This IBM® Redbooks® publication offers a short overview of IBM's integrated environment for container workloads, IBM Storage Fusion. The product comes in two variants, IBM Storage Fusion HCI System including all required hardware, and IBM Storage Fusion SDS (software-only) for deployment in public or private Clouds. This paper has been updated with the 2.5.1 release only for IBM Storage Fusion and the 2.5.2 release of IBM Storage Fusion HCI System.
IBM Cloud Pak® for Data can be protected with IBM Spectrum FusionTM. This IBM Redpaper publication covers backing up IBM Cloud Pak for Data with a non-disruptive (online) backup and then restoring to an alternate cluster. During an online backup, normal runtime operations in the Cloud Pak for Data cluster continue while the backup completes. The backup process includes creating policies and automating backups in IBM Spectrum Fusion, then protecting Cloud Pak for Data, protecting IBM Spectrum Fusion namespace and the IBM Spectrum® Protect Plus (SPP) catalog. Backup and restore is supported from IBM Storage Fusion HCI to IBM Spectrum Fusion software as well as from IBM Storage Fusion Software to IBM Storage Fusion HCI. IBM Spectrum Fusion HCI and IBM Spectrum Fusion have become IBM Storage Fusion HCI System and IBM Storage Fusion. This edition uses the IBM Spectrum brand names and will be updated with the next edition. IBM Spectrum Fusion must be at 2.3 or higher with "Backup" service installed. If using IBM Storage Fusion 2.5.2, the "Backup (Legacy)" service should be used.
Metro sync disaster recovery (DR) provides two-way synchronous data replication between IBM Spectrum FusionTM HCI clusters installed at two sites. In the event of a site disaster, applications can be failed over to the second site. The replication between the sites is synchronous, hence, the Metro sync DR solution is only available for metropolitan distance data centers with 40 millisecond latency or less. The procedures described in this paper for IBM Spectrum Fusion HCI 2.4 Metro sync DR are the same for IBM Storage Fusion HCI 2.5.2 Metro-DR. This IBM Redpaper publication will help you install and configure the new Metro sync DR function). The use case will show the end to end process with the failover and failback of the WordPress application. IBM Spectrum Fusion HCI and IBM Spectrum Fusion have become IBM Storage Fusion HCI System and IBM Storage Fusion. This edition uses the IBM Spectrum® brand names and will be updated with the next edition.
The success or failure of businesses often depends on how well organizations use their data assets for competitive advantage. Deeper insights from data require better information technology. As organizations modernize their IT infrastructure to boost innovation rather than limit it, they need a data storage system that can keep pace with highly virtualized environments, cloud computing, mobile and social systems of engagement, and in-depth, real-time analytics. Making the correct decision on storage investment is critical. Organizations must have enough storage performance and agility to innovate as they need to implement cloud-based IT services, deploy virtual desktop infrastructure, enhance fraud detection, and use new analytics capabilities. At the same time, future storage investments must lower IT infrastructure costs while helping organizations to derive the greatest possible value from their data assets. IBM® FlashSystem storage solutions can accelerate the transformation of the modern organizations into an IBM Cognitive BusinessTM. FlashSystem all-flash storage arrays are purpose-engineered to support the organization's active data sets. FlashSystem solutions offer a broad range of industry-leading storage virtualization and data management features that can provide improved storage system performance, efficiency, and reliability. Even better, FlashSystem can be less expensive than conventional enterprise storage solutions. This IBM Redbooks® Product Guide describes IBM FlashSystem® V9000, which is a comprehensive all-flash enterprise storage solution that delivers the full capabilities of IBM FlashCoreTM technology. In addition, it provides a rich set of software-defined storage features, including IBM Real-time CompressionTM, dynamic tiering, thin provisioning, snapshots, cloning, replication, data copy services, and IBM HyperSwap® for high availability. With the release of FlashSystem V9000 Software V7.7.1, extra functions and features are available, including support for new and more powerful FlashSystem V9000 control enclosure Model AC3 and new SAS-based small form factor (SFF) and large form factor (LFF) expansion enclosures that provide a mixture of nearline hard disk drives (HDDs) and flash mdisks in a pool that can be used for IBM Easy Tier®. The new IBM FlashSystem V9000 SFF expansion enclosure Model 24F offers new tiering options with low-cost solid-state drive (SSD). Up to 20 serial-attached SCSI (SAS) expansions are supported per FlashSystem V9000 controller pair, providing up to 480 drives with expansion Model 24F and up to 240 drives with expansion Model 12F. Also new with FlashSystem V9000 Software V7.7.1 is N_Port ID Virtualization (NPIV) support, which virtualizes worldwide port names (WWPNs) for zero path reduction during controller maintenance and outages. FlashSystem V9000 Software version 7.7.1 replaces version 7.7, and is available to all IBM FlashSystem V9000 customers with current warranty or software maintenance agreements.
Along with servers and networking infrastructure, networked storage is one of the fundamental components of a modern data center. Because storage networking has evolved over the past two decades, the industry has settled on the basic storage networking technologies. These technologies are Fibre Channel (FC) storage area networks (SANs), Internet Small Computer System Interface (iSCSI)-based Ethernet attachment, and Ethernet-based network-attached storage (NAS). Today, lossless, low-latency, high-speed FC SANs are viewed as the high-performance option for networked storage. iSCSI and NAS are viewed as lower cost, lower performance technologies. The advent of the 100 Gbps Ethernet and Data Center Bridging (DCB) standards for lossless Ethernet give Ethernet technology many of the desirable characteristics that make FC the preferred storage networking technology. These characteristics include comparable speed, low latency, and lossless behavior. Coupled with an ongoing industry drive toward better asset utilization and lower total cost of ownership, these advances open the door for organizations to consider consolidating and converging their networked storage infrastructures with their Ethernet data networks. Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) is one approach to this convergence, but 10-Gbps-enabled iSCSI also offers compelling options for many organizations with the hope that their performance can now rival that of FC. This IBM® Redbooks® publication is written for experienced systems, storage, and network administrators who want to integrate the IBM System Networking and Storage technology successfully into new and existing networks. This book provides an overview of today's options for storage networking convergence. It reviews the technology background for each of these options and then examines detailed scenarios for them by using IBM and IBM Business Partner convergence products.
Until now, the only way to capture, store, and effectively retain constantly growing amounts of enterprise data was to add more disk space to the storage infrastructure, an approach that can quickly become cost-prohibitive as information volumes continue to grow and capital budgets for infrastructure do not. In this IBM® Redbooks® publication, we introduce data deduplication, which has emerged as a key technology in dramatically reducing the amount of, and therefore the cost associated with storing, large amounts of data. Deduplication is the art of intelligently reducing storage needs through the elimination of redundant data so that only one instance of a data set is actually stored. Deduplication reduces data an order of magnitude better than common data compression techniques. IBM has the broadest portfolio of deduplication solutions in the industry, giving us the freedom to solve customer issues with the most effective technology. Whether it is source or target, inline or post, hardware or software, disk or tape, IBM has a solution with the technology that best solves the problem. This IBM Redbooks publication covers the current deduplication solutions that IBM has to offer: IBM ProtecTIER® Gateway and Appliance IBM Tivoli® Storage Manager IBM System Storage® N series Deduplication
SmartCloud Control Desk is a comprehensive IT Asset and Service Management solution that helps reduce cost and minimize service disruptions. It does so through automated service request handling, efficient change management, and optimized asset lifecycle management across IT and enterprise domains. SmartCloud Control Desk helps to reduce total cost of ownership by using one unified solution to license, install, and manage multiple ITIL processes under one price point. It can also help reduce business risk by using advanced impact analysis and defining automated change procedures that ensure integrity of existing infrastructure while supporting business agility. SmartCloud Control Desk improves efficiency and quality of service by unifying asset, change, and problem management. It lowers cost and mitigates license compliance risk by performing end to end software asset management. It also delivers an adaptive, role-based simplified UI that can be more intuitive for novice users, which reduces training costs, while allowing access from anywhere at anytime through mobile device support that includes BlackBerry, iOS, and Android. In addition, SmartCloud Control Desk supports both a profit center business model for internal IT organizations, and an external Service Provider model. It allows organizations to manage customers and customer agreements and bills for managed assets, usage, and work activities while improving utilization rates and reducing unnecessary purchases by managing the IT asset lifecycle. You can deploy SmartCloud Control Desk in a variety of ways; traditional on-premise, SaaS, VM image. This approach can make it more affordable to meet your current business needs, and seamlessly move between delivery models while keeping the same functionality. This IBM® Redbooks® publication covers IBM SmartCloud® Control Desk product configuration, customization, and implementation best practices.
For more than 40 years, Computerworld has been the leading source of technology news and information for IT influencers worldwide. Computerworld's award-winning Web site (Computerworld.com), twice-monthly publication, focused conference series and custom research form the hub of the world's largest global IT media network.
As we all know, large ocean going ships never collide with icebergs. However, occasionally life deals out some unexpected pleasures for us to cope with. Surviving any disaster in life is usually a lot easier if you have prepared adequately by taking into account the likely problems, solutions, and their implementation. In this IBM Redbooks publication, we limit ourselves to those situations in which it is likely that a SAN will be deployed. We present the IBM SAN portfolio of products, going a little under the surface to show the fault tolerant features that they utilize, and then describe solutions with all these features taken into account. Each of these solutions was built on practical experience, in some cases with cost in mind, in some cases with no cost in mind. Any well-thought-out SAN design will have taken every single one of these concerns into account, and either formulated a solution for it, or ignored it, but nonetheless understanding the potential exposure. With these points in mind, in this book we have two objectives: to position the IBM SAN products that are currently in our portfolio; and to show how those products can be configured together to build a SAN that not only allows you to survive most forms of disaster, but also provides performance benefits. So, make sure that you know what to do if you hit an iceberg!
With Remote Direct Memory Access (RDMA), you can make a subset of a host's memory directly available to a remote host. RDMA is available on standard Ethernet-based networks by using the RDMA over Converged Ethernet (RoCE) interface. The RoCE network protocol is an industry-standard initiative by the InfiniBand Trade Association. This IBM® Redpaper publication describes how to set up RoCE to use within an IBM Spectrum® Scale cluster and IBM Elastic Storage® Systems (ESSs). This book is targeted at technical professionals (consultants, technical support staff, IT Architects, and IT Specialists) who are responsible for delivering cost-effective storage solutions with IBM Spectrum Scale and IBM ESSs.
