A lot was announced yesterday, so I decided to break it up into several separate posts. This is part 2 in my 3-part series, focusing on: Storwize V7000 Unified, LTO-6 tape, and the SmartCloud Virtual Storage Center.
- IBM Storwize® V7000 Unified disk system
The Storwize V7000 Unified is a product that consists of a 2U-high Storwize V7000 control enclosure that provides block-based access, combined with two 2U-high File Modules that provide file-based NAS protocols: CIFS, NFS, HTTPS, SCP and FTP. The problem was that when it was introduced, it was based on Storwize V7000 v6.3, so when the Storwize V7000 v6.4 features were announced last June, they did not apply to the Storwize V7000 Unified.
That is all fixed now, so the Storwize V7000 Unified now supports the full v6.4 features, including Real-time Compression for both file and block-based access to primary data, and Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) for block access.
The two File Modules are no longer limited to a single Storwize V7000 control enclosure, you can now connect to up to four control enclosures clustered together. Combined with up to nine expansion enclosures for additional disk raises the total maximum to 960 drives.
If you don't already have an Active Directory or LDAP server, the Storwize V7000 Unified now offers an embedded LDAP server, for smaller deployments that want to reduce the number of servers they need to purchase for a complete solution.
Like the [IBM XIV Gen3 storage system], both the Storwize V7000 and V7000 Unified now also support the OpenStack Nova-volume interface.
Lastly, if you have a Storwize V7000 v6.4, you can upgrade it to a Storwize V7000 Unified by simply adding the two File Modules. This can be done in the field.
- IBM LTO-6 for tape libraries and drives
IBM introduces the sixth generation of Linear Tape Open (LTO-6) drives, which can be used as stand-alone IBM TS1060 drives, or in IBM tape libraries. As with previous models of LTO, the LTO-6 can read two older generations (LTO-4 and LTO-5) tape media, and can write to previous generation (LTO-5) tape media. You can buy the LTO-6 drives now, and use the older media until LTO-6 tape cartridges are available (hopefully later this year!)
My friend, Brad Johns, from Brad Johns Consulting, has a great post on this [LTO-6 Announcement]. While you expect the new drives to be faster with a denser tape media format, the key advantage to the LTO-6 is that it improves the compression algorithm, from the previous 2:1 to the new 2.5:1 compression ratio:
| Level | Uncompressed | Compressed |
| LTO-5 | 1.5TB | 140 MB/sec | 3.00TB | 280 MB/sec |
| LTO-6 | 2.5TB | 160 MB/sec | 6.25TB | 400 MB/sec |
Thus, with the improved compression, the LTO-6 is 40 percent faster, with double the tape cartridge density. This can reduce backup times by 30 percent, increase the amount of data that sits in your automated tape libraries, and reduce the courier costs sending tapes off-site.
- IBM SmartCloud Virtual Storage Center v5.1
Last year, IBM coined the phrase "Storage Hypervisor" to refer to the underlying technology in the IBM SAN Volume Controller (SVC) and Storwize V7000 disk systems.
At the IBM Edge conference last June, my colleague Mike Griese presented [SmartCloud Virtual Storage Center]. Back then, it was a pilot program (beta test), and this week, IBM announces that it will be formally available as a product.
The idea was simple: take the basic storage hypervisor, and add the necessary software to make it a complete solution.
If all of your disk is currently virtualized behind IBM SAN Volume Controller (SVC), or you want to put all of your data behind SVC, then SmartCloud Virtual Storage Center is for you. Basically, for one per-TB price, you get all of the following:
- The software features of SAN Volume Controller v6.4, including FlashCopy, Metro Mirror and Global Mirror.
- The full advanced features of IBM Tivoli Storage Productivity Center v5.1, including the Storage Analytics Engine that does "Right-Tiering", recommending which LUNs should be moved entirely from one disk system to another, based on policies and access patterns.
- IBM Tivoli Storage FlashCopy Manager v3.2 which manages FlashCopy with full coordination with applications, including Microsoft Exchange, SQL Server, DB2, Oracle, SAP, and VMware. This ensures that the FlashCopy destination copies are clean, eliminating the need to run backout or redo logs to correct any incomplete units of work.
If this combination sounds familiar, it was based on IBM's previous attempt called [Rapid Application Storage] which combined the Storwize V7000 with Tivoli Storage Productivity Center Midrange Edition and FlashCopy Manager.
The key difference is that SmartCloud VSC does not include the SVC hardware itself, you buy this separately. If you want Real-time Compression, that is charged separately for the subset of TB of the volumes that you select for compression.
Confused? You can read all the details in the [IBM SmartCloud Virtual Storage Center - Announcement Letter].