Originally posted by: TonyPearson

This week, I am presenting at the IBM Systems Technical University in Orlando, Florida, May 22-26, 2017. Thursday evening, we had the "Meet The Experts" sessions. There were four: Storage, Power Systems, z/OS, and a fourth one focused on z/VM and Linux on z Systems. I was on the expert panel for Storage.

Mo McCullough was the emcee. Special thanks for Shelly Howrigon in her help with this event.

(Disclaimer: Do not shoot the messenger! We had a dozen or so experts on the panel, representing System Storage hardware, software and services. I took notes, trying to capture the essence of the questions, and the answers given by the various IBM experts. The answers from individual IBMers may not reflect the official position of IBM management. I leave out any references to unannounced plans or products. Where appropriate, my own commentary will be in italics.)

	When will IBM offer a single pane of glass management for all of its IBM storage products?
		IBM is working hard on this. Our strategy is to focus on IBM Spectrum Control as the primary answer. We have extended support across block, file and object, with support for IBM Spectrum Scale and IBM Cloud Object Storage System. We have also provided plug-ins for VMware, Cisco UCS Director, and OpenStack Horizon, for those who prefer those management systems instead.
	What we really need are REST APIs!
		Good point. IBM already has some REST APIs for the DS8000, XIV and Spectrum Protect, now that IBM has browser-based GUI across its entire product line, it is our strategy to offer REST API across our product line as well.
	What is the next generation of ProtecTIER Data Deduplication going to look like?
		IBM is focused on provided "data deduplication" for backup workloads directly through IBM Spectrum Protect backup software. IBM continues to sell IBM ProtecTIER. (Virtual Tape Libraries like IBM ProtecTIER and Dell EMC Data Domain were created to handle the fact that many backup software back only were designed for tape drives and libraries. VTL was disk that pretended to be tape library. Now that IBM Spectrum Protect, NetBackup, Commvault, and all of the other modern backup products write natively to disk, object storage or Cloud services, there really isn't a need for VTL products any more.)
	Why does IBM bother with all-Flash version of DS8000 when it already has IBM FlashSystem?
		Different products for different workloads. IBM DS8000 offers unique support for z System mainframe FICON attachment and 520-byte block support for IBM i. IBM also offers all-Flash Elastic Storage Server, all-Flash SVC and Storwize products, that complement the IBM FlashSystem product line.
	We like how XIV can hot-enable encryption, even with existing data on it. Why doesn't DS8000 offer this?
		Two separate implementations. At the time IBM DS8000 encryption was designed, it was decided that the client needed to enable encryption before writing any data.
	Will we see a spinning disk version of the FlashSystem A9000
		Flash is now less expensive than spinning disk, I don't see why IBM would go backwards. The future is Flash.
	We would like Spectrum Control to manage our Dell EMC Isilon
		Yes, we have heard that from others. We are working on extending our third party support. Send in your cards and letters to help us prioritize. Or, better yet, submit a "Request For Enhancement" (RFE).
	The difference between Tier 0 (Write Endurance) flash and Tier 1 (Read Intensive) flash is confusing, are there any plans in the IT industry to simplify this?
		No, if anything it will get worse. Today, IBM's Tier 0 is 10 Drive Write Per Day (DWPD), and Tier 1 is 1 DWPD. Other SSD drives offer 2, 3, 5, 10, 15 and 25 DWPD. As people buy more Flash, and less disk, expect more differentiation in this area.
	We would like to tune Easy Tier on the Storwize products
		Understood. IBM typically implements new features on the DS8000 platform first, then rolls them over to Spectrum Virtualize. The ability to influence allocation order, pin or avoid tiers, and have application API to influence the placement are already in DS8000.
	What will the future of Storwize look like?
		We don't have enough time to cover that in this meeting.
	Recently, you raised the maximum Storwize FlashCopy background copy rate from 64 MB/sec to 2 GB/sec, but is that realistic?
		The setting provides the background task a target "grains per second" to try to achieve. It may not be possible depending on your configuration and the number of concurrent tasks. Your Storwize may be so busy with background activity that it won't take host I/O.
	We have been giving you our wishlist, but are there any questions the IBM experts have for the audience
		Yes, are there any clients being asked to secure storage against Ransomware and insider threats from disgruntled employees? (Several hands went up, and we collected their names to have further discussions.)
	How should we assign business value to data?
		IBM Spectrum Virtualize allows you to assign metadata tags to files, so that these can be used to drive different policies. (The process of assigning business value is often called "Data Rationalization" and is part of ILM, BC/DR, and Data Governance efforts.)
	I am concerned that AES 256 encryption is not good enough now that there is Quantum Computing.
		It will be decades before Quantum Computing will be good enough to break these codes.
	Will Blockchain drive huge or unique storage requirements?
		No. The entries are small. You are appending small transactions to the end of existing ledgers. Nothing unique or different.
	Were there any topics not adequately covered at this conference?
		IBM didn't have much to offer for Spectrum Compute family of software, the Software Defined Infrastructure (SDI) that runs on both x86 and POWER systems. This should be done under the POWER brand, but many clients use Spectrum Compute with x86 servers. Ironically, Spectrum Compute products are managed under the Storage division, since Spectrum Compute and Spectrum Storage work well together.
	We would like Storwize's clever NPIV to be implemented in all of the other IBM arrays, starting with DS8000.
		That probably won't happen, as they are different architectures. Whereas Storwize and the rest of IBM Spectrum Virtualize family were designed for nodes to fail, and take their ports down with them, the DS8000 has independent I/O bays that continue to run independent of either POWER8 node. Likewise, FlashSystem 900 has similar separation between the FCP adapters and the processing nodes.
	Can we have consistent licensing across the entire IBM Spectrum Virtualize set of products, please?
		We have a task force to investigate this, and will gladly add your name to the list for input and feedback.

While the conference continues Friday morning, for many attendees, this was the last event.

technorati tags: IBM, #ibmtechu, Mo McCullough, Shelly Howrigon