Earlier this month IBM introduced a family of business-critical hybrid data storage systems that span a wide range of price points. The family is powered by the next generation of IBM’s proven DS8000 storage platform and delivers critical application acceleration, 6-nines (99.9999) availability, and industry-leading capabilities, like integrated high performance flash. And coming along in November and December will be new tape storage products.
DS8880, courtesy of IBM (click to enlarge)
The company sees demand for the new storage being driven by cloud, mobile, analytics, and security. As IBM continues to encourage data centers to expand into new workloads, it is introducing a new family of business-critical hybrid flash data systems primarily to support the latest requirements of z System- and Power-based data centers. If your shop hasn’t started to experience a ramp up of new workloads it likely will soon enough.
The new storage family, all based on POWER8 and the DS8000 software stack, currently consists 3 models:
- The entry model, the DS8884, delivers fast hybrid flash starting at under $50K. It offers up to 12 cores, 256 GB total system memory, 64 16GB FCP/FICON ports, and 768 HDD/SSD + 120 Flash cards in a 19”, 40u rack.
- The DS8886 brings a 2x performance boost, up to 48 cores, 2 TB total system memory, 128 16GB FCP/FICON ports, and 1536 HDD/SSD’s + 240 Flash cards packed into a 19”, 46u rack.
- The high end DS8888, according to IBM, is the industry’s fastest T1 Subsystem. It offers all-flash with up to 96 cores, 2 TB total system memory, 128 16GB FCP/FICON ports, and 480 Flash cards packed in the 19”, 40u rack. Won’t be available until spring 2016.
Being built on the DS8000 software stack, the new storage brings unparalleled integration with IBM z System. The systems are especially tuned for insight and cloud environments. They also deliver top efficiency and maximum utilization of resources including staff productivity, space utilization and lower cost through streamlined operations and a 30% reduction in footprint vs. 33″-34” racks.
The DS8888 family comes with two license options: Base function license provides Logical Configuration support for FB, Original Equipment License (OEL), IBM Database Protection, Thin Provisioning, Encryption Authorization, Easy Tier, and I/O Priority Manager. The z Synergy Service Function license brings PAV, and Hyper-PAV, FICON and High Performance FICON (zHPF), IBM z/OS Distributed Data Backup, and a range of Copy Services Functions including FlashCopy, Metro Mirror, Global MirrorMetro/Global Mirror, z/Global Mirror & z/Global Mirror Resync, and Multi-Target PPRC .
The DS8880 family also provides 99.9999% uptime, an increase over the typical industry uptime benchmark of 99.999% uptime. That extra decimal point translates into 365.243 continuous days of uptime per year. Even the most mission-critical application can probably live with that.
The High-Performance Flash Enclosure for the DS8880 family redefines what IBM considers true enterprise hybrid flash data systems should be, especially in terms of performance for critical applications. Usually, hybrid systems combine flash and traditional spinning drives to be deployed among a variety of mixed workloads of private or public clouds, while reserving more costly all-flash storage for delivering the most extreme performance for only those applications that require it. Now IBM recommends hybrid configurations for consolidation of virtually all workloads since the DS8880 preserves the flexibility to deliver flash performance exactly where and when it is needed automatically through Easy Tier, which optimizes application performance dynamically across any DS8880 configuration without requiring administrators to manually tune and retune applications and storage.
The DS8880 also supports a wide variety of enterprise server and virtual server platforms, but not all are created equal. It includes special integration with z Systems and IBM Power Systems. This is due to the advanced microcode that has been developed and enhanced in lockstep with the mainframe’s I/O architecture over the past several decades. For Power shops the DS8880 copy services are tightly integrated with IBM PowerHA SystemMirror for AIX and IBM i, which add another level of assurance for users who need 24×7 business continuity for their critical Power systems.
For shops dealing with VMware, the DS8880 includes interoperability with VMware vStorage APIs for Array Integration, VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager, and a VMware vCenter plug-in that allows users to offload storage management operations in VMware environments to the DS8880. Should you prefer to go the other direction, the DS8880 supports IBM Storage Management Console for VMware vCenter to help VMware administrators independently monitor and control their storage resources from the VMware vSphere Client GUI.
If you didn’t notice, there have been a series of interesting announcements coming out of IBM Insight, which wrapped up yesterday in Las Vegas. DancingDinosaur intends to recap some of the most interesting announcements in case you missed them.
DancingDinosaur is Alan Radding, a veteran information technology analyst and writer. Please follow DancingDinosaur on Twitter, @mainframeblog. See more of his IT writing at technologywriter.com and here.
