Dino Quintero's Redbooks Blog

Si usted esta leyendo este blog, usted sabe algo de los IBM Redbooks y que son.  Asumimos ademáas que es también familiar con el formato de este blog que describe los cinco puntos más importantes de un tópico técnico y distribuye el conocimiento con nuestra audiencia.  Pero creemos que no todos ustedes están familiarizados con los Redbooks y queremos continuar introduciendo y promoviendo nuestro materiales a la nueva generación y comunidad de técnologos.

IBM Redbooks provee una perspectiva única a muchas preguntas técnicas desde el punto de vista de SMEs (subject matter experts) los cuales se reúnen por un corto tiempo a crear una publicación para resolver un reto técnico.  Algunas veces estos retos provienen de requisitos de clientes, experiencias en el campo, o de ideas que los residentes traen o desarrollan durante el transcurso de la creación de la  publicación.

Asi que decidimos crear 5 Cosas Que Debes Saber Acerca de IBM Redbooks para introducirnos a la nueva audiencia y quizás nuestros leales lectores aprendan algo nuevo:

1. ¿Qué son IBM Redbooks?

IBM Redbooks son documentos técnicos, blogs y videos que ayudan a aprender, adoptar e instalar soluciones creadas por SMEs y además complementan los manuales de los productos de IBM.  Por más de 40 años, IBM Redbooks han incluido contenido técnico el cual no está en manuales.  Por ejemplo:  conceptos técnicos, tendencias y direcciones de la industria, profundos escenarios técnicos, escenarios de integración con productos de terceros y contenido técnico describiendo como incorporar productos de IBM a soluciones con óptimos resultados.  Las publicaciones son descargadas y leídas millones de veces cada año y son conocidas como el estandar de oro de la comunidad técnica.  La mejor parte es que todo el material teécnico es gratuito.

2. ¿Son IBM Redbooks manuales?

IBM Redbooks no reemplazan los manuales de los productos y soluciones de IBM.  Los Redbooks complementan los manuales con prácticos escenarios técnicos, pero siempre apuntando y enlazando los manuales de IBM o al IBM Knowledge Center.

3. ¿Cómo son hechos los IBM Redbooks?

IBM Redbooks nacen del proceso de residencias de IBM Digital Business Group que reúne a un equipo de profesionales técnicos como business partners, clientes y personal de IBM.   Por medio de nominaciones el equipo de residentes es selecionado para participar en una localidad de IBM, participan remoto, y de dos a ocho semanas.  Los residentes son presentados con un escenario y crean sus soluciones en borrador las cuales se prestan al nacimiento de una publicación de IBM Redbooks.  El proceso también le da a los residentes la oportunidad de ser autores de la publicación.

4. IBM Redbooks en el mundo digital

Hace unos años, IBM Redbooks paso por una tranformación.  Previamente, Redbooks eran solamente  conocidas como largas y voluminosas guías técnicas.  En este mundo ágil, hay diferentes formatos de entrega diseñados para cortos documentos técnicos hasta más largas y comprensivas publicaciones.  Esta transformación se presto para crear nuevos formatos (Redpapers, Redguides, Product Guides, Solutions Guides, blogs, and videos) todos variando en tamaño, para incorporarlos al mundo digital.  Hoy, IBM Redbooks puede crear contenido técnico en el formato que se necesite.

IBM Redbooks son distribuidos por medio de nuestro sitio web en formatos PDF o EPUB, por medio de Apple iBooks, Google Play, y también por medio de la aplicación oficial móvil de IBM Redbooks.  Hay además impresión a demanda disponible para los lectores que quieran copias de la publicación.

5. IBM Redbooks y Open Source

IBM Redbooks también cubren tópicos relacionados a integraciones y escenarios de software y hardware de terceros incluyendo OpenStack con productos y soluciones de IBM.  Estás publicaciones tienen información de como integrar productos y soluciones no pertenecientes a IBM en los centros de cómputos.

Asegúrese de visitarnos por medio de los siguientes canales para estar al día de las últimas publicaciones:

IBM Redbooks continua creando  contenido y haciendolo disponible por medio de varios canales.  Comuniquenos si les gustaría ver los IBM Redbooks en un lugar nuevo.

Dino E. Quintero

IBM Redbooks Enterprise Solutions Enablement

SAP HANA is the SAP database platform for multiple SAP solutions. In changing direction to former classic SAP solutions, HANA is the processing core of it all. Operations that have formerly performed at application layers have moved into the database layer and are now performed by the HANA engines.  SAP HANA works by loading all the data into memory, which is why it is called an in-memory database. This is the most key factor that allows SAP HANA to run analytical reports in seconds as opposed to minutes, or in minutes as opposed to hours, allowing real-time analysis of analytical data.

Here are 5 things to know about SAP HANA on IBM Power Systems:

1.  SAP allows flexibility in a TDI implementation of HANA on IBM Power Systems.

The SAP HANA TDI architecture helps you to build an environment using your existing hardware such as servers, storage, SAN and network switches. There is a set of configuration and settings that work best for a HANA on a Power Systems implementation. This configuration and these settings are seen by many customers as the ones that bring the most performance and stability, less management and maintenance effort, and better understanding of the environment.  By supporting TDI in the deployment of SAP HANA, Power Systems give organizations choice over the technology they use, compared to the rigidly defined hardware appliances used in many competing SAP HANA infrastructures.

2.  IBM Power Systems PowerVM virtualization for SAP HANA.

IBM PowerVM virtualization is fully supported by SAP, allowing customers to deploy SAP HANA in a virtual environment that supports both dedicated and shared processor resources, running both production and non-production workloads in a single server.  IBM Power Systems provides flexibility to meet the individual needs of organizations deploying SAP HANA. One aspect of this flexibility is that a robust virtualization is supported, ready for use, and helps consolidating multiple SAP HANA virtual machines on a single Power Systems server.  Virtualization with PowerVM also provides ability to handle the varying utilization patterns that are typical in SAP HANA workloads. Dynamic capacity sizing allows for fast, granular reallocation of compute resources among SAP HANA virtual machines. This approach to load balancing and tailoring capacity to the workload enhances agility compared to competing processor architectures that require capacity to be allocated in larger chunks.

3. High availability (HA) and disaster recovery (DR) for SAP HANA.

The costs of downtime have increased over time, so companies are paying more attention to high availability (HA) today than in the past. Also, the costs for HA solutions have decreased considerably in a way that makes much more sense to invest in protecting business continuity than to undertake the downtime costs.  From a business continuity perspective, you can protect your systems by creating a local HA plan to ensure the minimum Recovery Time Objective (RTO) possible, and protect your business from a complete site failure (DR).  There are options available for high availability and disaster recovery:  SAP HANA Host Auto-Failover (Scale-Out with Standby), SAP HANA System Replication + SuseHA, SAP HANA Storage Replication, and SAP HANA System Replication.

4.  SAP HANA Systems Replication (HSR).

SAP HANA Systems Replication is a contingency solution that is used to duplicate your HANA database. This means that it uses a completely different system (that is, another operating system instance), a distinct set of disks, and a different database instance than the primary ones. In summary, it is based on having two totally independent HANA environments host the same data. The data is created on the primary system and replicated to the secondary system over the network through TCP/IP. If a failure of the primary system occurs, you can choose to have the secondary one take-over.

5.  IBM service and productivity tools for Linux on POWER.

IBM Power Systems is known for its prominent level of reliability, availability, and serviceability (RAS). The difference between an ordinary Linux for x86 image and a Linux on IBM Power image is that the latter has a layer of additional added value software to enable Linux to take advantage of Power System hardware and virtualization features, such as dynamic logical partition (DLPAR) operations, resource monitoring and control (RMC) communication with the Hardware Management Console (HMC), and other functions. 

SAP notes change constantly. Validate all notes before you start implementing your HANA environment because SAP guidelines and statements change frequently. For SAP notes, refer to the following website (SAP ONE Support Launchpad): http://launchpad.support.sap.com/

For more information about SAP HANA on IBM Power Systems, refer to the following:

IBM Power Systems for SAP HANA 
https://www-03.ibm.com/systems/power/solutions/bigdata-analytics/sap-hana/

IBM Power Systems Home Page 

http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/power/

SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability Extension 12 SP2 Documentation
https://www.suse.com/documentation/sle-ha-12/

Automate your SAP HANA System Replication Failover
https://www-03.ibm.com/systems/power/solutions/bigdata-analytics/sap-hana/

Implementing High Availability and Disaster Recovery Solutions with SAP HANA on IBM Power Systems Redbooks publication

http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/abstracts/redp5443.html?Open

Luis Bolinches

Rodrigo Ceron Ferreira de Castro

John Wright

Fabio Martins

Dino Quintero

5 things to know about IBM Spectrum Scale:

• Spectrum Scale was introduced in 1998, formerly known as IBM GPFS, and also formerly known as code name IBM Elastic Storage.
• Spectrum Scale was designed from the beginning to support high performance parallel workloads, and has since proven effectiveness for a variety of applications.
• Spectrum Scale is designed to help organizations tackle emerging file storage challenges.
• A Spectrum Scale file system is built from a collection of storage devices that contain the file system data and metadata.
• Spectrum Scale helps simplify data management with integrated tools designed to help manage petabytes of data and billions of files

For more information, refer to the following website:

http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/storage/spectrum/scale/index.html

5 Things to Know about the IBM Elastic Storage Server (ESS):

• The Elastic Storage Server (ESS) is built on IBM Spectrum Scale (formerly IBM GPFS) for Linux.
• The Elastic Storage Server solution combines the CPU and I/O capability of the IBM POWER8 architecture.
• The Elast Storage Server deploys the latest solid state (SSD), SAS and Nearline SAS drives.
• The Elastic Storage Server is equipped to manage the complete data lifecycle.
• The Elastic Storage Server solution is designed for a variety of workloads.

For more information, refer to the following website:

http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/storage/spectrum/ess/

• New generation of data management innovation for cost effective analytics
• Next generation database for data intensive analytics and reporting
• New technology in DB2 for analytic queries taking advantages of the optimization with the IBM POWER platform
• Industry solution delivering storage savings, performance, and time to value
• This solution combines the experience and expertise of IBM to deliver technology leadership

5 Things You Should Know about IBM Data Engine for Genomics - Power Systems Edition

• The architecture is designed to address the grand challenge of analyzing increasingly large genome-related datasets.
• The high-throughput architecture and reference design enables fast turnaround for a wide variety of workflows including genomic medicine, agrigenomics, biofuels, forensics and drug development. 
• This solution is based on multi-year collaborations with leaders in the Life Sciences industry.
• This dynamic platform integrates high performance compute, storage, workflow orchestration and portal access, and can also be easily adapted to support large scale and cloud based deployments. 
• The most recent solution version further exploits the capabilities of IBM POWER8 and introduces the IBM Elastic Storage Server (ESS), defining a complete solution containing all of the hardware and software elements required to accomplish genomics processing for data analysis.

For more information about IBM Data Engine for Genomics – Power Systems Edition Architecture and Reference Design Version 3.0, refer to the following website:

http://ibm.co/1i1NPzi

For more information about IBM Health Care and Life Sciences solutions, refer to the following website:
http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/power/solutions/industry/healthcare.html

• 5 things you should know about IBM High performance computing (HPC) and technical computing solutions:
• IBM Power Systems high performance computing and technical computing solutions deliver faster time to value with intuitive and powerful solutions. 
• Configurable into highly scalable Linux clusters, Power Systems offer extreme performance for demanding workloads such as genomics, finance, computational chemistry, oil and gas exploration, and high performance data analytics.
• Hardware, solutions and ecosystem:
  • IBM Power LC server line for clusters and clouds
  • Scale-out servers for Linux
  • Elastic Storage Server (ESS)
  • OpenPOWER Foundation
• Software, solutions, and ecosystem:
  • IBM Platform Computing software
  • IBM Spectrum Scale Storage Software (formerly GPFS)
  • Extreme Cloud Administraton Toolkit (xCAT)
  • Parallel Environment (PE)
  • Engineering and Scientific Subroutine Library (ESSL) and Parallel ESSL
• About the OpenPOWER Foundation:  The OpenPOWER Foundation is a collaboration encouraging the adoption of an open server architecture for data centers. It has grown to more than 150 members across 22 countries. IBM’s POWER architecture is the cornerstone of innovation for OpenPOWER, creating a computing platform available to all.  For more information about the OpenPOWER Foundation, refer to the following website: http://openpowerfoundation.org/

For more information on IBM High Performance Computing (HPC) and Technical Computing Solutions, refer to the following website:

http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/power/solutions/high-performance-computing/index.html

• Seamlessly tap cloud resources
• Policy-based access control
• Flex resource up and down to manage cost
• Report usage and costs by project or department
• Reduce IT infrastructure costs

To understand more about this offering and its capabilities, refer to the IBM Platform Computing Cloud Service narrated demonstration by Gord Sissons at:

https://ibm.biz/BdRKv3

https://www-304.ibm.com/connections/blogs/platformcomputing/entry/tappingthecloud?lang=en_us

http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/technicalcomputing/platformcomputing/

For more detailed information on IBM Platform Computing solutions including IBM Platform HPC, refer to:

http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/technicalcomputing/platformcomputing/

• Spectrum Scale now part of IBM Spectrum Storage family, part of IBM's $1 Billion investment in software defined storage.
• Single global namespace across all data tiers, including flash and cloud (service on Softlayer).
• Object storage with integration with Swift (will be better with 4.1.1 release, not sure you can say that in a blog).
• Scalability to handle the massive, ever-growing amounts of data in the new CAMS world. 
• Open and flexible, available as software (on almost any hardware), as a bundled IBM solution, or as a service running on Softlayer.

5 Things You Should Know about IBM Watson:

• IBM Watson is made of a cluster of IBM Power Systems servers
• The cluster also contains additional I/O, network and cluster controller nodes
• IBM Watson is designed to find insight, discover breakthroughts, and predict outcomes
• IBM Watson is unfolding cognitive thinking by predicting events and taking preemtive actions
• IBM Watson can help businesses analize their data and help them become more competitive

For more information, refer to the following website:  http://ibm.co/1VCgjCa