Some storage news

Here's some information I gathered on several storage topics.

• Last week IBM announced that theTS3400 tape library will be withdrawn from marketing. This is the small tape library with a maximum of two TS1120 drives and 18 cartridges which was announced in 2007. No replacement will be available.

• Data center storage trends 2010: What's hot and what's on the horizon. This is an informational article on SearchDataCenter.com on SSD's, storage tiering, sub-volume automization, thin provisioning and deduplication.

• Want to do some eLearning on ProtecTier. Here's the place to be with the following topics : Getting Started, LUN Masking, Virtual Tape Library and Replication

• The Storage Evaluation Tool. If you have no clue what storage best matches your requirements, you can try and use this tool. It's a kind of wizard guiding you through some questions to make up your profile. However, I would love to see some results from the tool as I just can't seem to get past the final fill out form. Hope you have more luck than I have. If you get stuck too, they're working on it !

• XIV customer story : here's a video on the Luxembourg Stock Exchange that implemented two full IBM XIV systems at each of two data centers, with synchronous mirroring for protection.
  

Sampling Techdocs : October - November

It's been a while since I had another look at Techdocs, so here we go again for October and November. You know it's just a sample of articles I personally find interesting. As you also know, there's much more over there.

• Presentation : z/OS Communications Server IPSec (IP Security)
  I made a round-up of the specialty engines in the Dolmen System z newsletter a couple of weeks ago and of course the zIIP assisted IPSEC functions were covered too. This is an "introduction to z/OS Communications Server TCP/IP IPSec support. IPSec services include IP filtering, key exchange, and support for manual and dynamic Virtual Private Network (VPN) tunnels".
  

• Presentation : IMS Version 10 Database and DBRC Enhancements
  "IMS Version 10 adds many enhancements for users of IMS databases and DBRC. This presentation explains the new capabilities. These include the integration of FlashCopy into the image copy process, the exploitation of larger processors by Fast Path systems, the use of XQuery with IMS databases to find data within XML documents, (...) and other extensions to IMS".
  

• Presentation : IMS Version 10 Migration Planning
  I guess it's not so unusual to find more than one IMS document in Techdocs for the moment. And this is a nice and quite detailed presentation on migrating Version 8 or 9 systems to IMS version 10 covering Prerequisites and Coexistence, Installation and Migration Tasks, Migration Considerations, IMS Library . . .
  

• White Paper : Overview of IBM® TS1120 Tape Controller Support for TS3400 Tape Library
  Since the 3592 Tape Drives were introduced, no autoloader functions had been available. This is one good reason for using the relatively small TS3400 library with its 18 cartridges and its two TS1120 tape drives. The "white paper describes the use of the TS3400 Tape Library to provide functions similar to 3590 Autoloaders in the System z environment". It's very readable with lots of examples of the GUI interface too.
  

• Technote : z/OS Version 1 Release 9 Installation Plan Checklist
  A classic, I'd say, this installation checklist for people migrating to z/OS 1.9 from previous versions, but oh so useful.
  

• Presentation : Server Time Protocol Overview Presentation and Server Time Protocol Planning Considerations
  Server Time Protocol is available for about a year now. For those considering a migration, these two presentations are a very good starting point giving a thorough overview of (planning for) STP with some migration scenarios included.
  

As I always say : just check them out !

TS3400

When announcing z9 EC GA3 and z9 BC GA2 there was a statement of direction saying : "IBM plans to enhance the System Storage TS3400 Tape Library by adding autoloader support for the library with System z (z/OS, z/VM, z/VSE and TPF). Additionally, IBM plans to support system-managed encryption in a System z environment with the TS3400".
The TS3400 tape library was first announced in February of this year. On July 10th, 2007 followed the announcement 'IBM System Storage TS1120 Tape Controller supports IBM System Storage TS3400 Tape Library attachment for System z'.

What's the TS3400 ?
"The TS3400 Tape Library is an external 5U stand-alone or rack-mountable unit that incorporates up to two IBM System Storage TS1120 Tape Drives Model E05 (3592), which are ordered separately. It comes with 4-Gbps dual-ported switched fabric Fibre Channel attachment. The TS1120 Tape Drive has a native data transfer rate of up to 100 MB/sec per drive. The TS3400 Tape Library has two removable cartridge magazines, providing 18 data cartridge slots, including a 0 or 3-slot I/O station".

What does this recent announcement mean ?
Up to now the TS3400 could be attached to Open Systems (also zLinux). Now the "TS1120 Tape Drives installed in a TS3400 Tape Library can be attached to System z FICON or ESCON channels by using the TS1120 Tape Controller. The TS3400 Tape Library provides a small library alternative for the System z platform. The TS3400 supports one or two TS1120 Tape Drives, and up to 18 3592 tape cartridges. An enhanced router is required for the TS1120 Tape Controller when it is connected with a TS3400 Tape Library".

Some benefits ?

• §Provides compact footprint for space constrained environments
• Allows extension of TS1120 technology from the data center to branch or remote locations
• Allows flexibility in deployment with removable magazines, standard barcode reader and remote management capability
• Helps to support data security and data retention (on-board encryption)
  

You can find more info in the Sales Manual, the Data Sheet and on the IBM TS3400 page.