New IBM POWER7+ controllers. The previous models of DS8870 were based on the POWER7 controllers, and these new models have POWER7+ processors. This change enhances the performance across the board, from mainframe to distributed systems, from sequential to random. Customers with existing POWER7-based models will be able to do MES upgrade to the new POWER7+ next year.
For comparison with older DS8000 models, here are some internal IBM measurements we took for Database workloads on both z/OS(mainframe) and Distributed systems with typical 70% read, 30% write and 50% cache hit:
|
IBM Internal Measurements (thousands of IOPS) |
DS8300 (P5+) |
DS8700 (P6) |
DS8800 (P6+) |
DS8870 (P7) |
DS8870 (P7+) |
|
DB z/OS |
165 |
201 |
204 |
622 |
684 |
|
DB Distributed systems |
165 |
191 |
198 |
540 |
620 |
New 1.2TB (10K RPM) and 4TB (7200 RPM) self-encrypting enterprise drives (SED). This is a 33% boost over the previous 900GB and 3TB drives previously available. As with all the other drives in the DS8870, these new drives include the encryption chip right on the drive itself, offering encryption with scalability.
Improved security. Release 7.2 will support the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology [NIST.gov]] 800-131A specification, raising the 96-bit encryption to the required 112 bits on the customer IP network. This involves updates to the security firmware, management software and digital signatures on code loads.
To learn more, see the 27-page document [NIST Special Publication 800-131A -- Transitions: Recommendation for Transitioning the Use of Cryptographic Algorithms and Key Lengths] by Elaine Barker and Allen Roginsky.
More Business Class configuration options.
|
Processors / Controller |
System Memory (GB) |
DA Pairs / Max drives |
Max Host Adapters |
Expansion Frames |
|
Business Class |
|
2-core |
16 / 32 |
2 / 240 |
4 |
0 |
|
4-core |
64 |
2 / 240 |
8 |
0 |
|
8-core |
128 / 256 |
6 / 1056 |
`16 |
0-2 |
|
16-core |
512 / 1024 |
6 / 1056 |
16 |
0-2 |
|
Enterprise Class |
|
2-core |
16 / 32 |
2 / 240 |
4 |
0 |
|
4-core |
64 |
4 / 240 |
8 |
0 |
|
8-core |
128 |
6 / 1056 |
`16 |
0-2 |
|
8-core |
256 |
8 / 1536 |
`16 |
0-3 |
|
16-core |
512 / 1024 |
8 / 1536 |
16 |
0-3 |
Metro Mirror enhancement for System z. By avoiding serial conflicts of updated blocks, this enhancement can boost performance up to 100 percent when using Metro Mirror with z/OS applications on System z mainframes.
Easy Tier™ reporting and graphs to determine optimal mix. Now you can see for yourself how sub-LUN automated tiering is helping your applications.
Easy Tier Workload Categorization
New workload visuals help clients and IBM technical specialists compare activity across tiers within and across pools to help determine optimal drive mix for current workloads
Easy Tier Data Movement Daily Report
New Easy Tier summary report every 24 hours illustrating data migration activity (5-minute intervals) can help visualize migration types and patterns for current workloads
Easy Tier Workload Skew Curve
Shows skew of all workloads across the system in a graph to help clients visualize and accurately tier configurations when adding capacity or a new system Clients can import data into Disk Magic
All-Flash Optimization. Yesterday, in my post [IBM FlashSystem versus EMC XtremeIO], I mentioned that any hybrid systems like the IBM Storwize V7000 that can support a mix of SSD and HDD can obviously be configured as SSD-only. Apparently, that was not obvious to many readers, so I apologize. For the DS8870, you can configure an all-Flash (SSD only) configuration, and Release 7.2 added some optimization when configured with SSD only.
|
Attribute |
Spinning Disk |
All-Flash |
Flash Benefit |
|
Configuration |
1,056 drives 15K @146GB in RAID-10 |
224 drives SSD @400GB in RAID-5 |
Same - Usable 72 TB |
|
Response time |
1 msec |
0.3 msec |
70 percent faster |
|
Floor space |
3 Frames |
2 Frames |
33 percent less floor space required |
|
Energy consumption |
13.9kW |
5.3kW |
62 percent less energy consumed |
(Note: Performance results based on measurements and projections using IBM benchmarks in a controlled environment.)
OpenStack™ support DS8870 now offers the [OpenStack Cinder] interface for block LUN allocations in OpenStack environments. IBM is a Platinum sponsor of OpenStack, and Opentack is the strategic platform for IBM private and hybrid clouds.