Inside System Storage -- by Tony Pearson

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

Yes, it's Tuesday, and that means more IBM Announcements! A lot was announced today, so I have selected an eclectic mix for your enjoyment.

Microsoft Windows support on IBM Mainframes

Last year's announcement of the new IBM zEnterprise included the zEnterprise BladeCenter Extention (zBX) which could run POWER7 and x86 operating systems, but managed by the mainframe's overall Unified Resource Manager. Initially, this was intended for AIX and Linux-x86, but today, IBM [announced a statement of general direction to support Microsoft Windows] on the zBX extension by end of this year. Of course, the standard disclaimer applies: All statements regarding IBM's plans, directions, and intent are subject to change or withdrawal without notice. Any reliance on these statements of general direction is at the relying party's sole risk and will not create liability or obligation for IBM.

New 15K RPM drives for IBM Storwize V7000

Last October, when IBM introduced the Storwize V7000, it offered both large (3.5 inch) and small form factor (2.5 inch) drives. Unfortunately, a few people were upset that there were no 15K RPM drives for the small form factor models. There were SSD and 10K RPM drives, but nothing in between. Today, IBM [announced new 15K RPM drives of 146GB capacity] have been qualified for both the controller and expansion drawers.

New RVU licensing for IBM Tivoli products

IBM [announced it is changing over to this new RVU licensing model], from the previous PVU license, based on processor value units. What is an RVU? An RVU is a unit of measure by which the program can be licensed. RVU Proofs of Entitlement (PoE) are based on the number of units of a specific resource used or managed by the program. This makes sense, resource management software should be charged by the amount of resources you manage, not the size of the server the software runs on. This change also enables running on server virtualization and live movement of VM guest images from one type of host machine to another.

If you are contemplating a visit to an IBM [Executive Briefing Center], then April and May is a great time to come to Tucson. The weather is ideal here. The cold snap appears to be over, and spring is in the air!

technorati tags: IBM, zEnterprise, zBX, Microsoft, Windows, Storwize V7000, RVU, Tivoli

It's Tuesday again, and that means one thing.... IBM Announcements! On the heels of [last week's announcements], IBM announced some additional products of interest to storage administrators.

IBM Information Archive

Back in 2008, IBM [unveiled the Information Archive]. This storage solution provides automated policy-based tiering between disk and tape, with non-erasable non-rewriteable enforcement to protect against unethical tampering of data. The initial release supported [both files and object storage], with support for different collections, each with its own set of policies for management. However, it only supported NFS initially for the file protocol. Today, IBM announces the addition of CIFS protocol support, which will be especially helpful in healthcare and life sciences, as much of the medical equipment is designed for CIFS protocol storage.

Also, Information Archive will now provide a full index and search feature capability to help with e-Discovery. Searches and retrievals can be done in the background without disrupting applications or the archiving operations.

To learn more, read the [announcement letter].

IBM Tivoli Storage Manager

IBM Tivoli Storage Manager for Virtual Environments V6.2 extends capabilities that currently exist in IBM Tivoli Storage Manager. TSM backup/archive clients run fine on guest operating systems, but now this new extension improves backup for VMware environments. TSM provides incremental block-level backups utilizing VMware's vStorage APIs for Data Protection and Changed Block Tracking features.

To minimize impact to the VMware host, TSM for VE make use of non-disruptive snapshots and offload the backup processing to a vStorage backup server. This supports file-level recovery, volume-level recovery, and full VM recovery. Of course, since it is based on TSM v6, you get advanced storage efficiency features such as compression and deduplication to minimize consumption of disk storage pools.

To learn more, see the [announcement letter].

IBM Tivoli Monitoring for Virtual Servers V6.2.3

IBM Tivoli Monitor has been extended to support virtual servers, including VMware, Linux KVM, and Citrix XenServer. This can help with capacity planning, performance monitoring, and availability. Tivoli Monitor will help you understand the relationships between physical and virtual resources to help isolate problems to the correct resource, reducing the time it takes for debug issues between servers and storage. See the [announcement letter].

Next week is [IBM Pulse2011 Conference] in Las Vegas, February 27 to March 2. Sorry, I don't plan to be there this year. It is looking to be a great conference, with fellow inventor Dean Kamen as the keynote speaker. For a blast from the past, read my blog posts from Pulse2008 [Main Tent sessions] and [Breakout sessions].

technorati tags: IBM, #ibmpulse, Information Archive, Tivoli, TSM, Tivoli Monitor, VMware, LInux, KVM, Citrix, XenServer

For most of us in the United States, it is cold out there, so you better "bundle up!"

Today, IBM announces the [IBM Storwize Rapid Application Storage] bundle, an integrated solution that improves storage efficiency and application availability. It comes in two offerings:

Basic

The "Basic" offering includes a single IBM Storwize V7000 controller enclosure, and three year warranty package that includes software licenses for IBM Tivoli Storage FlashCopy Manager (FCM) and IBM Tivoli Storage Productivity Center for Disk - Midrange Edition (MRE). Planning, configuration and testing services for the software are included and can be performed by either IBM or an IBM Business Partner.

Standard

The "Standard" offering allows for multiple IBM Storwize V7000 enclosures, provides three year warranty package for the FCM and MRE software, and includes implementation services for both the hardware and the software components. These services can be performed by IBM or an IBM Business Partner.

Why bundle? Here are the key advantages for these offerings:

• Increased storage utilization! First introduced in 2003, IBM SAN Volume Controller is able to improve storage utilization by 30 percent through virtualization and thin provisioning. IBM Storwize V7000 carries on this tradition. Space-efficient FlashCopy is included in this bundle at no additional charge and can reduce the amount of storage normally required for snapshots by 75 percent or more. IBM Tivoli Storage FlashCopy Manager can manage these FlashCopy targets easily.
• Improved storage administrator productivity! The new IBM Storwize V7000 Graphical User Interface can help improve administrator productivity up to 2 times compared to other midrange disk solutions. The IBM Tivoli Storage Productivity Center for Disk - Midrange Edition provides real-time performance monitoring for faster analysis time.
• Increased application performance! This bundle includes the "Easy Tier" feature at no additional charge. Easy Tier is IBM's implementation of sub-LUN automated tiering between Solid-State Drives (SSD) and spinning disk. Easy Tier can help improve application throughput up to 3 times, and improve response time up to 60 percent. Easy Tier can help meet or exceed application performance levels with its internal "hot spot" analytics.
• Increased application availability! IBM Tivoli Storage FlashCopy Manager provides easy integration with existing applications like SAP, Microsoft Exchange, IBM DB2, Oracle, and Microsoft SQL Server. Reduce application downtime to just seconds with backups and restores using FlashCopy. The built-in online migration feature, included at no additional charge, allows you to seamlessly migrate data from your old disk to the new IBM Storwize V7000.
• Significantly reduced implementation time! This bundle will help you cut implementation time in half, with little or no impact to storage administrator staff. This will help you realize your return on investment (ROI) much sooner.

To learn more, check out the IBM [landing page].

technorati tags: IBM, bundle, Storwize V7000, Tivoli, FlashCopy Manager, Productivity Center, TPC, MRE, SSD, Easy Tier, SAP, Exchange, DB2, Oracle, Microsoft, SQL Server