Originally posted by: TonyPearson

This week, I presented at the "IBM TechU Comes to You" event in beautiful Dubai, United Arab Emirates. This was a three-day event, so here is my recap of Day 3.

IBM Spectrum Control Family - The right products for your storage management needs

Mike Griese (IBM Spectrum Storage Evangelist) presented the IBM Spectrum Control family. There are now four editions of IBM Spectrum Control:

• IBM Spectrum Control Based Edition -- comes included with specific IBM Storage products to provide Cloud APIs such as those required for VMware.
   
• IBM Spectrum Control Standard Edition -- Includes "Based Edition" and adds monitoring, provisioning and troubleshooting for IBM and non-IBM storage devices. Also includes IBM Copy Services Manager for select IBM storage devices.
   
• IBM Spectrum Control Advanced Edition --Includes "Standard Edition" and adds Spectrum Protect Snapshot to take application-aware snapshots, and the Storage Analytics Engine to optimize data placement.
   
• IBM Spectrum Control Storage Insights -- A "Software-as-a-Service" subset of "Advanced Edition" for IBM storage products.

 

Implementation of Incremental Forever Backup and Deduplication with Spectrum Protect

This was combination of an overview of IBM Spectrum Protect plus an update of the latest v7.1.5 release. For those who use alternative backup software like Veritas NetBackup or Commvault Simpana, I explained how to implement "Incremental Forever" backup, which has been shown repeatedly by analysts and studies as being far more efficient than traditional backup methods like Full+Incremental or Full+Differential.

For those who may be using an earlier version of IBM Tivoli Storage Manager, I presented the new "Dedupe 2.0" features, including the new concept of "Container Pools" that can either be "Directory Pools" on SAN or NAS-based disk storage, or "Cloud Pools" on object storage, like IBM Cleversafe or IBM SoftLayer.

Spectrum Control Storage Insights - Redefining storage management simplicity

Mike Griese presented the newest member of the IBM Spectrum Control. Storage Insights is a Software-as-a-Service offering, that was recently reduced in price: only $250 per month for the first 50TB. Increasing amounts of storage capacity monitored are tiered at lower and lower prices.

Real-time Compression in Database environment

When it comes to compression, should you compress at the database level, or in the storage device? Database management systems like IBM DB2 and Oracle DB offer row-level or page-level compression.

IBM Real-time Compression available in IBM XIV and all of the latest Spectrum Virtualize products: SAN Volume Controller, Storwize V7000, Storwize V7000 Unified, Storwize V5000, FlashSystem V9000, as well as any of these in the VersaStack converged system from IBM and Cisco.

IBM ran tests that compared volume with database uncompressed, database-based compression, compression on IBM Storwize V7000 with IBM Real-time Compression, and a test run that does both database and storage-based compression together. The results might surprise you!

I explained the pros and cons of each method of compression, and why you might choose one or the other.

Be Ready for Object Storage with CleverSafe

Eric Forestier (IBM Montpelier) presented a quick overview of IBM Cleversafe, then did a live demo of the PUT and GET features. For example, he used the Linux CURL command to upload a video file as an object in his IBM Cleversafe cluster back in France. Then he used a regular browser to stream the video back.

From my hotel, I could see the [Burj Al Arab] hotel, the [Burj Khalifa] skyscraper, and [Ski Dubai], an indoor ski resort.

Was Dubai too far away for you to attend? Want to hear the latest technical information about IBM Storage, but not willing to wait until the big [IBM Edge Conference] this September? We will have several more "IBM TechU Comes to You" events in May and June.

To learn more, or to register for one of these, check out the [IBM Technical Events in 2016] landing page. I have negotiated [special discounts] for upcoming events in the United States for those who read this blog!

technorati tags: IBM, Mike Griese, Spectrum Control, Storage Insights, Incremental Forever, Full+Incremental, Full+Differential, Spectrum Protect, Container Pools, Directory Pools, Cloud Pools, Deduplication, Real-time Compression, Cleversafe, Eric Forestier, Linux CURL, IBM DB2, database compression, Storwize