Originally posted by: TonyPearson

Well, it's Tuesday again, and you know what that means? Announcements!

Today, IBM's announcements are designed to change the economics of big data analytics, cloud, mobile and social media.

[Software Defined Environments] require [Software Defined Storage], combining storage virtualization with open, extensible, industry-led interfaces. The IBM SmartCloud Virtual Storage Center (VSC) and IBM Storwize Family are the market leaders in storage virtualization. SmartCloud VSC, Storwize Family, and XIV support the industry-led OpenStack interfaces.

Here are some of the announcements today:

IBM Storwize® Family

The [SAN Volume Controller] was first introduced 10 years ago, in 2003. Today, clients enjoy these storage virtualization capabilities across a variety of offerings, known collectively as the [IBM Storwize Family].

• IBM adds a new member to the Storwize Family. In addition to SAN Volume Controller, Storwize V7000, Storwize V7000 Unified, Flex System V7000, Storwize V3700, and Storwize V3500, IBM is announcing the [IBM Storwize V5000]. Here's a quick side-by-side comparison:

   

  Attribute/Feature	Storwize V7000	Storwize V5000	Storwize V3700
  Scalability: Maximum configuration	Four control enclosures clustered together, 36 expansion enclosures, 960 drives, 64GB cache	Two control enclosures clustered together, 12 expansion enclosures, 336 drives, 32GB cache	One control enclosure, 4 expansion enclosures, 120 drives, 8GB cache upgradeable to 16GB, optional Turbo performance
  Host Ports	8Gbps FCP and 1GbE iSCSI standard; optional 10GbE iSCSI/FCoE. Can upgrade to Storwize V7000 Unified by adding NAS File Modules to add support for CIFS, NFS, HTTPS, SCP and FTP protocols	1GbE iSCSI, 6Gbps SAS, 8Gbps FCP and 10GbE iSCSI/FCoE Standard	1GbE iSCSI, 6Gbps SAS standard; optional 8Gbps FCP and 10GbE iSCSI/FCoE
  Storage virtualization/Data Migration	Internal virtualization, Data Migration standard; optional external virtualization	Internal virtualization, Data Migration standard; optional external virtualization	Internal virtualization, Data Migration (external devices can be attached to ingest data only) standard
  Point-in-Time Copy	FlashCopy (4,096 images) standard	optional FlashCopy (4,096 images)	FlashCopy (64 images) standard; optional FlashCopy (2,040 images)
  Data Footprint Reduction	Thin provisioning standard; optional Real-time Compression	Thin provisioning standard	Thin provisioning standard
  Remote Disk Replication	optional Metro Mirror, Global Mirror, Global Mirror with Change Volumes	optional Metro Mirror, Global Mirror, Global Mirror with Change Volumes	optional Metro Mirror, Global Mirror, Global Mirror with Change Volumes
  Sub-LUN Automated Tiering	Easy Tier standard	optional Easy Tier	optional Easy Tier
  Cloud Interfaces	VMware VAAI, VASA, vCenter plug-in, and OpenStack Cinder APIs standard	VMware VAAI, VASA, vCenter plug-in, and OpenStack Cinder APIs standard	VMware VAAI, VASA, vCenter plug-in, and OpenStack Cinder APIs standard

  
   
• Storwize V7000, V5000 and V37000 now support larger 800GB SSD drives. Previously, they only support SSD drives up to 400GB.
   
• VMware 5.5 and VASA support. VMware ships every release with built-in support for all members of the IBM Storwize Family, but it bears repeating here just in case you were interested. IBM is a leading reseller of VMware, so it makes sense for IBM's storage devices to support everything that VMware customers could possibly want in terms of VMware integration. IBM SmartCloud VSC, Storwize Family, and XIV Storage System are no exception!
   
• New IP-based replication driving lower costs for replication. Previously, Metro Mirror, Global Mirror and Global Mirror with Change Volumes were FCP-based, and many clients bought extra equipment to run FCP packets over long-distance IP (known as FCIP). Now, clients can replicate across distnace natively without FCIP routers, and use IP-based connections natively.
  
  In my blog posts covering [Edge 2013 - Day 3 Solution Center], I mentioned that IBM has certified Bridgeworks' SANSlide 150SVCV7K unit that provides a Riverbed-like WAN Optimization for long-distance replication. Now, IBM has fully integrated Bridgeworks' SANSlide network optimization technology directly into Storwize Family!
  
  All members of the Storwize Family will support 1GbE remote disk replication, and this will be extended to 10GbE support at a later date.
   
• The [Storwize V3700] is now offered in 48-volt Direct Current (DC) models, [NEBS/ETSI compliance] for Telecommunications companies that require this, and now support 4TB drives.

 

IBM SmartCloud

 

• When we introduced [IBM SmartCloud Storage Access] in February, it was to offer self-service, automated policy-based provisioning for file storage on the SONAS and Storwize V7000 Unified. Today, we add self-service, automated policy-based provisioning for block storage. The first products to be supported are SmartCloud VSC, the entire Storwize Family, and XIV Storage Systems. In addition to the web portal, the Storage Cloud Integration API enables 3rd party ISV applications to support SmartCloud Storage Access.
  
  Storage admins will no longer need to be bothered with tedious provisioning requests, freeing up more time for them to work on more strategic, transformational projects.
   
• [IBM SmartCloud Virtual Storage Center] was introduced last year, combining SAN Volume Controller, Tivoli Storage Productivity Center, Tivoli FlashCopy Mangaer and the Storage Analytics Engine into a single license. The initial offering provided the cross-platform "Tiered Storage Optimization" that provided recommendations for what LUNs should be moved from one disk array to another to manage performance vs. cost. Today, IBM is first to market with an automated version, moving LUNs automatically from one disk array to another.
   
• [SmartCloud Enterprise Object Storage] is switching from 3rd-party Nirvanix to its internal IBM Softlayer. This one involves more in-depth explanation which I will save for another post.

 

IBM XIV Storage System

As part of the [due diligence] team for IBM to acquire the XIV company back in 2007, I am glad to see how this system has evolved since then. I have certainly [blogged quite a bit on XIV] over the years.

• Earlier this year, IBM introduced Hyper-Scale Mobility which allows the storage admin to move LUNs non-disruptively from one XIV frame to another. Today, Hyper-Scale Cross-system Consistency Groups allows you to have snapshots of collections of volumes across multiple XIV frames, up to 3PB of capacity snapped at the same instance of time.
   
• The current supported releases of OpenStack are Folsom and Grizzly, and the newest release is Havana. XIV now offers OpenStack Cinder interfaces at the Havana level.
   
• XIV now offers a RESTful API for monitoring and provisioning. [REST] is a de-facto standard in WEB services and cloud implementations. XIV's RESTful API is a programmatic management interface that follows REST principles:
  1. Resources are identified by global identifiers (URIs)
  2. Data is sent as JSON/XML over HTTP
  3. Manipulations of resources are done by HTTP methods (GET, PUT, POST, DELETE)
  4. The interface is Stateless and Hypertext driven
  
  
  The interface is universally supported, programming language and platform agnostic. For monitoring, the following GET example could show the list of volumes on a particular XIV storage system:

  GET  http://10.0.0.57/XIV/:xivGen3/volumes 
  

  For provisioning, the following PUT example could create "vol1" on that XIV storage system.

  PUT  http://10.0.0.57/XIV/:xivGen3/volumes/:vol1 
  

• IBM SmartCloud Storage Access to allow self-service provisioning (see the SmartCloud section above).
   
• Data-at-Rest encryption, using Self-Encrypting Drives (SED). XIV will encrypt the data, and IBM's Security Key Lifecycle Manager (SKLM) or Tivoli Key Lifecycle Manager (TKLM). If you have an XIV already, you may already have SED drives ready to use! The XIV will also encrypt the data on the SSD drives used for persistent read-cache.

   

Other new and enhanced offerings

 

• For our mainframe clients, the Virtualization Engine TS7700 now supports 60 percent more capacity, and can now support 8Gbps FICON attachement.
   
• N series N3000, N6000 and N7000 support new disk drive types and sizes, as well as Data OnTap 8.2 Cluster mode. You can now lash together up to 16 N series together into a SONAS-like single system image.
   
• Cisco MDS 9710 Multilayer Director for IBM® System Networking is a new 16 Gbps SAN director with robust security to support multi-tenancy cloud configurations.

   

Whew! That is a lot of things to discuss in one post. Since they were all related, I did not want to split it up into parts.

technorati tags: IBM, Software Defined Environment, SDE, Software Defined Storage, SDS, SmartCloud, Virtual Storage Center, VSC, Storwize, V7000, V5000, V3700, OpenStack, Havana, XIV, SAN Volume Controller, SVC, VMware, VASA, IP-based Replication, Metro Mirror, Global Mirror, FCIP, Bridgeworks, SANSlide, NEBS, ETSI, SmartCloud Storage Access, SmartCloud Enterprise, Object Storage, Storage Analytics Engine, Tiered Storage Optimization, Nirvanix, Softlayer, Hyper-Scale, data-at-rest, encryption, SED, SKLM, TKLM, TS7700, FICON, N3000, N6000, N7000, Data OnTap, Cluster-Mode, Cisco MDS