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New Storage Enhancements for IBM System z Mainframes

By Tony Pearson posted Thu July 22, 2010 04:20 PM

  

Originally posted by: TonyPearson


Continuing this week's coverage of IBM's 3Q announcements, today it's all about storage for our mainframe clients.

IBM System Storage DS8700

IBM is the leader in high-end disk attached to mainframes, with the IBM DS8700 being our latest model in a long series of successful products in this space. Here are some key features:

  • Full Disk Encryption (FDE), which I mentioned in my post [Different Meanings of the word "Protect"]. FDE are special 15K RPM Fibre Channel drives that include their own encryption chip, so that IBM DS8700 can encrypt the data at rest without impacting performance of reads or writes. The encryption keys are managed by IBM Tivoli Key Lifecycle Manager (TKLM).
  • Easy Tier, which I covered in my post [DS8700 Easy Tier Sub Lun Automatic Migration] which offers what EMC promised but has yet to deliver, the ability to have CKD volumes and FBA LUNs to straddle the fence between Solid State Drives (SSD) and spinning disk. For example, a 54GB CKD volume could have 4GB on SSD and the remaining 50GB on spinning drives.   The hottest extents are moved automatically to SSD, and the coldest moved down to spinning disk.  To learn more about Easy Tier, watch my [7-minute video] on IBM [Virtual Briefing Center].
  • z/OS Distributed Data Backup (zDDB), announced this week, provides the ability for a program running on z/OS to backup data written by distributed operating systems like Windows or UNIX stored in FBA format. In the past, to backup FBA LUNs involved a program like IBM Tivoli Storage Manager client to read the data natively, send it over Ethernet LAN to a TSM Server, which could run on the mainframe and use mainframe resources. This feature eliminates the Ethernet traffic by allowing a z/OS program to read the FBA blocks through standard FICON channels, which can then be written to z/OS disk or tape resources. Here is the [Announcement Letter] for more details.

    One program that takes advantage of this new zDDB feature already is Innovation's [FDRSOS], which I pronounce "fudder sauce". If you are an existing FDRSOS customer, now is a good time to get rid of any EMC or HDS disk and replace with the new IBM DS8700 system.

IBM System Storage TS7680 ProtecTIER Deduplication Gateway for System z

When it comes to virtual tape libraries that attach to mainframes, the two main players are IBM TS7700 series and Oracle StorageTek Virtual Storage Manager (VSM). However, mainframe clients with StorageTek equipment are growing frustrated over Oracle's lack of commitment for mainframe-attachable storage. To make matters worse, Oracle recently missed a key delivery date for their latest enterprise tape drive.

Unfortunately, neither of these offer deduplication of the data. IBM solved this with the IBM TS7680. I covered the initial announcement six months ago in my post [TS7680 ProtecTIER Deduplication for the mainframe].

What's new this week is that IBM now supports native IP-based asynchronous replication of virtual tapes at distance, from one TS7680 to another TS7680. This replaces the method of replication using the back end disk features. The problem with using disk replication is that all the virtual tapes will be copied over. Instead, the ProtecTIER administrator can decide which subset of virtual tapes should be replicated to the remote site, and that can reduce both storage requirements as well as bandwidth costs. See the [Announcement Letter] for more details.

These new solutions will work with existing mainframes, as well as the new IBM [zEnterprise mainframe models] announced this week.

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Archive User
Wed July 28, 2010 11:25 AM

Originally posted by: TonyPearson


Roger, Here is IBM's Social Computing Guidelines that I follow for this blog: http://www.ibm.com/blogs/zz/en/guidelines.html Many times, competitors point out that IBM delivers new functionality after everyone else has already offered similar features, so when IBM is able to deliver a feature before other major vendors, many feel this is worth pointing out. Easy Tier is an example of sub-LUN automatic movement that EMC got a lot of press last year when they announced they would offer this as FAST v2, but apparently are struggling to get it working. The zDDB is a feature that already exists on competitive boxes, so that is a case where IBM customers have complained that they would like to switch to DS8000 series, but can't because it lacks this capability. For their benefit, I point out they can now make that switch. Somehow, BarryB felt that my claim that IBM now supports this ISV software implied that EMC did not. While both FDE and Easy Tier are examples of features not offered by EMC, the zDDB is a feature that is similar to an EMC feature supported by the same software. Again, that was not intended to disparage a competitor, just to point out that IBM now has a capability that people may not be aware of. As for Oracle/Sun, I present their recent failure to deliver on their latest tape drive key date just as an explanation or "proof-point" of why Oracle/Sun customers are concerned and/or frustrated. I have also spoken to customers unhappy that Oracle dropped their reselling agreement with HDS. Every quarter, hundreds of HP and Sun customers switch over to IBM solutions and offerings. In my role at the IBM Executive Briefing Center, I have the opportunity to ask they why they are making that switch, and am merely reporting what I learn from these situations, for the benefit of others contemplating making the same switch themselves. IBM sales reps and SE's have specific guidelines in how they approach the sales process, how they engage with customers, and what they are allowed to say or do in compliance with their IBM Business Conduct Guidelines. I am neither sales rep nor SE. I refer you to my lengthy disclaimer on the left panel of this blog. Thanks Tony Pearson (az990tony)

Archive User
Wed July 28, 2010 07:45 AM

Originally posted by: RogerBowler


> "offers what EMC promised but has yet to deliver," > "now is a good time to get rid of any EMC or HDS disk and replace with the new IBM DS8700 system" > "mainframe clients with StorageTek equipment are growing frustrated over Oracle's lack of commitment for mainframe-attachable storage." > "Oracle recently missed a key delivery date for their latest enterprise tape drive. " When I started work in the early 1970's, the IBM SE's I worked with would never directly comment on competitor products. Instead they would simply present the best features of the IBM product and invite the customer to ask the alternative vendor if their product could provide those same features. I was told that it was IBM policy that IBMers did not make derogatory remarks about competitors or their products. The idea was that the high quality of the IBM products meant that there was no need to denigrate the competition. I thought this was an honorable policy and it's sad to see that it seems to have gone out of the window.

Archive User
Fri July 23, 2010 01:34 PM

Originally posted by: thestorageanarchist


Well, gee then - welcome to the family (took you long enough!) :-)

Archive User
Fri July 23, 2010 11:22 AM

Originally posted by: TonyPearson


BarryB, I know FDRSOS well, which is why I put " If you are an existing FDRSOS customer, now is a good time to get rid of any EMC or HDS disk and replace with the new IBM DS8700 system. " since most FDRSOS customers used non-IBM disk, which was the business case justification for offering this function. -- Tony P (az990tony)

Archive User
Fri July 23, 2010 10:14 AM

Originally posted by: thestorageanarchist


Tony - you must not be very familiar with FDRSOS or you would have known that it has supported EMC storage for about a decade: http://www.innovationdp.fdr.com/products/fdrsos_emc/