IBM System Storage DS8000 series

This is "Release 3" software/microcode upgrades on our existing "Turbo" hardware.

• IBM FlashCopy SE -- Here "SE" stands for Space Efficient. Rather than allocating a full 100% of the space for the FlashCopy destination, you can set aside just a fraction, and this will hold all the changed blocks, similar to whatIBM already offers on the DS4000 series.
• Dynamic Volume Expansion -- In the past, if you needed more space for a LUN, you had to carve out a newer one elsewhere, and then copy the data over from the old to the new, leaving the old LUN around to be re-used or leftstranded. With this enhancement, you can just upgrade the LUN in place, making it bigger as needed, similar to whatIBM already offers on the DS4000 series and SAN Volume Controller. This applies to CKD volumes for the System zmainframe users out there as well.
• Storage Pool Striping -- striping volumes across RAID ranks to eliminate or reduce hot-spots, and provide betterload balancing. Many used SAN Volume Controller in front of the DS8000 to do this, but now you can do it natively inthe DS8000 itself.
• z/OS Global Mirror Multiple Reader -- for System z customers, "z/OS Global Mirror" is the new name for XRC. Thisenhancement improves the throughput of sending updates to the remote disaster recovery location.
• DS Storage Manager enhancements, the element manager software has been enhanced, and is pre-installed on the new IBM System Storage Productivity Center, which I will talk about below.
• Intermix of DS8000 machine types -- this is especially useful to allow new frames to have co-terminating warrantieswith the base units. In other words, as you expand your system, you can ensure that the entire chunk of iron runs outof warranty all at the same time, to simplify your decision making process to upgrade or contract for extended service.

See the [DS8000 Announcement Letter] for more details.

IBM System Storage SAN Volume Controller 4.2.1

BarryW summarizes the updates in the[Announced SVC 4.2.1] release.If you have problems with the link he provides in his post, here is the [SVC 4.2.1 Announcement Letter].

IBM System Storage Productivity Center

One of the biggest complaints about IBM TotalStorage Productivity Center is that it is software that needs to beinstalled on its own server, and that this installation process can take a day or two. Why wait? Now you can havea hardware console that has the DS8000 Storage Manager software, SVC Admin Console software, and IBM TotalStorageProductivity Center "Basic Edition" pre-installed. Here are the key features.

• Pre-installed and tested console
• DS8000 R3 GUI integration
• Cohabitation of SVC 4.2.1 GUI and CIMOM
• Automated device discovery
• Asset and capacity reporting, including tape library support
• Device configuration
• Advanced topology viewer

See the[System Storage Productivity Center - Announcement letter] for more details."Basic Edition" can be upgraded to "Standard Edition" to get full functionality.

IBM System Storage N series

Our "Release 9" applies across the board, from N3000 to N5000 to N7000 series models, includingnew host bus adapters, and the new Data OnTAP 7.2.4 release level.

The Virtual File Manager (VFM) was announced as one of our latest [Storage Virtualization Solutions]. VFMprovides a global namespace that aggregates the file systems from Linux, UNIX, and Windows file servers, as well asN series storage, into a consolidated environment.

See the [N series Announcement Letter] for more details.

IBM TS7520 Virtualization Engine

IBM's virtual tape library (VTL) for the distributed systems platform, has been enhanced to provide:

• Up to 12TB of disk cache, using 750GB SATA disk.
• F05 Tape Frames installed as TS7520 base units through a 32 port fibre channel switch
• Support for LTO generation 4 tape drives, both as virtual tape drives and as physical tape drives within IBM automated tape libraries attached to the TS7520. This allows you to use Encryption capabilities of LTO4.

See the [TS7520 Announcement Letter] for more details.

IBM System Storage DS6000 series

The latest 300GB 15K RPM drives are now supported.

IBM System Storage DS4000 series

This was a software/microcode upgrade release for the DS4000 series.

• RAID-6 support on the DS4700 Express models and the DS4200 Model 7V
• Support for greater than 2 TB volumes on selected supported operating systems
• 8K cache block size
• DS4000 Storage Manager v10.10 increases the number of FlashCopy tasks, remote mirror pairs, and storage partitions.

See the [DS4000 Announcement Letter] for more details.

IBM System Storage DS3000 series

DS3000 series now supports SATA disk, and can be attached to AIX and Linux on System p servers. This appliesto the DS3200, DS3300 and DS3400 models.See the [DS3000 Announcement Letter] for more details.

IBM System Storage TS2240

These are LTO4 Half-High drives, which can support encryption.See the [TS2240 Announcement Letter] for details.

technorati tags: Josh Krischer, Austin Modine, IBM, DS8000, Turbo, FlashCopy, SE, space efficient, dynamic volume expansion, DVE, striping, z/OS Global Mirror, XRC, System Storage, Productivity Center, TotalStorage, Basic Edition, topology viewer, ONTAP, VFM, global namespace, TS7520, Virtualization Engine, virtual tape library, VTL, F05, SATA, LTO, LTO4, LTO-4, DS6000, DS4000, RAID6, RAID-6, AIX, Linux, System p, servers, TS2240, half-high, drives

This week I am in Seoul, South Korea for various business meetings. The best part is that I am almost already acclimated to the time zone, since New Zealand was GMT+11 and Fijiwas GMT+12, I am hoping that I will adjust fast this week.

South Korea is part of our "BRICK" countries--those emerging markets made up of Brazil,Russia, India, China and Korea that represent IBM's spearhead into the SMB marketplace.[Read More]

Tags:  marketing

Here's a quick round-up of things I saw this week that didn't have time to blog about:

• Vice President Al Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize for this hard work on "going green"to help save the planet. IT datacenters can, and should, do more to help in this area.
• SNW conference in Dallas. I won't be there, but have been helping out behind the scenes.
• SNW conference in Germany later in October. I won't be there either, but look forAndy Monshaw, General Manager of System Storage, to give the keynote address.

technorati tags: IBM, vacation, Al Gore, Nobel, Peace, Prize, going green, SNW, Dallas, Germany, Andy Monshaw, keynote

Chris Evans points to an interesting "jet analogy" in his post[Your Data On a Knife Edge].To help people understand that significance of this innovation, IBM Research has a website with all kindsof useful GMR information: http://www.research.ibm.com/research/gmr.html

While many people associate GMR heads with disk drives, it also applies to tape.In 2006, IBM Researchers Set World Record in Magnetic Tape Data Density, recording 6.67 billion bits per square inch of tape media. This was achieved with specific developments:

• New high-density dual-coated particulate magnetic tape: Developed by Fuji Photo Film Co., Ltd., in Japan in collaboration with IBM Almaden researchers, this next-generation version of its NANOCUBIC™ tape uses a new barium-ferrite magnetic media that enables high-density data recording without using expensive metal sputtering or evaporation coating methods.
• More sensitive read-write head: For the first time, magnetic tape technology employs the sensitive giant-magnetoresistive (GMR) head materials and structures used to sense very small magnetic fields in hard disk drives.
• GMR servo reader: New GMR servo-reading elements, software and fast-and-precise positioning devices provides an active feedback system with unprecedented 0.35-micron accuracy in monitoring and positioning the read-write head over the 1.5-micron-wide residual data track.
• Improved tape-handling features: Flangeless, grooved rollers permit smoother high-speed passage of the tape, which also enhances the ability of the head to write and read high-density data.
• Innovative signal processing algorithms for the read data channel: An advanced read channel used new "noise-predictive, maximum-likelihood" (NPML) software developed at IBM's Zurich Research Laboratory to process the captured data faster and more accurately than would have been possible with existing methods.

IBM often leverages the research done in one part of its business over to other parts of its business. In this manner, advances in disk translate into advances in tape, keeping tape a viable medium for at least the next 8-10 years.

technorati tags: Albert Fert, France, Peter Grunberg, Germany, IBM, Research, world record, Chris Evans, jet, Fuji, Japan, barium-ferrite, GMR, head, servo, disk, systems, tape, drives, NPML, Zurich

Network World, the folks who last year rated this blog in the Top 10 IT storage blogs, havejust put out an article on The best and worst vendor blogs, identifying the companies that make up the good, bad and ugly on the blogosphere. This time, they recognize Barry Whyte'sStorage Virtualization blog under the "Good" category, representative of IBM'sefforts corporate-wide on the blogosphere.

technorati tags: IBM, Barry Whyte, Network World, best, worst, vendor, corporate, blogs, blogosphere, good/bad/ugly

Registration is still open for next week's Information On Demand 2007 conference, Oct 14-19, in Las Vegas, Nevada.

This will be a huge event, bigger than last year's, covering the storage of information, e-discovery and compliance, data management, and other related topics.

• 500 Technical Skill Building sessions
• 120 Business Leadership sessions
• Addition of IBM ECM UserNet Conference (formerly FileNet UserNet)
• Bigger EXPO: 200 Business Partners and 130 IBM Demos
• Twice the Hands On Labs
• Free Onsite Certifications
• Opportunities to Meet the Experts
• a "Mock Trial" highlighting Compliance Challenges

Weather should be nice next week, 80 degrees during the day, 60 degrees at night.

technorati tags: IBM, Information, On Demand, 2007, conference, Las+Vegas, ECM, UserNet, FileNet, mock trial, expo, sessions

This is great news for everyone. I have said before that VMware is perhaps the best product EMC offers, and some EMC bloggers have returned the favor saying that SVC might just be the best disk system that IBM offers. While IBM and EMCare heavily competitive in other aspects of the IT storage industry, when it comes to delivering what is right for the customer, we can set aside those differences. IBM is the number one reseller of VMware, and it is a great pairing with SAN Volume Controller.

Of course, it is not a free-for-all. VMware has a few restrictions at this time:

storage hardware

Disk managed by SVC must be on VMware's [Storage / SAN Compatibility GuideFor ESX Server 3.x]. As VMware certifies future storage that SVC supports, they will update the guide accordingly.

guest operating systems

The VMware certification is limited to Windows operating system, specifically those listed on its [Guest OS Guide].The list looks fairly extensive, so if you were running Windows guests on VMware to SVC today via RPQ,you are probably covered. However, if you are running NetWare or Linux, then the VMware certification doesnot yet apply.

host bus adapters

Only Qlogic host bus adapters are supported at this time. This is because VMware directly communicates to the host bus adapters as part of its "I/O virtualization" capabilities, and needs to work with or test with all the other HBA manufacturers.

no RDM support

Raw Device Mapping (RDM) mode is currently not yet supported. This probably will only affect a small percentage of customers, as I don't know of any major applications that require this.

Of course, most of these issues can probably be addressed with additional testing, or minor software changes, and IBM will work with VMware to prioritize what added testing or software changes are needed to expand this support.

technorati tags: IBM, SAN Volume Controller, SVC, EMC, VMware, ESX, Server, Storage, Virtualization, Certification, Program, Windows, NetWare, Linux, RDM, HBA

I am Tony Pearson, storage consultant at the IBM Executive Briefing Center, located in Tucson, Arizona. I have degrees in Computer Engineering and Electrical Engineering from the University of Arizona. Over the past 20 years, I have worked in a variety of storage roles, including development projects, product and portfolio management, testing, field support, marketing, and now am doing storage consulting.

There are a lot of things to discuss related to storage, and I am never short of opinions. As such, the standard IBM disclaimer applies: “The postings on this site solely reflect the personal views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views, positions, strategies or opinions of IBM or IBM management.”

I have invited other IBMers to post their opinions, and when they do, their opinions may not necessarily match mine either.

This is an open two-way conversation between IBM, Business Partners, Independent Software Vendors, prospect and existing clients. I encourage everyone to post comments about our products, services, and marketing efforts.

Warm Regards,
Tony Pearson
[Read More]

Tags:  consulting

I was not surprised to see EMC, who now drops further down in perception, dispute HDS's recent SPC-1 benchmarks.Fellow blogger EMC's BarryB posted on his Storage Anarchist blog [IBM vs. Hitachi] thatpoints out that IBM's SAN Volume Controller (SVC) is still much faster, and less expensive, than USP-V.

So, just in case you haven't seen all the press releases, here is a quick recap on the results:IBM SVC 4.2 is still in first place, then HDS USP-V, then IBM System Storage DS8300. Just for comparison, I includeour IBM System Storage DS4800 midrange disk results, so you can appreciate the difference between midrange and high-end.There are other products from other vendors, I just point out a few from IBM and HDS here in this graph.

******************************************************************** 272,505 IOPS - IBM SVC 4.2
************************************************** 200,245 IOPS - HDS USP-V
******************************* 123,033 IOPS - IBM DS8300
*********** 45,014 IBM DS4800

HDS tried to come up with a phrase "Enterprise Storage System" for comparison that would leave the SVC 4.2 out.Given that the SVC has five nines (99.999%) availability, has non-disruptive upgrade and firmware update capability, has more than two processors typical of midrange products, and can connect to mainframes via z/VM, z/VSE andLinux on System z operating systems, there is no reason to pretend SVC isn't Enterprise-class.

The irony now is that EMC now looks very lonely being one of the last remaining major storage vendors not to participate in standardized benchmarks that help customers make purchase decisions, as mentioned both by IBM's BarryW: I guess that only leaves EMC, as well as HDS's Claus Mikkelsen: Olympics of Storage.

Earlier this year, EMC's Chuck Hollis opined[Storage Scorecard]that the EMC DMX and HDS TagmaStore USP were high-endboxes, which I would speculate both of these would fall somewhere between DS4800 and DS8300 on the graph above.If that is the case, it is impressive that HDS was able to re-engineer their USP-V to be 2-3x faster thanits predecessor, the USP.

Not all workloads are the same, and your mileage may vary. While I can't speak to HDS, the folks over atEMC have assured me, in writingcomments on this blog, that there is nothing preventing their customers from publishingtheir own performance comparisons between EMC and non-EMC equipment. I would encourage every customer to do this, between IBM and HDS, HDS and EMC, and between IBM and EMC, to help shed even more light on this area.In fact, you can even run your own SPC benchmarks to see how your own environment compares to the ones published.

Of course, performance is just one attribute on which to choose a storage vendor, and to choose specific products,models or features. For more information about Storage Performance Council and the SPC-1 and SPC-2 benchmarks,see my week-long series on SPC benchmarks, which are listed in reverse chronological order.

Go to the official Storage Performance Council website to read the details of the SPC-1 results.

technorati tags: IBM, Super, High-End, Entry-Level, Midrange, IDC, Enterprise, HDS, USP-V, USP, EMC, SPC, SPC-1, SAN Volume Controller, SVC, DS8300, DS4800, mainframe, z/VM, z/VSE, Linux, System z, BarryB, BarryW, Chuck Hollis, SPC-2, Storage Performance Council