RealDolmen z Systems e-zine 23

 The 23rd issue of our RealDolmen z Systems Newsletter was sent out yesterday. You can download it over here. Just like the last times, there's just an English version. No more Dutch or French versions. Some of it has already been posted over here too.

The content ? There are three major topics. One about the new evolutions on the DS888x, I published earlier over here, one about LinuxONE and finally there's some extra publicity for the IBM Benelux Study Tour with a more elaborate agenda. I also focus on some announcements, as usual there are some hints and tips and of course the usual table of EOS dates of the operating systems is also present again.

Enjoy the reading !

Draft Redbook : DS8880 Architecture and Implementation Guide

At the beginning of the year I promised myself I would try to post some more and not wait until I had enough material for an elaborate post. Despite my absence of two months I already wrote more blog posts than last year. So, this seems to work alright for me.

So here's a quick one : the Draft for the IBM Redbook on 'DS8880 Architecture and Implementation' is out and can be downloaded over here. I don't think I have to explain the purpose of this redbook to you, so let me suffice by giving you the table of contents.

Part 1. Concepts and architecture

Chapter 1. Introduction to the IBM DS8880
Chapter 2. IBM DS8880 hardware components and architecture
Chapter 3. RAS on the IBM DS8880
Chapter 4. Virtualization concepts
Chapter 5. DS8000 Copy Services overview
Chapter 6. Designed for performance

Part 2. Planning and installation

Chapter 7. IBM DS8880 physical planning and installation
Chapter 8. IBM DS8880 Management Console planning and setup
Chapter 9. IBM DS8880 features and licensed functions

Part 3. Storage configuration

Chapter 10. Configuration flow
Chapter 11. Storage Management GUI
Chapter 12. Configuration with the DS Command-Line Interface

Part 4. Maintenance and upgrades

Chapter 13. Licensed machine code
Chapter 14. Monitoring with Simple Network Management Protocol
Chapter 15. Remote support

There you go, some free Christmas Holiday reading.

An introduction to the DS8880 - The Next Generation of the DS8000

About a month ago, IBM announced the new generation of the DS8800 : 'IBM DS8880 delivers faster performance than the previous DS8000 models with the reliability and availability to support digital business'. As usual there's one announcement about the software licences (ZG15-0234) and four announcements depending on the duration of the warranty : 1 year (ZG15-0235), 2 years (ZG15-0238), 3 years (ZG15-0236) and 4 years (ZG12-0237). And as they become available by the end of the week, this is a nice opportunity to give you an update on the DS8000.

As you can see the successor of the DS8870 is the TS8880 and the '8' indicates that we are moving on from the Power7 processor to the Power8 processor. No more Business and Enterprise Model but two plain different models : DS8884 and DS8886, DS8884 being the smaller model and DS8886 being the larger model. And to annoy you with some more 'numbers', they both have the same Machine Type 238x (x ranging from 1 to 4 standing for the duration of the warranty) but the base frame model numbers (981 for the DS8886 and 980 for the DS8884) and the expansion frame model numbers (98E for the DS8886 and 98B for the DS8884) are different. There will also be an all Flash model announced in the first half of 2016 being the DS8888.

But do let's have a look at the boxes themselves. I cannot touch on everything but let me give you a bit of an overview of the new elements that caught my attention. Here's what I'll be talking about

• The new form factor of 19''
• Performance improvements
• New HMC(s)
• New Power characteristics
• Changes in Licensing !
• Replacement of TPC-R
• Changes in Call Home functionalities 

The new form factor

The new DS888x no longer has a specific form factor but it complies to the industry standard 19'' rack. This does not mean however that you can order your own rack. The rack is still a dedicated DS8000 rack and it's always delivered along with the DS888x. But it should make planning in the data center somewhat easier of course. On the picture you see a DS8886 with one extra frame that can also contain host adapters. So, apart from its different shape, it looks pretty much familiar for those who have already an older version of the DS8000. Apart from the HMC perhaps, but I'll come back to that in a minute.

Performance improvements

Performance is always a tricky one, so I only give you one example of performance improvement on Sequential Reads. Sequential writes even show an improvement of two times compared to the DS88870. What are the main elements that contribute to this improvement ? First of all the new, more powerful Power8 engine of course and for the larger systems the mere fact that you can now have a maximum of 24 cores instead of 16. But there's also the use of the simultaneous multithreading (SMT) mode which enables "the POWER8 processor to maximize the throughput of the processor core and to offer more threads than competing processor technologies". Internally, the connectivity to the I/O Bay Enclosures (to the host adapters) is now evolved from PCiE Gen 2 to PCiE Gen 3, which gives your throughput an extra boost.
Overall this should generally give a doubled I/O throughput and 50% more IOPS.

New HMC(s)

The laptop PC as we knew it, is replaced by a mini PC at the bottom of the rack. On the picture you can see how the keyboard and display slide out from the rack. You can also order a second HMC within the same frame. Mind you, this has two implications. It means that a secondary HMC as an external HMC is no longer an option. This also implicates that you can no longer share a second, remote,  HMC between DS8000s, as some customers do nowadays.

New Power characteristics
I guess this one is particulary important for our European market since we tend to have 3-phase power. Don't shoot me if I say anything stupid about power, because, just like math, this is a blind spot in my brain. And falling from the stairs didn't actually help me here to suddenly see the light (pun not intended). But serious now, from now on, there's only a single power option available on the DS888x and a possible input voltage between 200 V and 240 V. More info in the Introduction and Planning Guide.

Changes in Licensing !

The licensing has ondergone a quite drastical change with the new DS888x series. You only have three licenses left of which two are optional. Here's an overview of how the licenses are split up.

• Base function license
• OEL
• Thin Provisioning
• Easy Tier
• Database Protection
• Encryption
• I/O Priority Manager
• Copy Services license (optional)
• FlashCopy
• Metro Mirror
• Global Mirror
• Metro/Global Mirror
• Multi-Target PPRC
• z/OS Global Mirror (XRC)
• z/OS Global Mirror Resync
• System z synergy license (optional)
• FICON
• System z High Performance FICON (zHPF)
• PAV and HyperPAV
• IBM z/OS Distributed Data Backup

You can compare the Base function license with the former OEL function. It is required for the entire raw capacity of the box. But there's no extra choice for e.g. 'Thin Provisioning'. It's immediately included in the Base fucntion license as well as all the other components mentioned in the overview.
As far as pricing is concerned you buy this license via Tiers. You have 10 Tier1 'units' I'll call them each of which is worth 10TB for the range from 1TB to 100TB. A machine with e.g. 81TB requires 9 Tier1 units. Then we have Tier2 units which are worth 15TB and this goes up to Tier7 units with a value of 500TB. So for a box with 192TB, you'll need 10 Tier1 units and 7 Tier2 units. Actually, to me it looks a lot like the tiering we also find in MLC pricing. And yes, also on the pricing level.

For the Copy Services the license is pretty straightforward : the license includes all copy services and the pricing follows the same tiering mechanism as with the Base license. However, there's one major difference, it is not based on raw capacity but on usable capacity. And the amount of TB you are buying is the sum of the amount of FB and CKD storage that's really involved in some copy services. So in our 192TB example, if you have 96TB CKD storage and 96TB of FB storage and only 25TB of usable capacity of CKD storage and 30TB of FB storage is involved in copy activities, then you only order 55TB which will be rounded to 6 Tier1 units representing 60TB. So this is far more flexible than the previous licensing.

The System z Synergy license is bought for the total amount of physical capacity that is configured for CKD. So that is again physical capacity instead of usable capacity.

Replacement of TPC-R
The Copy Services Manager (CSM) is a new product based on the TPC-R product technology and replacing it. It has at least the same functionalities as TPC-R and there's a migration possible towards CSM. Existing TPC-R customers are entitled to CSM. They will have to order CSM though. The migration has the following phases : Install CSM, Export TPC-R data base, Import the data base into CSM and then Stop TPC-R. For first time users there's a try&buy option so you can test the product for a limited time frame.


Changes in Call Home functionalities 
Internet VPN Support and Modem (AT&T) support are withdrawn and are no longer supported. For outbound call-home functions you have Internet SSL, Assist OnSite (AOS) or FTP (for bulk data only). For inbound call-home functions you have Internet SSL and Assist OnSite (AOS).

And let me conclude with some documentation.
The DS8880 IBM webpage is over here. From the products details tab you can engage on a DS8880 3D Product tour or just read the Datasheet. There's also a 30-page Draft Redbook called 'IBM DS8880 Product Guide' that gives you a good general technical introduction.

General Availability : December 4, 2015.

Flash - DS8000 with zHPF enabled and SyncSort MFX 2.1 failures

This is a flash for all current DS8000 systems ranging from DS8300 to DS8870. The DS8880 system only becomes available by the end of this week. You can find the flash over here. Below, I'm taking over the content of this flash.

Abstract

Running with zHPF enabled on a IBM System Storage DS8000®, can lead to host hangs, looping jobs and recursive errors on the IBM System Storage DS8000®system. 

Content

IBM System Storage DS8000® when running in a z/OS environment with zHPF enabled can result in:

1. In certain cases customers have experienced hosts to become unresponsive after sense is off-loaded from the DS8000 with zHPF enabled. This was seen only with SyncSort MFX 2.1. SyncSort is recommending APAR TY01136 for this issue. Until the APAR is applied, SyncSort is recommending the customer disable zHPF for SyncSort MFX 2.1 (use parameter LBPZHPF to bypass zHPF usage for an individual job and installation option SCOS=(204) to turn off all zHPF usage for SyncSort).
Licensed SyncSort MFX customers can reference Knowledge Base Article 46965 for more information about PTF TY01136.

2. In other situations customers have encountered repeating warmstarts, after software issues a zHPF Multi-Track Read command when the tracks are configured with more than 55 records per track, and there are multiple tracks to transfer. This results in the DS8000 incorrectly surfacing a Microcode Logic Error (MLE) which requires a warmstart to clear. This has been seen only with SyncSort MFX 2.1 software, although other software implementing similar chains would be exposed. After the MLE, software re-drives the command chain, resulting in repetitive MLEs that can result in system access loss. There is a DS8000 microcode fix in test scheduled for a near term release. In the interim, IBM is recommending that customers disable zHPF for SyncSort MFX 2.1 until the DS8000 fix is applied.

Examples of errors seen:
Message to Operator (WTO) notices WER529A and WER999A.
Missing Channel End and/or Missing Device End.
Host hangs/unresponsiveness.
DS8000 Microcode bundles containing the fix
DS8700 76.31.159.0
DS8800 86.31.184.0
DS8870 87.41.42.0
87.51.23.0

DS8000 Code Recommendation

Last week, in my post about the new DS8870 features there was a reference to the minimum level of the bundle version that has to be on your system. This reminded me of the following page on DS8000 Code Recommendation over here.

The page helps customers in implementing a code update strategy. It lists out the various DS8000 models with their respective minimum, recommended and last code level. This is also how you can quickly see that the required "bundle version 87.50.xxx.xx" mentioned in the announcement is not yet available for the moment and it will only become available for the DS8870 as code bundles for earlier DS8000 systems stopped already earlier.

Click through on the model e.g. DS8870 (R7.4) and you get all code bundle information available for this model. Page through down to the bottom, there's a wealth of information there !

IBM announcement : DS8870 enhancements

Here's another announcement from last week specifically for the DS8870, the latest generation of the DS8000 : ' IBM DS8870 delivers expanded connectivity and extends cloud enablement support with z Synergy for integration of z Systems and Storage systems (ZG15-0098)'.
Availability date is May 22, 2015 and all "announced features and functions are supported on the IBM System Storage® DS8000 series and require DS8000 LMC 7.7.50.xx.xx (bundle version 87.50.xxx.xx), or later".

Here's an overview of the new features :

16GFC FC/FICON connectivity:
DS8870 supports 16GFC FC/FICON connectivity with an optional four-port host adapter card. Model 961 supports four adapter card pairs and Model 96E supports four additional adapter card pairs, enabling a total of sixty-four 16GFC FC/FICON ports.

New and improved z Synergy features:

• FICON® Dynamic Routing: This feature supports Systems Business Class and Enterprise Class models and enables use of dynamic routing policies for cascaded directors in the SAN. Examples of dynamic routing policies include Brocade Exchange Based Routing (EBR) or Originator Exchange ID Load Balancing (OxID) across cascaded FICON Directors. The value of FICON Dynamic Routing is to help reduce cost by allowing Metro Mirror and FICON traffic to share the same set of ISLs. This can help reduce the number of ports required, fibers, and intercite bandwidth.
• Forward error correction (FEC): This feature helps to correct I/O errors and improve the reliability of 16 Gbs links, encouraging the adoption of faster link speeds. This feature also protects DS8870 Metro Mirror links connected to 16GFC host adapters and FCP links connected to switches that support standard FEC negotiation protocols.
• zHPF Extended Distance II: This feature delivers better zHPF large block write performance at longer distances (up to 100 Km) and improved FC fabric congestion management.
• Fabric Priority for FICON, zHPF, and FCP: z Workload Manager (zWLM) will assign a fabric I/O priority for every I/O operation executed by z/OS® thus extending the scope of management into the SAN. The DS8870 exploits fabric priority by propagating it to the Metro Mirror traffic generated for write requests and by echoing back the priority to get the value on read requests. Fabric priority complements the FICON Dynamic Routing feature by insuring the FICON traffic and the Metro Mirror traffic are managed to a consistent set of policies.
• Read Diagnostics Parameters (RDP) support: RDP enables new standard link services for obtaining diagnostic information including link speeds and power levels from FC end points and switch ports to aid in link fault isolation.

Heat Map Transfer for MGM environments:
With this release, heat map transfer supports MGM replication topology in addition to Metro Mirror/Global Copy/Global Mirror (MM/GC/GM) functions.

REST API:
This release includes support for monitoring, configuring, and controlling aspects of the DS8870 system configuration by use of an industry-standard REST API.

Performance monitoring:
The improved DS8000® Storage Management GUI provides system performance monitoring in real time. A storage administrator can view performance metrics from up to one week earlier down to one minute intervals in order to troubleshoot a wide variety of issues. Supported graphs include the following:

• I/O, bandwidth, caching, capacity, and power/temperature monitoring at a system level
• Back-end I/O, back-end bandwidth, and capacity monitoring at a pool level
• Front-end I/O and bandwidth monitoring at a pool level

Simplified encryption setup:
The improved DS8000 Storage Management GUI also provides simplified encryption setup and management through a simplified encryption paradigm matching other products. This enables a storage administrator to configure encryption within five minutes of finishing system setup.

Security Bulletin: Multiple vulnerabilities impact DS8000 HMC

Here's a new security bulletin on the DS8870 (and above). You can find it over here.
I'm not taking over all its content because it's a bit too elaborate but here's the summary

"Summary

There are multiple vulnerabilities in the DS8000 HMC which are covered in this bulletin and include the Padding Oracle On Downgraded Legacy Encryption (POODLE) SSLv3 vulnerability (CVE-2014-3566). This bulletin also covers several items which were updated to address other vulnerabilities.

Vulnerability Details

Before applying the patches or versions noted in this advisory, please read the additional notes - there are potential impacts to clients which connect to the updated servers since SSLv3 is disabled. You should verify that disabling SSLv3 does not cause compatibility issues.

While this advisory covers mainly CVE-2014-3566, product updates included also address the list of CVEs"

CVEs are concentrating on Open SSL, IBM Java and NTP.

Affected Products and Versions are DS8870 R7.2 and above, DS8800/DS8870 R6.3 SP 9 and above.

The fix is available as a full update as well as patch. You find all the necessary details in the bulletin itself.

DS8800 expansion frame withdrawn from marketing

Today IBM announces the withdrawal from marketing of the expansion frame of the DS8800 : 'Hardware withdrawal: IBM System Storage DS8800 Expansion Unit Model 95E and select features - Some replacements available (ZG15-0056)'.

If you still want to order any expansion frames or most of the other features still available on the DS8800, then do it before September 16, 2015. You still have some time left and of course you can always move on to the next generation : the DS8870. But keep in mind you cannot add a DS8870 expansion frame to a DS8800 base unit.

Accelerate with ATS : upcoming DS8000 webcasts

I didn't blog that much the last few months, so I think I'll try it a little bit differently at the start of this new year. Usually I tend to gather information and try to elaborate a bit on a subject. So sometimes I put things aside until I have enough information to write something useful about it. Well, maybe I should be a little bit more spontaneous and instead of bookmarking things until I have enough material, just throw it in here. So, here we go. Let me know what you think about it. It won't stop me from treating certain subjects more in depth of course.

I told you (a long time ago already) about the Accelerate with ATS blog and their webcasts. Well, there are two upcoming webcasts about DS8000 that I'd like to mention here.

The first is on January 27, 2015 6pm Brussels time and is about 'DS8000 and zOS Synergy'.
A little extract from the contents

"This session explores all of the latest z/OS and DS8870 Synergy items. Topics will include DB2’s exploitation of zHPF, eliminating DB2 and IMS Backup windows and letting zWLM manage workload’s quality of service on an end to end basis including its I/O. The session also discusses how Easy Tier ensures that the right data is dynamically placed in the right place in the storage tier to optimize price/performance and much more".

Register over here.

The second is on February 26, 2015 also at 6pm Brussels time and is about the 'New DS8000 Storage Management GUI. The contents :

"Join this webinar for an in-depth presentation of configuration and monitoring enhancements introduced by the new DS8000 Storage Management GUI, including and a demonstration of how to use the GUI to easily provision and manage storage".

Register over here.

Recent security vulnerabilities

OK, I admit, you haven't heard much of me lately but I've been too busy with other stuff that was not all that mainframe related. Still, I couldn't help noticing that there were quite some security issues lately. So, I thought I'd put up a couple of links that might be helpful. And I hope I'll find the time to blog a little more again from now on.

• Security Bulletin: Vulnerability in SSLv3 affects IBM Virtualization Engine TS7700 (CVE-2014-3566)
  SSLv3 contains a vulnerability that has been referred to as the Padding Oracle On Downgraded Legacy Encryption (POODLE) attack. SSLv3 is enabled in IBM Virtualization Engine TS7700.
  
• Security Bulletin: Vulnerability in SSLv3 affects TS3500 (CVE-2014-3566)
  SSLv3 contains a vulnerability that has been referred to as the Padding Oracle On Downgraded Legacy Encryption (POODLE) attack. SSLv3 is enabled in TS3500.
  
• Security Bulletin: POODLE vulnerability in SSLv3 affects IBM Explorer for z/OS and IBM CICS Explorer (CVE-2014-3566)
  SSLv3 contains a vulnerability that has been referred to as the Padding Oracle On Downgraded Legacy Encryption (POODLE) attack. This vulnerability affects all versions of IBM Explorer for z/OS and IBM CICS Explorer.
  
• Security Bulletin: A Security vulnerability has been discovered in Apache Struts which impacts the DS8000 GUI (CVE-2014-0114)
  
  A security vulnerability has been discovered in Apache Struts which impacts the DS8000 GUI

Sampling Techdocs - up to May 2014

Here I am again with an overview of interesting TechDocs documents I came across while browsing through the latest publications. If you're completely unfamiliar to Techdocs, here's an introduction to it.

• FAQ : z/OS 2.1 Frequently Asked Question
  This FAQ is a collection of questions that were raised by customers during several presentations on z/OS 2.1 that have been answered by subject matter experts. Too many diverse topics to sum them all up, so just have a look.

• Technical Document : IBM drives to Storage Systems cheat sheet
  I'm sure I mentioned this one before but here's an update on this one-pager showing the currently offered drive types for current IBM Storage Systems including of course DS8000 and XIV.

• Tool : IBM Storage Tier Advisory Tool Charting Utility
  You surely know about the DS8000 Storage Tier Advisor Tool (STAT). Data from the monitoring process by Easy Tier  is included in a summary report that you can download to a Windows system. The STAT application allows you to view the data when you point your browser to that file. Now - on top of this - the Charting Utility does exactly what its name says. This Utility will format some of the data provided and create charts like
• Skew Chart - Workload activity by percentage of capacity
• Movement Chart - Easy Tier data movement activity
• Workload Chart - Capacity utilization by extent pool 

• Technical Document : IBM System Storage Easy Tier Quick Start
  Ok, ok, I'm cheating a bit here, this one is not on Techdocs but I came across it while following a link on the charting utility. "This publication introduces the IBM® System Storage Easy Tier Quick Start, which helps you get started with Easy Tier functions using the IBM System Storage DS Storage Manager". If you have to set up Easy Tier, this is a document you're surely going to like.

Well that's it for now. And, as I always say : just check them out !

DS8870 announcement - Flash optimization II

This is an announcement from last week : 'IBM DS8870 next-generation flash systems deliver high availability and better performance for critical environments (ZG14-0119)'. However last week I was at the IBM Technical University for System z in Budapest and I wanted to have a closer look at the announcement before writing about it. And, by sheer coincidence, this is the first time in my life that I actually saw the real machine before I even read the announcement as we visited the DS8000 plant while in Hungary.

IBM fulfills an earlier statement of direction about the use of a "new high-density flash storage module for selected IBM disk systems, including the IBM System Storage DS8000". Now you might say : didn't they already announce an all flash box last year. Well, yes and no. They announced an all SSD box. Now you may argue again : isn't SSD the same as flash. Well, yes and no. It's more or less the same type of disks, or let's say, flash cards. Let's make a little detour to get a better understanding of this.
IBM has its FlashSystem 840 for open systems which comes from a recent acquisition of Texas Memory Systems. It aims purely at performance and promises extremely high performance and extremely low latency. How does it reach that : well, by concentrating solely on getting the data as fast as possible without any software functionality or storage controller in between that does e.g. compression, deduplication . . . And that's, to me at least, the main distinction between what IBM calls Flash and SSD. As a result the announcement says "it will help to increase IOPS by up to 4 times as compared to SSDs and up to 30 times as compared to spinning drives".

This is realized with new High Performance Flash Enclosures (HPFEs). This "high-performance flash enclosure is directly attached to the PCIe fabric, enabling increased bandwidth and transaction processing capability. The 1U enclosure contains a pair of powerful redundant RAID controllers".

Here's a configuration with just HPFEs in the box.

To the left side, you can see that 4 HPFEs fill the empty slot that was intentionally there from the beginning of the DS8870. ("Intentionally left blank" you might say). One enclosure contains 30 1.8'' flash drives of 400GB giving you a raw capacity of 12TB. If you only use the upper left slot for HPFEs, they can be combined with other types of disks in the regular disk slots.

The box you see here is an "all-flash, single rack system configured with only flash and up to 96 TB of capacity (73.6 TB of usable capacity) in a 8U of space". This all flash box also "provides twice as many I/O enclosures and up to twice as many host adapters as the standard DS8870 single frame configuration" See the extra host adapters in the green square.

Let me also give you a brief summary of the other functionalities that were announced :

• Enhanced Easy Tier® capabilities
  "There are five types of drives managed in up to three different tiers (flash cards and SSDs as tier 0, SAS 15K and 10K rpm drives as tier 1, and nearline drives as tier 2)". Easy Tier also knows the difference in performance within Tier 0 between Flash Cards and SSDs and places the hottest data on the Flash cards.
• 200 GB and 800 GB 2.5-inch FDE SSD drives
  New drives next to the 400GB drives
• Concurrent code load enhancement
• Warmstart enhancement
• Multiple Target PPRC with limited availability
• OpenStack support : "DS8870 offers full support for OpenStack releases Havana and Icehouse. Support is provided through the OpenStack Cinder driver". For the moment this is not z/OS related but read my previous post on OpenStack to understand the value of it. It creates a framework to automate storage provisioning and volume management and to simplify deployment and make DS8870 capabilities available for cloud environments.

General availability : June 6, 2014. Some field availability is only in September.

Announcement : Price change - selected DS8870 disk drives

Today IBM issues the following announcement : 'Price change: Selected DS8870 Disk Drives (ZA14-1121)'. Effective today "IBM announces a list price decrease on Selected DS8870 Disk Drives".

So this is a price reduction for the following disk drives on the DS8870 : 146 GB 15krpm FDE disk drive, 300 GB 15krpm FDE disk drive, 600 GB 10krpm FDE disk drive, 1.2 TB 10krpm FDE disk drive, 4 TB 7.2krpm FDE disk drive.

Did I already tell you that it's effective as of today. You never know but I just wonder whether I'll have to add a little comment to this tomorrow ?

A couple of DS8000 announcements

You know what, I'm always struggling with all those feature codes from the DS8000 family. And if the announcement has a wrong title, it's only adding up to the trouble. Here's e.g. 'Revised availability: Select IBM DS8700 MES features and feature conversions (ZG14-0135)'. It took me a couple of minutes to figure out this is actually about the DS8870 because it's about the 2421-961 up to the 2424-961 and not the 941 which is the DS8700. But the announcement is actually good news. Field upgrades from a P7+ core to another P7+ core will be possible as from today instead of June 6, 2014. On a DS8870 of course. GA for field upgrades from a P7 to P7+ remains on June 6, 2014 as was announced already last year over here (ZG13-0298).

But there is also news about the DS8700 in the following announcement : 'Hardware withdrawal: IBM System Storage DS8700 Expansion Unit and select features - Some replacements available (ZG14-0059)'. Let me try to translate some of the feature codes for you. First the DS8870. In April you will only be able to order a DS8870 with LMC R7.2 and as of July 7 only P7+ cores can be ordered. For the DS8700, as of October 1 no more expansion units can be ordered. And if I read the rest correctly you cannot longer order any host adapters, memory, cables nor 300GB, 450GB or 600GB disk drive sets. Since the 1TB drives were already withdrawn, there's nothing much left to order on a DS8700. I guess you might still be able to order some SSD drives, but I'm not too confident about that.

Sampling Techdocs - Up to February 2014

Here I am again with an overview of interesting TechDocs documents I came across while browsing through the latest publications. If you're completely unfamiliar to Techdocs, here's an introduction to it.

• Technical document : DS8000 Host Ports and Installation Sequence
  Here's a nice document on the "DS8000 host adapters installation sequence, port usage, naming conventions and best practices for host connection". Lots of practical tips.
  

• Presentation : DS8000 HyperPAV presentation and demonstration
  This is kind of a recap but it still contains some practical tips for people starting with HyperPAV. It's a "presentation that explains HyperPAV and compares HyperPAVs to Dynamic and Static PAVs. There is a demonstration that shows the performance benefits of changing from no PAVs, to Dynamic PAVs and ultimately HyperPAVs."

• Presentation : zEnterprise z/OS Usage of SMC-R RoCE
  "SMC-R and RoCE provide high throughput with low overhead communications. This paper is developed to detail the SMC-R and RoCE support in z/OS V2.1." This presentation talks about RDMA and SMC R, SMC R Configuration, Management Commands, CP Usage, Switch Ports, SMC R Details, OSA vs. HiperSockets vs. RoCE ... And I can assure you, not one detail is omitted here.

• White paper : Absolute Capping for zEnterprise LPARs
  Here's an interesting one : "Absolute Capping is a new control which was made available in 2013 supporting the zBC12 and zEC12 GA2 CPCs. It is enabled on zEnterprise via licensed internal code Version 2.12.1 at Driver Level 15 or higher.
  Absolute Capping is available to any LPAR but is of particular interest for non z/OS LPARs such as z/VM and Linux on z that cannot make use of z/OS Workload Manager capacity management functions.
  Unlike traditional LPAR Capping, this enhancement is designed to provide a physical capacity limit enforced as an absolute (versus relative) value that is not affected by changes to the virtual or physical configuration of the system. "

Well that's it for now. And, as I always say : just check them out !

Potential exposure to job aborts in z/OS environment with zHPF enabled running on a DS8870 with R7.1

Here's a new flash alert on the DS8870. You can find the alert over here.
I'm taking over the content here as well.

Abstract

z/OS clients with zHPF enabled running on a DS8870 with R7.1 bundles below 87.10.102.0 are exposed to job aborts due to Channel Errors (IOS071I START PENDING)

Content

The job aborts due to Channel Errors (IOS071I START PENDING) are caused by an internal condition of the DS8870 when zHPF is enabled.
Based on the number of transferred bytes per track the calculation for the amount of SMBs (sequential memory buffer) the DS8870 needs to allocate for transferring data over the channel may be wrong.
This wrong calculation leads to a code exception or an I/O hang in the DS8870 which may result in job aborts and IOS071I START PENDING messages.

The issue was introduced in the R7.1 GA bundle 87.10.87.0 and fixed in the bundles identified in the Resolution section below.

Exposed Microcode bundles:
R7.1: all Microcode bundles below 87.10.102.0 R7.1 SP3, multiple field occurrences observed, all on bundle 87.10.91.1

Mitigation:

Disable zHPF until a service window can be scheduled to update DS8870 firmware to a bundle containing the fix.

Resolution :

A DS8870 microcode build to fix this issue has been made available in Bundle 87.0.102.0 or higher.

87.10.102.0 R7.1 SP3
87.20.220.0 R7.2 GA

For those customers upgrading code from R7.0 to R7.1 and running zHPF the minimum recommended microcode level is 87.10.102.0 (R7.1 SP3)

Flash - DS8700/DS8800 EasyTier extent migration may cause repeated warmstarts and potential access loss . . .

The entire title goes 'DS8700/DS8800 EasyTier extent migration may cause repeated warmstarts and potential access loss when both RAID-5 and RAID-6 arrays are configured in the system'. And you can find all the details over here.

Let me take over some of the details

Abstract
DS8700/DS8800 customers running EasyTier extent migration may experience repeated warmstarts with Fixed Block (FB) extents AND both RAID-5 and RAID-6 arrays are configured. Both EasyTier Auto Mode and EasyTier Manual mode (volume migration/rebalance, Rank Depopulation) are exposed. Customers with volume 0x0000 defined will experience more severe warmstarts and impacts (a potential loss of access), than those without this volume defined.

Content
Customers not on DS8700/DS8800 are not exposed.
This is applicable only to FB extents and not to Key Count Data (CKD) extents, and customers not having RAID-5 and RAID-6 are not exposed.
Customers at, or above the code bundles recommended below are not exposed to this issue.

Mitigation
Upgrade to the code levels indicated in this notification OR follow the instructions below to disable EasyTier Auto Mode until the code levels are installed.

Check if ET is running disable ET Auto Mode and stop all ET manual mode operations.
You can also find the commands to do so in the flash and the corrected levels of code too.

Announcement : DS8870 V7.2

In case you've wondered why I didn't blog on the new DS8870 announcements last week, well there's a very practical reason : I was ill. But here we go now, with some delay. Actually there were two announcements last week. The first one introduces release 7.2 and some other new features : 'IBM DS8870 offers exceptional performance with new processors, microcode, drive options, and advanced functions to enhance data protection (ZG13-0298)'. The second one announces some withdrawals from marketing : 'Hardware withdrawal: Select features for IBM DS8870 (machine types 2421, 2422, 2423, and 2424) - Replacements available (ZG13-0266)'.

First, let's have a look at the new features. The DS8870 ships from now on with the Power7+ processor. As we all now, the DS8870 follows the evolution of the Power processor with some delay due to testing. Nevertheless this provides the DS8000 once again with a significant performance enhancement. With release 7.2 we also see the introduction of an all flash drive configuration.Combining these elements "helps the DS8870 to deliver up to 20% improvement in maximum IOPS in random I/O workload environments".

There are some enhancements to the Business Class systems. These systems target smaller customers who do not need the top notch performance of the Enterprise Class systems. The BC systems can now also go beyond a single frame and up to 16 core processors offering more flexibility for these customers.

There's also the introduction of 2 more disk models : the 1.2TB 10k rpm SAS drives and the 4TB 7.2k rpm nearline SAS drives. The new 1.2TB SAS drives differ from the former 1TB SATA drives in that they can be configured in a RAID-5 setup. No need for RAID-6 as is the case for the SATA and nearline SAS drives. This gives you a better raw capacity - usable capacity ratio.

At the same time the second announcement indicates that these disks are the replacements for the 900GB and the 3TB disks which will be withdrawn from marketing.

Availability (and withdrawal) date is December 6, 2013.

DS8000 - Withdrawal of hardware features

I've written about this before. Whenever there's an announcement of withdrawal of hardware features on the DS8000 it's always hard to determine whether it applies to your system as so many model numbers have passed by since its first announcement in 2004. Today there was another announcement : 'Hardware withdrawal: IBM System Storage DS8000 select features - Some replacements available (ZG13-0253)'.

So to help you read this here's a short summary. The machine type is always 2421, 2422, 2423 or 2424. The last number indicates the number of years of warranty that is delivered with the system. The model type indicates, yes, the model you've bought. Here's an overview :

DS8100 (Models 921 and 931)
DS8300 (Models 922, 932, 9A2, 9B2, 92E, 9AE)
DS8700 (Models 941 and 94E)
DS8800 (Models 951 and 95E)
DS8870 (Models 961 and 96E)

A letter in the model type indicates an expansion frame.

So let's turn to the whole list of features that's published in the announcement. I would summarize by saying that the last disks that were still available on the DS8100 and DS8300 are now no longer available : the 300GB and the 450GB disks. If you see the whole list, together with previous announcements I cannot think of anything that's still orderable on the DS8100 and DS8300. After all 9 years is a nice lifespan.

Furthermore the 2TB disks are withdrawn on the DS8700 and if you buy a new DS8870 it will be with Licensed Machine Code (LMC) R7.1.

Easy Tier - what you might not know about Auto Rebalance

I thought I knew quite a lot about DS8000 and Easy Tier but last week I had the opportunity to meet Stephen L. Blinick who works at the DS8000 labs in Tucson. Stephen is closely engaged in the development of the DS8000 box. And he's a great presenter who (obviously) knows what he's talking about.

There was one aspect about Easy Tier Stephen told me of which I was completely unaware. I should have known because this is somethning really important about Easy Tier and its Auto Rebalance feature. As the Redpaper 'IBM System Storage DS8000 Easy Tier' states : "The auto-rebalance capability automatically rebalances the workload even across the physical resources within a drive tier, reducing the occurrence of hotspots".

So, as you see below this is a situation within a drive tier where Easy Tier detects some hotspots.

 It rebalances the workload across all ranks.

By doing so, auto-rebalance reduces performance skew within a storage tier and provides the best available I/O performance from each tier.

But there's more and here comes the interesting part of the story. You know how it's always so annoying when you add additional ranks to the pool. Everything is well balanced within the existing ranks but you have to put new workload just on the new disks or you have to rebalance everything manually. NOT SO with Easy Tier.

"Auto Rebalance also automatically populates new ranks that have been added to the pool when rebalancing the workload within a tier. Starting with DS8000 R6.2 LMC, auto-rebalance can be enabled for hybrid and homogeneous extent pools".

Great ! Isn't it ? Check out the Redpaper if you want to know more about this great feature.