IBM is refreshing its high-end DS8000
storage array with more efficient snapshots, provisioning and
data access, and a new management console.
The upgrade is part of a series of IBM storage enhancements that
also include
file virtualization and a larger capacity
virtual tape library (VTL), but it leaves out technologies,
such as thin provisioning and data deduplication, that are
increasingly showing up in competitors' products. And as other
vendors begin qualifying and shipping 1 terabyte (TB) SATA drives,
IBM is adding support for 500 GB and 750 GB SATA drives on the
DS3000 and DS4000 series arrays.
Updates to the DS8000 include dynamic provisioning, FlashCopy
SE, storage pool striping and Adaptive Multistream Prefetching
(AMP).
Dynamic provisioning lets customers expand preset logical unit
numbers (LUN) on the fly. But dynamic provisioning does not allow
customers to over allocate LUNs, as is becoming common with the
thin provisioning being offered by IBM competitors, most recently
Hitachi Data Systems (HDS).
FlashCopy SE provides the ability to take space-efficient
snapshots. FlashCopy SE saves only changed blocks and pointers back
to the full snapshot copy.
Storage pool striping customizes stripe depth on disks to
maximize performance and avoid hot spots. IBM first released AMP
with its DB2 database. IBM claims it will double the sequential
performance on the array when the utility lines up random access
bits to be more rapidly read by an application.
"If I'm a true blue IBM customer, this is great news," Evaluator
Group analyst Tom Trainer said, because IBM has gone more than a
year since releasing an update to the DS8000. "Clients of ours have
been asking us if IBM has killed the product -- there's been some
competitor FUD out there that the DS8000 is dead."
But while alive, the new features don't necessarily mean the
DS8000 will thrive against competitors, such as the EMC Corp.
Symmetrix and HDS USP-V series. In addition to thin provisioning on
the USP-V, HDS now supports MAID on its midrange storage systems.
EMC is expected to follow with thin provisioning early next
year.
"You can consider this catch-up," Trainer said. "It at least
keeps IBM at the competitive table."
IBM is also launching System Storage Productivity Center (SSPC),
a software framework that will consolidate device management and
storage resource management (SRM) software for IBM hardware into
one console. IBM intends to eventually let users manage all its
disk arrays though SSPC, but this first version is only compatible
with the DS8000.
Although new to IBM, SSPC is another catch-up feature. "An
Intel-based server that aims to be a single point of management for
IBM and third-party storage … sounds just like EMC Control Center
and the products based on AppIQ from HP [Hewlett-Packard Co.] and
HDS," Trainer said.
What about the missing features? According to Rudolph, IBM is
limited by its size when it comes to product development. Take 1 TB
drive support, for example. "There's nothing about the technology
that concerns us, it's just a test and qualification process that
we have to go through -- the cycles aren't weeks," Rudolph said.
"We take quite a bit of time even after the supplier says the drive
is fine, because with the large volume of sales we do, it's a large
problem if we release a product and something goes wrong."
Thin provisioning might be the more painful omission for IBM,
now that it is no longer found solely in systems of smaller
competitors, such as 3PARdata Inc. and Compellent Technologies.
Trainer thinks HDS will benefit from jumping out first with thin
provisioning among the three major high-end storage area network
(SAN) system vendors. "The industry is right now running the risk
of having Hitachi be able to thinly provision and virtualizes IBM,
as well as EMC before they have the ability to do it themselves,"
Trainer said.
IBM is also increasing capacity for the VE7520 open systems VTL
to 1.3 petabytes (PB) with the addition of support for 750 GB SATA
drives. Previously, the product scaled to 884 TB. The VTL does not
yet support deduplication, although IBM's VTL OEM partner
FalconStor Software Inc. now has that feature in its software.
IBM will add file virtualization from its network attached
storage (NAS) OEM partner Network Appliance Inc. (NetApp). The IBM
N series Virtual File Manager (VFM) is the same global namespace
software that NetApp sells through its OEM deal with Brocade
Communications Systems Inc. IBM will offer it in enterprise and
migration flavors, similar to the way EMC sells its Rainfinity file
virtualization product.
"IBM has been making investments lately in broad horizontal
namespace [products]," Rudolph said, citing a recent update to its
General Parallel File System (GPFS). "Users have increasingly large
archives and deep storage to manage, but they still need
high-performance access to files."
IBM also announced today:
- Support for RAID 6 and volumes greater than 2 TB on the DS4200
and DS4700 arrays (IBM now says volume size is limited by the
server OS)
- An increase in support for the number of Flash Copies on the
DS4000 series, from four per volume to eight per volume on the 4200
and 4700, and 16 on the 4800
- Support for up to 128 partitions on the 4200 and 4700, and 512
on the 48000, an increase from the previous limit of 64 on all 4000
series products
- A new tape drive, the IBM System Storage TS2240 Tape Drive
Express Model LTO-4 half-high (as opposed to the previously
existing full-height) model
Pricing and availability
The updates to the IBM System Storage DS8000 Turbo series will
be available on Dec. 7. IBM FlashCopy SE has a starting price of
$6,500. IBM System Storage Productivity Center has a starting price
of $7,500. The IBM System Storage N series VFM will be generally
available Oct. 26 at a starting price of $2,000 for the enterprise
edition and $1,200 for the migration edition. The enhanced IBM
Virtualization Engine TS7520 will be generally available on Dec. 7
at a starting price of $104,769.