum number of objects supported has doubled to four billion. Reporting has been enhanced using technologies borrowed from IBM Cognos. Lastly, a feature on Tivoli Storage Productivity Center has been carried forward to deploy and update agents on the various clients.

For more details, see fellow IBM blogger Richard Vining's post on [TSM v6.3 Announcements]

IBM Tivoli Storage FlashCopy® Manager v3.1

IBM Tivoli Storage FlashCopy Manager coordinates application-aware backups through the use of point-in-time copy services such as FlashCopy or Snapshot on various IBM and non-IBM disk systems. The versions can remain on disk, or optionally processed by Tivoli Storage Manager to move them to external storage such as tape for added protection.

There will always be a spot in my heart for this product, as the method to use FlashCopy for application-aware backups on the mainframe was my 19th patent, and subsequently delivered as a series of enhancements to DFSMS over the past decade on the z/OS operating system. It is good to see this innovation has "jumped over" to distributed systems.

The new FlashCopy Manager v3.1 adds support for HP-UX and VMware, expands support for IBM DB2 and Oraqcle databases, and introduces an interface for custom business applications.

For more details, see fellow IBM blogger Del Hoobler's post on [TSM FlashCopy Manager v3.1 Announcements].

IBM Tivoli Storage Manager for Virtual Environments v6.3

TSM for VE is a new addition to the TSM family, focused on being able to coordinate hypervisor-aware data protection. Initially it supports VMware, but IBM has plans to support a variety of other server virtualization hypervisors as well, as over 40 percent of companies run two or more hypervisors in their data center.

The new TSM for VE v6.3 adds a VMware vCenter plug-in, and support for hardware-based disk snapshots.

IBM Tivoli Storage Productivity Center v4.2.2

A long time ago, I was the chief architect IBM Tivoli Storage Productivity Center v1, now we are already up to v4.2.2 release!

IBM has added enhanced reporting based on IBM Cognos technology, including storage tiering analysis reports (STAR). Few companies keep all of their storage tiers in a single disk system. Rather, they have different boxes, and often from different vendors. IBM's Productivity Center can report on both IBM and non-IBM disk systems. New this release is support for the internal disks of the Storwize V7000 midrange disk system.

Productivity Center's "SAN Planner" has been enhanced to consider XIV replication criteria. This SAN Planner helps clients decide where to carve LUNs, and to make sure they pick the right place given all of the criteria such as remote copy replications.

Last year, we introduced Productivity Center for Disk Midrange Edition (MRE) which to offer lower price when you are only managing midrange disk systems DS5000, DS3000, Storwize V7000 and SVC managing these. This was so successful, that we now have TPC Select, which is basically Productivity Center Standard Edition (SE) for these midrange disk systems.

Whew! I have already heard from some of my readers to slow down, that this is too much information to deal with all at once. IBM has tried everything from having just a few announcements nearly every Tuesday, to having huge launches every two to three years, and settled in the middle with announcements about four to five times per year.

technorati tags: IBM, Tivoli, Storage, TSM, backup, HSM, archive, FlashCopy, FlashCopy hManager, , VE, VMware, vCenter, Cognos, TPC, MRE, TPC Select

We had our first "Future of IT Storage" Lunch-and-Learn here in Indianapolis, IN. We held it at the [Harry & Izzy's Restaurant], which looks like it has been in business for quite a while, but actually was only started four years ago. It is the sister restaurant for St. Elmo's next door which has been running since 1902, so it maintains a sense of that heritage, but with a bit more casual atmosphere.

I presented [The Future of Storage] that I mentioned in my blog post [Infoboom Webinar]. If you missed it, you can check out the [presentation deck and replay]. We had a lively Q&A throughout the presentation, so I am happy about that.

Please note that in the wake of Hurricane Irene, the [Burlington, MA (Boston Area) event] has been postponed, probably to October or November. We have already notified all the people who signed up, but in case you planned just to show up, I wanted to let you know here in this blog.

Special thanks to Karen Harrison and Kerry Ingram for their help in setting up this event! Also a shout-out to Leanna and Amy, our two waitresses who served us today!

technorati tags: IBM, Future, Storage, Indianapolis, Karen Harrison, Kerry Ingram

Continuing my coverage of the [IBM System Storage Technical University 2011], I participated in the storage free-for-all, which is a long-time tradition, started at SHARE User Group conference, and carried forward to other IT conferences. The free-for-all is a Q&A Panel of experts to allow anyone to ask any question. These are sometimes called "Birds of a Feather" (BOF). Last year, we had two: one focused on Tivoli Storage software, and the second to cover storage hardware. This year, we had two, one for System x called "Ask the eXperts", and one for System Storage called "Storage Free-for-All". This post covers the latter.

(Disclaimer: Do not shoot the messenger! We had a dozen or more experts on the panel, representing System Storage hardware, Tivoli Storage software, and Storage services. I took notes, trying to capture the essence of the questions, and the answers given by the various IBM experts. I have spelled out acronyms and provided links to relevant materials. The answers from individual IBMers may not reflect the official position of IBM management. Where appropriate, my own commentary will be in italics.)

Are there any plans to improve the use of BRMS [Backup Recovery and Media Services for IBM i] with [Tivoli Storage Manager (TSM)]?

It should be against the law to connect these two together. IBM has no plans to make any further improvements.

When will [IBM BladeCenter S] support 2.5-inch drives?

You are in the wrong session! Go to "Ask the eXperts" session next door!

The TSM GUI sucks! Are there any plans to improve it?

Yes, we are aware that products like IBM XIV have raised the bar for what people expect from graphical user interfaces. We have plans to improve the TSM GUI. IBM's new GUI for the SAN Volume Controller and Storwize V7000 has been well-received, and will be used as a template for the GUIs of other storage hardware and software products. The GUI uses the latest HTML5, Dojo widgets and AJAX technologies, eliminating Java dependencies on the client browser.

Can we run the TSM Admin GUI from a non-Windows host?

IBM has plans to offer this. Most likely, this will be browser-based, so that any OS with a modern browser can be used.

As hard disk drives grow larger in capacity, RAID-5 becomes less viable. What is IBM doing to address this?

IBM is aware of this problem. IBM offers RAID-DP on the IBM N series, RAID-X on the IBM XIV, and RAID-6 on its other disk systems.

TPC licensing is outrageous! What is IBM going to do about it?

IBM introduced the [Tivoli Storage Productivity Center for Disk Midrange Edition (MRE)] to help address the cost when Small and Medium-sized Businesses managing SVC, Storwize V7000, DS5000 and DS3000 disk systems.

What is the adoption rate of IBM Easy Tier?

About 25 percent of DS8000 disk systems have SSD installed. Now that IBM DS8000 Easy Tier supports "any two" tiers, roughly 50 percent of DS8000 now have Easy Tier activated. No idea on how Easy Tier has been adopted on SVC or Storwize V7000.

We have an 8-node SVC cluster, should we put 8 SSD drives into a single node-pair, or spread them out?

We recommend putting a separate Solid-State Drive in each SVC node, with RAID-1 between nodes of a node-pair. By separating the SSD across I/O groups, you can reduce node-to-node traffic.

How well has SVC 6.2 been adopted?

The inventory call-home data is not yet available. The only SVC hardware model that does not support this level of software was the 2145-4F2 introduced in 2003. Every other model since then can be updated to this level.

Will IBM offer 600GB FDE drives for the IBM DS8700?

Currently, IBM offers 300GB and 450GB 15K RPM drives with the Full-Disk Encryption (FDE) capability for the DS8700, and 450GB and 600GB 10K RPM drives with FDE for the IBM DS8800. IBM is working with its disk suppliers to offer FDE on other disk capacities, and on SSD and NL-SAS drives as well, so that all can be used with IBM Easy Tier.

Is there a reason for the feature lag between the Easy Tier capabilities of the DS8000, and that of the SVC/Storwize V7000?

We have one team for Easy Tier, so they implement it first on DS8000, then port it over to SVC/Storwize V7000.

Does it even make sense to have separate storage tiers, especially when you factor in the cost of SVC and TPC to make it manageable?

It depends! We understand this is a trade-off between cost and complexity. Most data centers have three or more storage tiers already, so products like SVC can help simplify interoperability.

Are there best practices for combining SVC with DS8000? Can we share one DS8000 system across two or more SVC clusters?

Yes, you can share one DS8000 across multiple SVC clusters. DS8000 has auto-restripe, so consider having two big extent pools. The queue depth is 3 to 60, so aim to have up to 60 managed disks on your DS8000 assigned to SVC. The more managed disks the better.

The IBM System Storage Interopability Center (SSIC) site does not seem to be designed well for SAN Volume Controller.

Yes, we are aware of that. It was designed based on traditional Hardware Compatability Lists (HCL), but storage virtualization presents unique challenges.

How does the 24-hour learning period work for IBM Easy Tier? We have batch processing that runs from 2am to 8am on Sundays.

You can have Easy Tier monitor across this batch job window, and turn Easy Tier management between tiers on and off as needed.

Now that NetApp has acquired LSI, is the DS3000 still viable?

Yes, IBM has a strong OEM relationship with both NetApp and LSI, and this continues after the acquisition.

If have managed disks from a DS8000 multi-rank extent pool assigned to multiple SVC clusters, won't this affect performance?

Yes, possibly. Keep managed disks on seperate extent pools if this is a big concern. A PERL script is available to re-balance SVC striped volumes as needed after these changes.

Is the IBM [TPC Reporter] a replacement for IBM Tivoli Storage Productivity Center?

No, it is software, available at no additional charge, that provides additional reporting to those who have already licensed Tivoli Storage Productivity Center 4.1 and above. It will be updated as needed when new versions of Productivity Center are released.

We are experiencing lots of stability issues with SDD, SDD-PCM and SDD-DSM multipathing drivers. Are these getting the development attention they deserve?

IBM's direction is to shift toward native OS-based multipathing drivers.

Is anyone actually thinking of deploying public cloud storage in the near-term?

A few hands in the audience were raised.

None of the IBM storage devices seem to have [REST API]. Cloud storage providers are demanding this. What are IBM plans?

IBM plans to offer REST on SONAS. IBM uses SONAS internally for its own cloud storage offerings.

If you ask a DB2 specialist, an AIX specialist, and a System Storage specialist, on how to configure System p and System Storage for optimal performance, you get three different answers. Are there any IBMers who are cross-functional that can help?

Yes, for example, Earl Jew is an IBM Field Technical Support Specialist (FTSS) for both System p and Storage, and can help you with that.

Both Oracle and Microsoft recommend RAID-10 for their applications.

Don't listen to them. Feel free to use RAID-5, RAID-6 or RAID-X instead.

Resizing SVC source volumes forces ongoing FlashCopy or Metro Mirror relatiohships to be stopped. Does IBM plan to address this?

Currently, you have to stop, resize both source and target, then start the relationship again. Consider getting IBM Tivoli Storage Productivity Center for Replication (TPC-R).

What ever happened to IBM [Grid Medical Archive Solution (GMAS)]?

IBM continues to support this for exising clients. For new deployments, IBM offers SONAS and the Information Archive (IA).

When will I be able to move SVC volumes between I/O groups?

You can today, but it is disruptive to the operating system. IBM is investigating making this less disruptive.

Will XIV ever support the mainframe?

It does already, with support for both Linux and z/VM today. For VSE support, use SVC with XIV. For those with the new zBX extension, XIV storage can be used with all of the POWER and x86-based operating systems supported. IBM has no plans to offer direct FICON attachment for z/OS or z/TPF.

Not a question - Kudos to the TSM and ProtecTIER team in supporting native IP-based replication!

Thanks!

When will IBM offer POWER-based models of the XIV, SVC and other storage devices?

IBM's decision to use industry-standard x86 technology has proven quite successful. However, IBM re-looks at this decision every so many years. Once again, the last iteration determined that it was not worth doing. A POWER-based model might not beat the price/performance of current x86 models, and maintaining two separate code bases would hinder development of new innovations.

We have both System i and System z, what is IBM doing to address the fact that PowerHA and GDPS are different?

IBM TPC-R has a service offering extension to support "IBM i" environments. GDPS plans to support multi-platform environments as well.

This was a great interactive session. I am glad everyone stayed late Thursday evening to participate in this discussion.

technorati tags: IBM, storage, Tivoli, BRMS, TSM, BladeCenter, GUI, HTML5, AJAX, Dojo, SVC, Storwize V7000, RAID-10, RAID-5, RAID-6, RAID-DP, RAID-X, , DS3000, DS8000, MRE, FDE, SSIC, NetApp, LSI, PERL, SDD, Cloud, REST, SONAS, GDPS, TPC-R, TPC, Productivity Center, Earl Jew

I am pleased with the turn-out we had attending last week for my Infoboom Webinar on [The Future of Storage]. The 55-minute replay is available on Infoboom, and the slide deck can be downloaded from the [IBM Expert Network].

I mentioned that I was going to Indianapolis and Boston next week to give lectures on this topic. Here are the details:

Indianapolis - September 7, 2011

The Future of Storage with Tony Pearson Luncheon Briefing
Harry & Izzy's
153 South Illinois Street
Indianapolis, IN 46225
Time: 11am to 1:30pm
[Registration Page]

Boston - September 8, 2011

The Future of Storage with Tony Pearson Briefing and Networking Reception
The Capital Grille
10 Wayside Road
Burlington, MA 01803
Time: 4:30pm to 6:30pm
[Registration Page]

I will also be in San Francisco for Oracle OpenWorld (Oct 2-6), Auckland New Zealand (Nov 9-11), and Melbourne Australia (Nov 15-17).

technorati tags: IBM, future, storage, Indianapolis, Boston, Burlington, Oracle, OpenWorld, Auckland, New Zealand, Melbourne, Australia

After the amount of flack Jon Toigo had to endure for not giving advanced notice to his upcoming Webcast, I thought I would better remind people about my own Webinar that is happening next Tuesday, August 23.

Fortunately, they do not overlap. Mine is at 1pm EDT, and Jon's Webcast is Part 4 of his Storage Virtualization series, [The Data Protection Imperative: How to Keep Rockin’ and Not Lose Your Assets] is earlier in the morning.

So here's the scoop, next Tuesday I will  be presenting [The Future of Storage], August 23, 1pm to 2pm EDT. You can register to attend at the [Infoboom Registration Page]. Infoboom is a social community for business and IT leaders of small and midsize businesses brought to you by IBM.

But that's not all! After the webinar, I will then travel to various cities for face-to-face lectures. Here are the first two:

• September 7 - Indianapolis
• September 8 - Boston area

If you are near either of these two locations, contact your local IBM storage specialist or IBM business partner to participate.

technorati tags: IBM, Infoboom, Future, Storage

I gotten several emails expressing worry that I have fallen off the face of th earth. The last two weeks have been educational and eye-opening for me. I can't provide details in my blog, so I will just say that it involved government agencies that IBM refers to as "dark accounts", and that I am now back safely in the USA. Between adjusting to time zone differences, ridiculously long hours, and restricted access to the internet, I was unable to blog lately.

Instead, I will resume my coverage of the [IBM System Storage Technical University 2011]. The "Solutions Expo" runs Monday evening through Wednesday lunch. This is a chance for people to explore all the solutions that are part of IBM's large "eco-system" for IBM System storage and System x products. There were several sponsors for this event.

As is often the case at these conferences, the various booths hand out fun items. The hot items this year were tie-dyed tee-shirts from Qlogic, and propeller beanies from the IBM rack and power systems team. Here is Amanda, one of the bartenders showing off the latter.

After the expo on Tuesday night, my friends at [Texas Memory Systems] held an after-party. Unlike the pens, tee-shirts and keychains at the Expo, these guys had a raffle for real storage products. Here is Erik Eyberg handing out a RamSan PCIe card, valued at $14,000 or so. IBM recently certified the TMS RamSan as External SSD storage for the IBM SAN Volume Controller (SVC). The SVC can optimize performance using this for automated sub-LUN tiering with the IBM System Storage Easy Tier feature.

technorati tags: IBM, Storage, University, Qlogic, TMS, RamSan, SVC, Easy Tier

In less than a month, I will be presenting at the annual IBM Storage Technical University, July 18-22, at the Hilton in Orlando, Florida. This is one of my favorite conferences! You can sign up for this at their [Online Registration Page].

I will be covering a variety of topics:

• IBM Storage Strategy in the Era of Smarter Computing - After IBM has led the IT industry through the "Centralized Computing" era, and then later the "Distributed Computing" era, we are now entering the third era, that of Smarter Computing. Come learn IBM's strategy for Storage to address today's big challenges, including Big Data, Integrated Workload-optimized systems, and Cloud service delivery models.
• IBM Information Archive for Email, Files and eDiscovery - This session will cover the latest announcement for our non-erasable, non-rewriteable compliance storage, the Information Archive (IA), how this can be used to protect your emails and files, and provide indexed search to assist with eDiscovery.
• IBM Tivoli Storage Productivity Center Overview and Update - I was one of the original lead architects for Productivity Center. Come learn what this software is all about, and how the latest features and functions can help you manager your IT environment.
• IBM SONAS and the Smart Business Storage Cloud - Confused about Cloud Computing and Cloud Storage? I will explain everything you need to know, including how the integrated SONAS appliance operates, IBM's customized solutions for private cloud deployments, and IBM's public cloud offerings.
• BOF on Social Media - BOF stands for "Birds of a Feather", and his normally an after-hours discussion on a single theme. This BOF will be a four-expert Q&A panel, including myself, John Sing, Rich Swain and Ian Wright. We will discuss how we got started in Social Media, and how it has boosted our careers and our ability to get work done.

I'll be in Orlando, Florida all week for this conference. I hope you can make it! To learn more, see the [Technical University Event Page].

technorati tags: IBM, storage, Technical University, Information Archive, Tivoli Storage, Productivity Center, Smarter Computing, SONAS, Smart Business, Storage Cloud, BOF, Social Media, Orlando, Florida

Last's weeks webcast [How to Diagnose and Cure What Ails Your Storage Infrastructure] drew 208 attendees!

Before we started, we asked the first survey question: "How is storage planning conducted in your shop?" Of the various responses, nearly four out of ten responded "Part of an overall IT infrastructure strategy".

Jon Toigo went first, and spent 20 minutes or so laying out the problem as he sees it. Jon travels all over visiting customers struggling with their storage infrastructures, so he gets to hear a lot of this first hand.

I then spent 20 minutes or so presenting IBM's vision, strategy and offerings to help solve these problems. I could speak for hours on this topic, but we kept it short for this one-hour webcast. To learn more, request a visit to the Tucson Executive Briefing Center.

At the end of my talk, we put out the second survey, asking the audience "What is your number one priority with respect to storage operations today?" Over one fourth of the attendees were focused on reducing storage infrastructure cost of ownership by any means possible.

I am glad we saved the last 15 minutes for Q&A, as there were a lot of questions.

The replay is now available. If you attended the event and want to hear it again, or want to share it with your colleagues, or you missed it and want to hear it, then [Register for the Replay].

technorati tags: IBM, Jon Toigo, storage, infrastructure, webcast, webinar