Originally posted by: TonyPearson
It's Tuesday, which means IBM announcements, and today IBM made some major announcementsthat support a [
Dynamic Infrastructure]! I hinted at this yesterday, choosing the week's theme to be all about Cloud Computing and Alternative Sourcing. I will briefly highlight today's announcements related to storage here, and try to go into more detail over the next few weeks.
- Ethernet switches and routers
In support of Cloud Computing and Cloud Storage, IBM is now back in theEthernet networking business. This is part of storage as protocols likeiSCSI, CIFS and NFS are gaining prominence. Extending IBM's existing OEMrelationship with Brocade, there are four series:
- [c-series] - "c" for Compact, these are 1U high fixed port switches
- [g-series] - "g" for Pay-as-you-Grow using IronStack stacking technology to allow up to 8 switches to be
glommed, glued, er.. "gathered" together as a single virtual chassis. - [m-series] - "m" for Multiprotocol Label Switching [MPLS] which supports routing between LAN and WAN networks over OC12 and OC48 lines.
- [s-series] - "s" for slots, the B08S has eight slots, and the B16S has sixteen slots, supporting up to 384 ports. These models support Power-over-Ethernet [PoE] that simplifies attaching Voice-over-IP (VoIP) telephones and IP-based surveillance cameras.
IBM announced it will strengthen its partnership with Juniper Networks, and continues to consider Cisco a strategic partner as well. To help customer position themselves for Cloud Computing and Cloud Storage,IBM also launches some new services:
- IBM System Storage DS5000 disk system
The IBM [DS5000] now supports self-encrypting disk drives, known also as "full-disk encryption" or FDE, for added security, and 8Gbps Fibre Channel (FC) ports for added performance. The DS5300 model in particular now supports up to 448 disk drives for added scalability.
- Comprehensive Data Protection Solution
IBM's [Data Protection Solution] shows off IBM's awesome synergy between servers, storage and software. Combining System x servers, Tivoli Storage Manager FastBack software, and DS5000, DS4000 or DS3000 series disk systems. The solution is designed to both Windows-based servers and their applications, offering bare metal restores, and application–level protection for Oracle, SQL, Exchange and SAP.
- Tivoli Storage Productivity Center
Last February, IBM previewed the renaming of TotalStorage Productivity Center to its new name,Tivoli Storage Productivity Center. Today, IBM announces [Tivoli Storage Productivity Center v4.1]. Some key changes include:
- Productivity Center for Fabric has been merged into Productivity Center for Disk
- Productivity Center for Replication is now integrated, but remains separately licensed
- Productivity Center can now feed input to IBM's Novus Storage Enterprise Resource Planner [SERP]
- TS7650 ProtecTIER Data Deduplication IP-based replication
IBM previews IP-based replication which allows the TS7650 appliance or TS7650G gateway to sendvirtual tape data over to a remote location. This is instead of having the underlying disk systemsperform the replication on its behalf. Having the TS7650 do the replication is preferred, as itcan maintain virtual cartridge integrity, when a virtual tape is unmounted the replication can beginat that point.
This is just a small subset of all the announcements. For more information, see this 28-pagepresentation [Manage the Explosion of Information with IBM Information Infrastructure].
technorati tags: IBM, Dynamic Infrastructure, Ethernet, switches, routers, Cloud Computing, Cloud Storage, Brocade, Juniper Networks, Cisco, IronStack, FCoE, FCoCEE, PoE, DS5000, FC, FDE, TSM, FastBack, TotalStorage, Tivoli, Storage, Productivity Center, Novus, SERP, TS7650, TS77650G, ProtecTIER, Information Infrastructure
#StorageAreaNetworks#Storage#PrimaryStorage