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IBM Scripting Tools for SVC and Storwize has been updated
Great news, check out the new Storwize load balance script
The Rebalance script for IBM SVC has been updated. This is the first update I have seen since 2010. This release of the SVCTools package will now work on the Storwize family of products without modification and it can rebalance Easy Tier managed disk groups.
Why use this? Normally in SVC (and always with Storwize products), each MDisk is a different RAID array. In those cases, when you add MDisks (arrays) to a pool (MDiskGrp) then you are adding extra spindles to that pool. By rebalancing extents from existing volumes onto new MDisks, existing volumes will almost always get a performance boost. It also means that you free up space on the older MDisks so that when you later create new volumes in that pool, they will get a chance to use extents across a wider range of MDisks (old and new, not just new)…
View original post 109 more words
IBM Scripting Tools for SVC and Storwize has been updated
Great news, check out the new Storwize load balance script
The Rebalance script for IBM SVC has been updated. This is the first update I have seen since 2010. This release of the SVCTools package will now work on the Storwize family of products without modification and it can rebalance Easy Tier managed disk groups.
Why use this? Normally in SVC (and always with Storwize products), each MDisk is a different RAID array. In those cases, when you add MDisks (arrays) to a pool (MDiskGrp) then you are adding extra spindles to that pool. By rebalancing extents from existing volumes onto new MDisks, existing volumes will almost always get a performance boost. It also means that you free up space on the older MDisks so that when you later create new volumes in that pool, they will get a chance to use extents across a wider range of MDisks (old and new, not just new)…
View original post 109 more words
IBM Scripting Tools for SVC and Storwize has been updated
Great news, check out the new Storwize load balance script
The Rebalance script for IBM SVC has been updated. This is the first update I have seen since 2010. This release of the SVCTools package will now work on the Storwize family of products without modification and it can rebalance Easy Tier managed disk groups.
Why use this? Normally in SVC (and always with Storwize products), each MDisk is a different RAID array. In those cases, when you add MDisks (arrays) to a pool (MDiskGrp) then you are adding extra spindles to that pool. By rebalancing extents from existing volumes onto new MDisks, existing volumes will almost always get a performance boost. It also means that you free up space on the older MDisks so that when you later create new volumes in that pool, they will get a chance to use extents across a wider range of MDisks (old and new, not just new)…
View original post 109 more words
IBM Storage Announcement Summary – April 16, 2013
As usual, IBM has pushed out a bunch of things all at once. Other than the FlashSystem, the DCS 3700 has the T10 Protection Information (PI), and the DS series got some new disks. For more information on T10 go to one of my favorite blogs “Storage CH Blog”
Content of this summary is subject to change after the date of publicationAnnouncements by Letter Number
113-046 New IBM FlashSystem portfolio of high-performance flash storage systems
113-047 New IBM FlashSystem portfolio of high-performance flash storage systems
113-057 IBM System Storage DS5000 hard drive refreshes
113-058 IBM System Storage hard drive refresh for DS3500 and DS3950 systems
113-059 New hard drive refreshes for DS5020 Systems
213-146 IBM AIX adds support for new IBM Power Systems hardware
213-152 IBM System Networking Switch Center v7.1
213-153 IBM System Networking Switch Center v7.1
613-002 IBM SmartCloud Unified Communications Dedicated
913-094 Software withdrawal: IBM System Networking Element Manager v6.1
IBM FlashSystem: Whats better Fast or Flash?
By now everyone has seen the great marketing adverts from AT&T where a interviewer is sitting in a classroom asking some younger students basic questions like, “Would like you like more or less? and my favorite “Which is better: fast or slow?”. Of course all of the kids scream FAST! Even to the point where one little girl talks about being slow and then being turned into a werewolf and then crying because all it wants is to be human again… Then the tagline, “It’s not complicated”.
No matter if we are talking about mobile phone, sandwich deliver (Jimmy John’s ROCKS!) or flash based areas, the “how fast can you …” is real. We can time a person delivering food, we can meter the signal on a mobile phone and we can measure the response time of a flash array. But what is more important than being fast? Simplicity.
There are many new start ups entering the flash storage market and some of the larger vendors are snapping up these little guys like little bunny foo foo (Not sure about the bopping part).
What I have seen is most of the solutions sound good on paper and power point but once in the sandbox they are complicated and take weeks of tuning to get the performance as advertised. There seems to be a growing trend in the flash market of “just get it in there” and then deal with tuning later mentality. This is not surprising from where its coming as they typically have more engineers on a customer to make sure their legacy gear behaves properly.
The IBM FlashSystems 710/720 and 810/820 were announced last week with a huge kick off meeting in New York and a huge social media push which I thought was marvelous. There was announcements of IBM setting $1 Billion (Yes, Dr. Evil does now work at Almadean Labs) for research and product enhancement of Flash technology. I think someone actually said something on our tweet chat that day like “Who else in the world could spend as much money on one particular part of hardware but IBM?” and I think the answer is fairly clear, no one.
What will come from this huge R&D investment you may ask? I suspect IBM is looking at how to take the technology and sprinkle it through out the storage portfolio and into server side as well. There are already some vendors who are getting started with adding flash PCIe cards into the hosts but they are typically storage companies trying to talk to server people. Not saying server people are different than storage people, but its a different language at times. Again the question comes up “Who else but IBM can talk servers, switches, storage and software and offer good pricing and support?”; no one.
I suspect the neigh sayers will be ramping up with their FUD about the IBM FlashSystem and how its this and not that, but let me tell you:
- It is fast
- It is easy to manage
- It is efficient
One aspect that I see as HUGE win is having the FlashSystem behind our SAN Volume Controller (SVC) and allowing the Easy Tier program figure out what data needs to be on flash and leave the rest on old rusting spinning drives. This becomes very interesting because now you get better performance out of your storage and increase the usability of the FlashSystem by always keeping the hot data on the fastest device. Per the IBM SSIC the FlashSystems are supported as a device that SVC can virtualize with different OS types.
I believe this is a very interesting time to be in storage as we are seeing the change in storage designs. I hope the new flash systems can be adopted by main stream customers and helps drive the cost down even further so we can start looking at solutions like Flash and Tape only. Needless to say there are a lot of ideas and cool things coming out of IBM Labs and Flash is going to be one of the biggest.
IBM releases Smarter Storage
The Super Bowl is over, March Madness is only a few weeks away and IBM is releasing more storage goodies. This latest round of software and hardware is the accumulation of hard work from our men and women that work in IBM research from around the world. But more than just shiny new objects, IBM is changing the story and becoming smarter with their solutions.
Our clients continue to grow and change the way they do business. We know the forces of cloud, analytics, social business and mobile computing are redefining business and creating IT challenges. Continuing with the promise to make the planet ‘smarter’ IBM is constantly listening to their clients and trying to solve their problems with real solutions. These solutions are based on 100 years of innovation and belief that IBM can really make a difference in your business.
Today, IBM is announcing Smarter Computing as the infrastructure that enables a smarter planet. This infrastructure is based on IBM products that are designed to help you transform your IT and meet the needs of what is coming next. There are products from each of our platforms including Power Systems, Pure Systems and of course Storage Systems. These platforms are designed to emphasize what matters most to our clients: Cloud, Data and Security.
Cloud is a term that is thrown around and can be defined by a variety of latest trends and jargon. Two of those that I think are important have to be efficiency and scalability. Data growth along with the demand to lower CAPEX/OPEX is fueling the cloud acceptance. For businesses, a smarter storage solution would demand a better efficiency that is virtualized and automated.
Two of the announcements today fit this profile. One is the IBM SmartCloud Storage Access. The self-service portal enables end-users to dynamically provision storage for use within minutes rather than requiring administer intervention which could take days. With a few clicks users can request and receive storage capacity, share files with other users and your storage administrators can easily monitor and report usage. The end user is guided through a catalog of services based on actual needs and is matched with a storage class that meets their needs.
The other cloud offering is based on a new model of the XIV family of storage. Last year IBM released its third generation of the XIV platform and today it makes that platform more efficient with 15% better energy efficiency. Also included is support for Windows 2012 server environments which includes space reclamation. Finally, this new model now offers 10GbE host ports that will offer up to a 5x sequential increase in iSCSI throughput compared to the previous generation 1GbE ports.
Data is the second design part of a smarter storage platform. As your data grows it is important to begin an automation and self-optimizing plan to accommodate data growth. One of the toughest concepts for businesses to achieve is increasing the speed of which data is gathered, processed and delivered while reducing costs.
Today IBM announces three pieces of IT infrastructure that will move customers closer to that goal. The first comes from our Real Time Compression Appliance. IBM announced a new model, STN7800, that doubles the performance from the previous model. This solution has beat all of the other compression models on the market and IBM is now adding even more performance on top. With RTCA customers can now save by storing more without having to purchase the storage up front and post process the compression. It also can update the data without having to uncompress the data which is unique to only IBM RTC.
Next is the addition of NFS connectivity to the ProtecTIER platform. This new interface enables users with NAS to backup data and dedupes it for better utilization. There was also improvement of the GUI and change in the upgrade to save time and unnecessary effort.
Last of the data design is the new XIV platform and some improved caching algorithms that our 300 mathematicians came up with. Yes IBM has the largest (and smartest) math department in the world. This improvement has been clocked to give a 4.5X performance bump for random workloads compared to previous versions.
Outside of the Smarter Storage announcements, IBM is releasing products in both the Power Systems and Pure Systems lines. Improving on the Power7 line, a Power 750 and 760 Enterprise server were announced along with Power Entry Servers and PowerLinux servers with Power 7+ processors and architecture.
Over on the Pure Systems side, a huge focus on MSP, VDI and interoperability are major topics of an all-day webcast. Other aspects around the Pure Systems platform include new models for entry x6 and Power based system.
IBM is very focused on meeting the needs of the customers with the infrastructure of a Smarter Planet. As customers look for ways to cut costs while dealing with the data growth, IBM is poised to take market share from those who still base their product on a 1992 technology.
To find more information about IBM Smarter Storage go here.
Great Blog article from the The Storage Buddhist about sizing for SONAS and V7kU
Out there in IBM land the field technical and sales people are often given a guideline of between 5% and 10% of total NAS capacity being allocated for metadata on SONAS or Storwize V7000 Unified systems. I instinctively knew that 10% was too high, but like an obedient little cog in the machine I have been dutifully deducting 5% from the estimated nett capacity that I have sized for customers – but no more!
Being able to size metadata more accurately becomes especially important when a customer wants to place the metadata on SSDs so as to speed up file creation/deletion but more particularly inode scans associated with replication or anti-virus.
[updated slightly on 130721]
The theory of gpfs metadata sizing is explained here and the really short version is that in most cases you will be OK with allowing 1 KiB per file per copy of metadata, but the…
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How to compare storage?
We hear it all the time, “How does your system compare to your competitor’s system”. That is when the architect or engineer starts to rattle off the different features and how this works and that. But I think you don’t have to go far below the surface to start seeing real differences. We all know the SPC numbers for these systems and try to spin them when our system doesn’t beat the current record. What I do know is there is more to the evaluation of a storage system than just how many bits it can serve in microsecond.
I love cars and all types of cars. This past weekend I got to see one of the best looking, best sounding cars that is made in America. The Chevrolet Corvette ZR1. This car just oozes raw power and from the sidewalk will make men into boys as it rumbles by. But how does it perform? How does it match up with the other ‘great’ cars in that same genre?
Let me introduce you to the SRT Viper GTS. I had to do some research before finding a car so similar that they even look alike. When you look at the hardware the cars are almost identical:
So from the surface you can see these two cars are not only similar in shape but engine size, power and torque. In order to tell which car is better suited, one would need to go head to head and see how these cars perform in certain conditions. Like storage, we compare systems CPU, cache port speed, maximum number drives etc. At first glance you can determine if you are comparing similar systems or not. You may be trying to compare a sports car to mini van.
Now what do you do next? Put the cars on the track and see who is fastest. Drag style. In the storage world, this is done from either a bake-off or looking at benchmarks likes SPC numbers. Now your numbers could show you exactly how your system COULD perform. Now when looking at benchmarks like SPC you have to take in account of how the boxes are configured, how they stack up price wise and even what the green value might be.
But when it comes down to it, it’s all about handling both for cars and storage. As people look at the solutions on paper they may or may not be the right fit. Just because a car can go 0 to 60 in 2.3 seconds doesn’t do you any good if you are driving on the interstate for three hours. But a nice comfortable seat with adaptive cruise control makes your back feel better in the end. Its the things that you sometimes can’t see in the data sheet or someone’s elevator pitch.
IBM does have ways to let you test drive their systems either onsite, remotely or even at a IBM facility. The idea of putting your hands on the equipment and finding the little things that make you more comfortable can effect how you see storage in a different light. If you are in the process of looking at a new storage system, take the time to sit in the car and see how it handles.
Here is a great YouTube video showing the Head2Head comparison of the Viper GTS vs the Corvette ZR1.
Stretching SVC to meet new business availability needs.
IBM has been secretly working on a technology that is changing the way administrators will deploy their VMware environments. SAN Volume Controller (SVC) Split Cluster solution allows live application mobility across data centers based on VMware Metro vMotion. This solution can now alleviate unplanned outages as well as provide additional flexibility.
SVC can now support a split cluster configuration where nodes can be separated by a distance up to 300 KM. This type of configuration does require clustering software at the application and server layer in order to failover to a server at the corresponding site in order to continue business and resume access to the disks. SVC will keep both copies of the storage in sync and mirror the cache between both nodes so the loss of one location does not disrupt data access at the other site.
The next big advantage SVC has is a small quorum disk that can allievate any split-brain issues. Split-brain problems occur when nodes are no longer abale to communicate with each other and they start allowing writes to their own data. SVC creates a tie break from a third site in order to ensure the survival of at least one location.
The SVC Split Cluster configuration uses a term called failure domain. This allows the SVC cluster to know which components are in a certain boundary where any failure may occur (ie power, fire, flood). The entire SVC Split Cluster must comprise of three such boundaries, two for the storage controllers containing the customer data and a third for the active quorum disk.
Using VMware’s VMFS file system, the SVC can supply access to all of the vSphere hosts in both locations. During vMotion, the virtual machine can switch to a new physical host while keeping the network identity. By using the Metro vMotion to migrate VMs, customers can now plan for disaster avoidance, load balancing as well as data center optimization of power and cooling.
This solution is also for customers looking to add high availability with in their single datacenter. Imagine two servers in different parts of the data center. They could be on different power feeds and different SAN fabrics. You can now provide continuous availability to these servers with out having an administrator called in the middle of the night.
For more information about SVC Split Cluster and even step by step instructions on how to setup the SVC, VMware and Layer2 network check out this Redbook.
Data ONTAP® 8.0.3P3, 8.0.4, 8.1.2, 7.3.7P1 and Versions NA06 and NA08 Firmware Release for 45E1427, 95P5168, 23R6227, 23R2970, 4E7973 , 4E7969, 45E2141, 45E0885 and 45E1425.
Looks like there are plenty of things to downliad from IBM to fix up your N series system. Remember there may be interesting items included so always rad tge rekeae notes before installing anything on your systems. http://www.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=ssg1S1004263&myns=s029&mynp=OCST3VEL&mynp=OCSTJPEN&mynp=OCSTSTTF&mync=R
The Storage Tank 