IBM Storage announcements : IBM Smarter Storage

Today, IBM made a whole range of storage announcements around IBM Smarter Storage. It's way too extensive to cover everything so I'll just run you through some that caught my attention.

• Regarding software there's a couple of announcements for the new version 5 of Tivoli Storage Productivity Center : 'IBM Tivoli Storage Productivity Center V5.1 introduces a new user interface to help centralize, simplify, and automate storage tasks (ZP12-0243)' and IBM Tivoli Storage Productivity Center for Replication for System z V5.1 (ZP12-0185). Here's a (very!) short resume of the new functionalities
• Integrated web-based user interface 
• Cognos-based custom reporting 
• Storage tiering optimization 
• Support for cloud storage management 
• Consolidated installer  

• There's RealTime Compression for StorWize V7000 and San Volume Controller (SVC) with the following announcements : 'IBM Storwize V7000 software V6.4.0 introduces Real-time Compression (ZP12-0234)' and 'IBM System Storage SAN Volume Controller software V6.4.0 improves storage efficiency (ZP12-0235)'. This is compression on active primary data before they are written to disk. So, it operates immediately and unlike other technologies there is no post-processing where data is first written to disk and compressed afterwards on quiet moments. What do you win ?
• Storage purchase costs 
• Rack space 
• Power and cooling 
• Software costs 

• There are some interesting Statements of Direction (SODs) : 'Statement of direction: IBM DS8000 series, SONAS, XIV , and Storwize V7000 Unified (ZG12-0163)'.
  Focusing mainly on the DS8000, some highlights : 
• DS8000 Easy Tier extended to server based storage : Easy Tier will extend smart data placement intelligence to use server resources, communicating with servers to place hot data in server SSD cache to reduce latency and further optimize performance
• DS8000 new high-density flash storage option : DS8000 and other IBM storage systems will use fast, high-density SSD cache modules to enhance performance. As put on another IBM page :  "a new 400GB SSD option provides additional flexibility for performance-intensive applications".
• DS8000 Easy Tier support for application API : Easy Tier will use an API to enable servers to communicate with storage so storage can become aware of application workload needs and use that to optimize data placement

There's also good news for XIV about migrating from one system to another : "IBM intends to support an increased scalability of capacity, performance, and host bandwidth by clustering IBM XIV Gen3 systems together and providing the capability to migrate volumes across the cluster without disrupting applications. Management of the cluster will remain simple with consolidated views and shared configurations across the systems". 

There's more information on other announcements on the IBM Smarter Storage page which you find over here.

Announcement : Totalstorage Productivity Center & SSPC

In my last post I also talked about the DS Storage Manager improvements that are mentioned in the new DS8000 announcement : "The online configuration and copy services configuration are available via a Web browser interface installed on the DS8000 management console or the System Storage Productivity Center (SSPC). The DS Storage Manager is provided with the DS8000 series at no additional charge". However, as you see, there's not only the improved DS Storage Manager, but in addition the System Storage Productivity Center (SSPC) is mentioned. It is even mandatory for all newly purchased DS8000s (unless you already have Totalstorage Productivity Center).

SSPC is new and it "is the next step in IBM storage strategy". It's a first step in centralizing all configuration and management activities of all your storage components. There are separate announcements (1,2) describing SSPC and its functionalities. As a matter of fact, it's a separate Windows 2003 x86 server which is pre-installed with IBM Totalstorage Productivity Center Basic Edition. This Basic Edition is in fact a kind of replacement of the Limited Edition. It "allows you to manage the storage network, hosts, and physical disks in context, in addition to basic device configuration". The Limited Edition is withdrawn as it was hardly ever used because it had too many limitations (e.g. maximum of 2TB). It's mentioned that the DS Storage Manager remains free of charge, the SSPC with the TPC Basic Edition is a priced feature.