Sunday, December 28, 2008

As 2008 draws to a close...

As 2008 draws to a close, I am reminded of some of the more interesting storage announcements of the last half of 2008. For those of you who might have missed some of these, here is a second chance.

High Performance Ficon (zHPF) and Incremental Resynch


IBM October 21, 2008

These announcements may have been overlooked because of the z10 processor announcements made on the same day.

Links:
IBM System Storage DS6000 series Models 511 and EX1 offer a new price/performance option with 450 GB 15,000 rpm disk drives

IBM System Storage DS8000 series (Machine type 2107) delivers new functional capabilities (zHPF and RMZ resync) for System z environments

IBM System Storage DS8000 series (Machine types 2421, 2422, 2423, and 2424) delivers new functional capabilities (zHPF and RMZ resync)

High Performance FICON for System z improves performance


IBM now provides High Performance FICON for System z (zHPF). Previously, FICON with DS8000 series functions provided a high-speed connection supporting multiplexed operation. High Performance FICON takes advantage of the hardware available today, with enhancements that are designed to reduce the overhead associated with supported commands, that can improve FICON I/O throughput on a single DS8000 port by 100%.

Enhancements have been made to the z/Architecture® and the FICON interface architecture to deliver improvements for online transaction processing (OLTP) workloads.

When exploited by the FICON channel, the z/OS operating system, and the control unit, zHPF is designed to help reduce overhead and improve performance. The changes to the architectures offer end-to-end system enhancements to improve reliability, availability, and serviceability (RAS). Existing adapters will be able to handle an intermix of transactions using FCP, FICON, and High Performance FICON protocols.

Realistic production workloads with a mix of data transfer sizes can see up to 30 to 70% of FICON I/Os utilizing zHPF, resulting in up to a 10 to 30% savings in channel utilization.

z/OS Metro/Global Mirror Incremental Resync allows efficient replication


The IBM DS8000 series now supports z/OS Metro/Global Mirror Incremental Resync which can eliminate the need for a full copy after a HyperSwaptm situation in 3-site z/OS Metro/Global Mirror configurations.

Previously, the DS8000 series supported z/OS Metro/Global Mirror which is a 3-site mirroring solution that utilizes IBM System Storage Metro Mirror and z/OS Global Mirror (XRC). The z/OS Metro/Global Mirror Incremental Resync capability is intended to enhance this solution by enabling resynchronization of data between sites using only the changed data from the Metro Mirror target to the z/OS Global Mirror target after a GDPS® HyperSwap. This can significantly reduce the amount of data to be copied after a Hyperswap situation and improve the resilience of an overall 3-site disaster recovery solution by reducing resync times.

And if you would like to review the z10 processor announcements, the links can be found here:

IBM System z10 Enterprise Class - The future runs on System z10, the future begins today

IBM System z10 Business Class - The smart choice for your business. z can do IT better

IBM System Storage DS8000 series delivers new flexibility and data protection options


August 12, 2008

Links:

IBM System Storage DS8000 series (Machine types 2421, 2422, 2423, and 2424) delivers new flexibility and data protection options

IBM System Storage DS8000 series (Machine type 2107) delivers new flexibility and data protection options

New functional capabilities for the DS8000tm series include:
* RAID-6
* 450 GB 15,000 rpm Fibre Channel Disk Drive
* Variable LPAR
* Extended Address Volumes
* Ipv6


IBM XIV Storage System: designed to provide grid-based, enterprise-class storage capabilities


August 12, 2008

IBM XIV Storage System: designed to provide grid-based, enterprise-class storage capabilities

The IBM XIV Storage System is designed to be a scalable enterprise storage system based upon a grid array of hardware components. XIV is designed to:
* Support customers requiring Fibre Channel (FC) or Internet Small Computer System Interface (iSCSI) host connectivity
* Provide a high level of consistent performance with no data hot-spots in the grid-based storage device
* High redundancy through the use of unique grid-based rebuild technology
* Provide support for 180 SATA hard drive spindles providing up to 79 TB of useable capacity
* Provide Capacity on Demand option starting at 21.2 TB raw capacity
* Support 24 x 4Gb Fibre Channel ports for host connectivity
* Support 6 x 1Gb iSCSI ports for host connectivity
* Support 120 GB of total system cache

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