Introducing and Implementing IBM FlashSystem V9000

Introducing and Implementing IBM FlashSystem V9000

Released November 2015
Publisher(s): IBM Redbooks
ISBN: 9780738441061

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Book description

Storage capacity and performance requirements are growing faster than ever before, and the costs of managing this growth are depleting more of the information technology (IT) budget.

The IBM® FlashSystem™ V9000 is the premier, fully integrated, Tier 1, all-flash offering from IBM. It has changed the economics of today's data center by eliminating storage bottlenecks. Its software-defined storage features simplify data management, improve data security, and preserve your investments in storage.

IBM FlashSystem® V9000 includes IBM FlashCore™ technology and advanced software-defined storage available in one solution in a compact 6U form factor. FlashSystem V9000 improves business application availability. It delivers greater resource utilization so you can get the most from your storage resources, and achieve a simpler, more scalable, and cost-efficient IT Infrastructure.

This IBM Redbooks® publication provides information about IBM FlashSystem V9000 Software V7.5 and its new functionality. It describes the product architecture, software, hardware, and implementation, and provides hints and tips. It illustrates use cases and independent software vendor (ISV) scenarios that demonstrate real-world solutions, and also provides examples of the benefits gained by integrating the FlashSystem storage into business environments.

Using IBM FlashSystem V9000 software version 7.5 functions, management tools, and interoperability combines the performance of FlashSystem architecture with the advanced functions of software-defined storage to deliver performance, efficiency, and functions that meet the needs of enterprise workloads that demand IBM MicroLatency® response time.

This book offers FlashSystem V9000 scalability concepts and guidelines for planning, installing, and configuring, which can help environments scale up and out to add more flash capacity and expand virtualized systems. Port utilization methodologies are provided to help you maximize the full potential of IBM FlashSystem V9000 performance and low latency in your scalable environment.

In addition, all of the functions that FlashSystem V9000 software version 7.5 brings are explained, including IBM HyperSwap® capability, increased IBM FlashCopy® bitmap space, Microsoft Windows offloaded data transfer (ODX), and direct 16 gigabits per second (Gbps) Fibre Channel host attach support. This book also describes support for VMware 6, which enhances and improves scalability in a VMware environment.

This book is intended for pre-sales and post-sales technical support professionals, storage administrators, and anyone who wants to understand how to implement this exciting technology.

Table of contents

  1. Front cover
  2. Notices
    1. Trademarks
  3. IBM Redbooks promotions
  4. Preface
    1. IBM Spectrum Control family
      1. Authors
      2. Now you can become a published author, too
      3. Comments welcome
      4. Stay connected to IBM Redbooks
  5. Chapter 1. IBM FlashSystem V9000 introduction
    1. 1.1 FlashSystem V9000 storage overview
    2. 1.2 Why flash matters
    3. 1.3 IBM FlashSystem family: Product differentiation
    4. 1.4 FlashSystem V9000: IBM Tier 1 storage
    5. 1.5 IBM FlashCore technology
      1. 1.5.1 Hardware accelerated I/O
      2. 1.5.2 IBM MicroLatency module
      3. 1.5.3 Advanced flash management
      4. 1.5.4 Flash wear assurance
    6. 1.6 Architectural design overview
      1. 1.6.1 Hardware-only data path
      2. 1.6.2 The 20 nm flash card memory chips
      3. 1.6.3 Flash module capacities
      4. 1.6.4 Gateway interface FPGA
      5. 1.6.5 Flash controller FPGA
      6. 1.6.6 IBM Variable Stripe RAID and two-dimensional flash RAID overview
      7. 1.6.7 Fixed and scalable building blocks
      8. 1.6.8 Scale-Up and Scale-Out solution
    7. 1.7 Advanced software features
      1. 1.7.1 Advanced functions for data reduction
      2. 1.7.2 Data migration
      3. 1.7.3 Advanced copy services
      4. 1.7.4 External virtualization
      5. 1.7.5 Easy Tier
    8. 1.8 IBM HyperSwap
      1. 1.8.1 Licensing
  6. Chapter 2. FlashSystem V9000 architecture
    1. 2.1 Introduction to IBM FlashSystem V9000
      1. 2.1.1 Capacity
      2. 2.1.2 Performance and latency
      3. 2.1.3 IBM FlashCore technology
      4. 2.1.4 Overview of IBM Variable Stripe RAID and 2D Flash RAID
      5. 2.1.5 Scalability
      6. 2.1.6 Protocol support
      7. 2.1.7 Encryption support
      8. 2.1.8 Comparison of IBM FlashSystem models V840 and V9000
      9. 2.1.9 Management
    2. 2.2 Architecture of IBM FlashSystem V9000
      1. 2.2.1 Overview of architecture
      2. 2.2.2 Hardware components
      3. 2.2.3 Power requirements
      4. 2.2.4 Physical specifications
    3. 2.3 Control enclosure (AC2) of the FlashSystem V9000
      1. 2.3.1 I/O connectivity
      2. 2.3.2 Compression Acceleration Card
      3. 2.3.3 Technician port
      4. 2.3.4 Battery backup
    4. 2.4 Storage enclosure (AE2) of the FlashSystem V9000
      1. 2.4.1 Interface cards
      2. 2.4.2 MicroLatency modules
      3. 2.4.3 Battery modules
    5. 2.5 Administration and maintenance of FlashSystem V9000
      1. 2.5.1 System management
      2. 2.5.2 Software and licensing
      3. 2.5.3 Serviceability and software enhancements
    6. 2.6 Support matrix for the FlashSystem V9000
    7. 2.7 Warranty information
  7. Chapter 3. Advanced software functions
    1. 3.1 Introduction
    2. 3.2 Advanced features for storage efficiency
      1. 3.2.1 IBM Easy Tier
      2. 3.2.2 Thin provisioning
      3. 3.2.3 IBM Real-time Compression Software
    3. 3.3 Data migration
      1. 3.3.1 Migration operations
      2. 3.3.2 Migrating data from an image mode volume
    4. 3.4 Advanced copy services
      1. 3.4.1 FlashCopy
      2. 3.4.2 Volume mirroring and migration options
      3. 3.4.3 Remote Copy
    5. 3.5 Data encryption
    6. 3.6 IBM HyperSwap
      1. 3.6.1 Overview of HyperSwap
    7. 3.7 IBM Spectrum Control (IBM Tivoli Storage Productivity Center)
  8. Chapter 4. Planning
    1. 4.1 General planning introduction
    2. 4.2 Physical planning
      1. 4.2.1 Racking considerations
      2. 4.2.2 Power requirements
      3. 4.2.3 Network cable connections
    3. 4.3 Logical planning
      1. 4.3.1 Management IP addressing plan
      2. 4.3.2 SAN zoning and SAN connections
      3. 4.3.3 iSCSI IP addressing plan
      4. 4.3.4 Call home option
      5. 4.3.5 FlashSystem V9000 system configuration
      6. 4.3.6 EasyTier
      7. 4.3.7 Volume configuration
      8. 4.3.8 Host mapping (LUN masking)
      9. 4.3.9 SAN boot support
    4. 4.4 License features
      1. 4.4.1 Encryption feature
      2. 4.4.2 External virtualized storage configuration
      3. 4.4.3 Advanced copy services
      4. 4.4.4 Real-time Compression
    5. 4.5 Data migration
    6. 4.6 FlashSystem V9000 configuration backup procedure
  9. Chapter 5. Scalability
    1. 5.1 Overview
    2. 5.2 Building block for scaling
    3. 5.3 Scaling concepts
      1. 5.3.1 Scale up for capacity
      2. 5.3.2 Scale out for performance
      3. 5.3.3 FlashSystem V9000 scaled configurations
    4. 5.4 Adding a V9000 FlashSystem storage enclosure
    5. 5.5 Setup of a scalable building block with extra storage enclosure
    6. 5.6 Adding a second scalable building block
    7. 5.7 Set up of scale out system: Two building blocks and one extra storage enclosure
    8. 5.8 Planning
    9. 5.9 Installing
    10. 5.10 Operations
    11. 5.11 Concurrent code load in a scaled out system
  10. Chapter 6. Installation and configuration
    1. 6.1 Installation overview
      1. 6.1.1 Tasks for the IBM SSR or IBM lab-based services
      2. 6.1.2 First customer involvement
    2. 6.2 IBM FlashSystem V9000 physical specifications
    3. 6.3 Installing the hardware
    4. 6.4 Connecting the components
      1. 6.4.1 Connecting the components in a fixed building block
      2. 6.4.2 Connecting the components in a scalable building block
      3. 6.4.3 Ethernet cabling
      4. 6.4.4 Scaling from one to two, three, or four building blocks
    5. 6.5 Initial customer setup
      1. 6.5.1 License agreement and password change
      2. 6.5.2 System Setup wizard
      3. 6.5.3 System name change
      4. 6.5.4 Date and time setup
      5. 6.5.5 Licensed functions
      6. 6.5.6 Email Event Notifications
      7. 6.5.7 Summary of changes
      8. 6.5.8 Encryption setting
  11. Chapter 7. Host configuration
    1. 7.1 Host attachment overview
    2. 7.2 IBM FlashSystem V9000 setup
      1. 7.2.1 Fibre Channel and SAN setup overview
      2. 7.2.2 Fibre Channel SAN attachment
      3. 7.2.3 Fibre Channel direct attachment
    3. 7.3 iSCSI
      1. 7.3.1 Initiators and targets
      2. 7.3.2 iSCSI nodes
      3. 7.3.3 iSCSI qualified name
      4. 7.3.4 iSCSI set up of FlashSystem V9000 and host server
      5. 7.3.5 Volume discovery
      6. 7.3.6 Authentication
      7. 7.3.7 Target failover
      8. 7.3.8 Host failover
    4. 7.4 File alignment for the best RAID performance
    5. 7.5 AIX: Specific information
      1. 7.5.1 Optimal logical unit number configurations for AIX
      2. 7.5.2 Configuring the AIX host
      3. 7.5.3 Configuring fast fail and dynamic tracking
      4. 7.5.4 Installing the 2145 host attachment support package
      5. 7.5.5 Subsystem Device Driver Path Control Module (SDDPCM)
      6. 7.5.6 Configuring the assigned volume by using SDDPCM
      7. 7.5.7 Using SDDPCM
      8. 7.5.8 Creating and preparing volumes for use with AIX V6.1 and SDDPCM
      9. 7.5.9 Expanding an AIX volume
      10. 7.5.10 Running FlashSystem V9000 commands from AIX host system
    6. 7.6 Windows: Specific information
      1. 7.6.1 Configuring Windows Server 2008 and 2012 hosts
      2. 7.6.2 Configuring Windows
      3. 7.6.3 Hardware lists, device driver, HBAs, and firmware levels
      4. 7.6.4 Installing and configuring the host adapter
      5. 7.6.5 Changing the disk timeout on Windows Server
      6. 7.6.6 Installing the SDDDSM multipath driver on Windows
      7. 7.6.7 Attaching FlashSystem V9000 volumes to Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows Server 2012
      8. 7.6.8 Extending a volume
      9. 7.6.9 Removing a disk on Windows
      10. 7.6.10 Using FlashSystem V9000 CLI from a Windows host
      11. 7.6.11 Microsoft 2012 and ODX (Offloaded Data Transfer)
      12. 7.6.12 Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy
    7. 7.7 Linux (on x86/x86_64): Specific information
      1. 7.7.1 Configuring the Linux host
      2. 7.7.2 Configuration information
      3. 7.7.3 Multipathing in Linux
    8. 7.8 VMware: Configuration information
      1. 7.8.1 Configuring VMware hosts
      2. 7.8.2 Operating system versions and maintenance levels
      3. 7.8.3 HBAs for hosts that are running VMware
      4. 7.8.4 VMware storage and zoning guidance
      5. 7.8.5 Multipathing in ESXi
      6. 7.8.6 Attaching VMware to volumes
      7. 7.8.7 Volume naming in VMware
      8. 7.8.8 Extending a VMFS volume
      9. 7.8.9 Removing a data store from an ESXi host
    9. 7.9 Oracle (Sun) Solaris hosts
      1. 7.9.1 MPxIO dynamic pathing
    10. 7.10 Hewlett-Packard UNIX: Configuration information
      1. 7.10.1 Operating system versions and maintenance levels
      2. 7.10.2 Supported multipath solutions
      3. 7.10.3 Clustered-system support
      4. 7.10.4 Support for HP-UX with greater than eight LUNs
    11. 7.11 Using SDDDSM, SDDPCM, and SDD web interface
    12. 7.12 More information
  12. Chapter 8. Using IBM FlashSystem V9000
    1. 8.1 Overview of FlashSystem V9000 management tool
      1. 8.1.1 Access to the GUI
      2. 8.1.2 GUI home window: Single building block system
      3. 8.1.3 GUI home window: Multiple building block system
      4. 8.1.4 Layout of GUI
      5. 8.1.5 Function icons
      6. 8.1.6 Capacity, performance, and health indicators
      7. 8.1.7 See which user is logged in, get help, and get overview information
      8. 8.1.8 System details
    2. 8.2 Actions menu
      1. 8.2.1 Rename System
      2. 8.2.2 Update System
      3. 8.2.3 Power Off
    3. 8.3 Monitoring menu
      1. 8.3.1 System
      2. 8.3.2 Events
      3. 8.3.3 Performance
    4. 8.4 Pools menu
      1. 8.4.1 Opening the pools menu
      2. 8.4.2 Storage Pools
      3. 8.4.3 Volumes by Pool
      4. 8.4.4 Creating storage pools
      5. 8.4.5 Renaming a storage pool
      6. 8.4.6 Deleting a storage pool
      7. 8.4.7 System Migration
    5. 8.5 Volumes menu
      1. 8.5.1 Opening the Volumes menu
      2. 8.5.2 Volumes window
      3. 8.5.3 Volumes by Pool
      4. 8.5.4 Volume by Host
    6. 8.6 Hosts menu
      1. 8.6.1 Opening the Hosts menu
      2. 8.6.2 Host Mappings
      3. 8.6.3 Ports by Hosts
      4. 8.6.4 Volumes by Host
    7. 8.7 Copy Services menu
      1. 8.7.1 FlashCopy
      2. 8.7.2 Consistency Groups
      3. 8.7.3 FlashCopy mappings
      4. 8.7.4 Remote copy
      5. 8.7.5 Partnerships
    8. 8.8 Access menu
      1. 8.8.1 Users
      2. 8.8.2 Audit log
  13. Chapter 9. Configuring settings
    1. 9.1 Settings menu
      1. 9.1.1 Opening the Settings menu
    2. 9.2 Notifications menu
      1. 9.2.1 Email and call home
      2. 9.2.2 SNMP
      3. 9.2.3 Syslog
    3. 9.3 Network
      1. 9.3.1 Management IP address
      2. 9.3.2 Service IP addresses
      3. 9.3.3 Ethernet ports
      4. 9.3.4 iSCSI
      5. 9.3.5 Fibre Channel
      6. 9.3.6 Fibre Channel ports
    4. 9.4 Security menu
      1. 9.4.1 Configure remote authentication
      2. 9.4.2 Encryption
      3. 9.4.3 Enable the encryption license using V9000 GUI without Volumes
      4. 9.4.4 Handling encryption using CLI
    5. 9.5 System menu
      1. 9.5.1 Date and Time option
      2. 9.5.2 Licensed functions
      3. 9.5.3 Update software
      4. 9.5.4 Resources
    6. 9.6 Support menu
      1. 9.6.1 Download support package
      2. 9.6.2 Download individual log files
      3. 9.6.3 Deleting log files
      4. 9.6.4 GUI Preferences
  14. Chapter 10. Service Assistant Tool
    1. 10.1 Accessing Service Assistant Tool
    2. 10.2 Log in to Service Assistant Tool
    3. 10.3 Home page
    4. 10.4 Collect Logs page
    5. 10.5 Manage System page
    6. 10.6 Recover System page
    7. 10.7 Reinstall Software page
    8. 10.8 Update Manually page
    9. 10.9 Configure Node page
    10. 10.10 Change Service IP page
    11. 10.11 Configure CLI Access page
    12. 10.12 Restart Service page
  15. Chapter 11. HyperSwap
    1. 11.1 Overview
      1. 11.1.1 HyperSwap Implementations
    2. 11.2 HyperSwap design
    3. 11.3 Comparison with Enhanced Stretched Cluster
      1. 11.3.1 Disaster Recovery
      2. 11.3.2 Consistency Groups
    4. 11.4 Planning
      1. 11.4.1 Cabling and quorum disk considerations
    5. 11.5 Configuration
      1. 11.5.1 Defining the Sites
      2. 11.5.2 Nodes
      3. 11.5.3 Configuring the FlashSystem V9000 storage enclosures
      4. 11.5.4 Configuring the external storage controllers
      5. 11.5.5 Configuring the hosts
      6. 11.5.6 Configuring the HyperSwap topology
      7. 11.5.7 Configuring synchronization rates
      8. 11.5.8 Creating HyperSwap volumes
      9. 11.5.9 Creating a consistency group
      10. 11.5.10 Creating the vdisks
    6. 11.6 HyperSwap Setup walk through
    7. 11.7 Operations
      1. 11.7.1 Site failure
      2. 11.7.2 Deleting HyperSwap volumes
      3. 11.7.3 FlashCopy with HyperSwap
    8. 11.8 Disaster Recovery with HyperSwap
      1. 11.8.1 Using the vdisk that the hosts are currently accessing
      2. 11.8.2 Going back to the up-to-date copy
    9. 11.9 Disaster Recovery with Consistency Groups
    10. 11.10 The overridequorum command
    11. 11.11 HyperSwap Failure scenarios
    12. 11.12 Unconfiguring HyperSwap
      1. 11.12.1 Removing HyperSwap volumes completely
      2. 11.12.2 Converting to single-copy volumes, while retaining access through the master vdisk
      3. 11.12.3 Converting to single-copy volumes, while retaining access through the auxiliary vdisk
      4. 11.12.4 Converting to system topology standard
    13. 11.13 Summary of interesting object states for HyperSwap
      1. 11.13.1 The lsvdisk command
      2. 11.13.2 The lsvdiskcopy command
      3. 11.13.3 The lsrcrelationship or lsrcconsistgrp commands
      4. 11.13.4 The lsfcmap command
  16. Chapter 12. Independent software vendors and use cases
    1. 12.1 Use cases and ISV overview and considerations
    2. 12.2 VMware
    3. 12.3 Database acceleration
      1. 12.3.1 Oracle
      2. 12.3.2 Microsoft SQL Server
      3. 12.3.3 DB2
      4. 12.3.4 Architecture for SAP landscapes featuring IBM FlashSystem
      5. 12.3.5 Epic
    4. 12.4 IBM Spectrum Scale
      1. 12.4.1 IBM Spectrum Scale benefits
      2. 12.4.2 IBM FlashSystem benefits
      3. 12.4.3 FlashSystem as a cache device with Spectrum Scale
      4. 12.4.4 FlashSystem for metadata acceleration for Spectrum Scale
      5. 12.4.5 FlashSystem as a storage tier dynamically managed by Spectrum Scale
      6. 12.4.6 Use cases: Scientific and medical high-performance computing
    5. 12.5 IBM Spectrum Control Storage Insights
      1. 12.5.1 Deployment
    6. 12.6 Data deduplication
      1. 12.6.1 Atlantis ILIO
      2. 12.6.2 Permabit
      3. 12.6.3 IBM ProtecTIER
    7. 12.7 VMware vCloud integration
      1. 12.7.1 FlashSystem V9000 in a VMware vCloud environment
      2. 12.7.2 IBM Spectrum Control
      3. 12.7.3 vCloud Suite
      4. 12.7.4 FlashSystem V9000
      5. 12.7.5 Use case: Provisioning FlashSystem V9000 volumes using VMware
      6. 12.7.6 Single-site HA: Volume mirroring to another storage system
      7. 12.7.7 Cross-site HA: Extended distance
    8. 12.8 Running FlashSystem V9000 in an IBM Virtual Storage Center environment
      1. 12.8.1 Licensing
  17. Chapter 13. Hints and tips
    1. 13.1 Performance data and statistics gathering
      1. 13.1.1 FlashSystem V9000 controller performance overview
      2. 13.1.2 Performance monitoring
    2. 13.2 Estimating compression savings
      1. 13.2.1 IBM Comprestimator utility
      2. 13.2.2 Installing IBM Comprestimator
      3. 13.2.3 Using IBM Comprestimator
    3. 13.3 Command-line hints
      1. 13.3.1 Running commands on the FlashSystem V9000
      2. 13.3.2 Creating connections
      3. 13.3.3 FlashSystem V9000 command-line scripting
      4. 13.3.4 Sample commands of mirrored VDisks
      5. 13.3.5 Backup FlashSystem V9000 configuration
      6. 13.3.6 Using the V9000 Software Upgrade Test Utility
      7. 13.3.7 Secure erase of data
    4. 13.4 Call home process
      1. 13.4.1 Call home details
      2. 13.4.2 Email alert
      3. 13.4.3 Inventory
    5. 13.5 Service support
      1. 13.5.1 IBM Storage Technical Advisor
      2. 13.5.2 How a FlashSystem V9000 is entitled for support
      3. 13.5.3 Providing Logs to IBM ECuRep
      4. 13.5.4 Downloading from IBM Fix Central
  18. Appendix A. Guidelines: Port utilization in an IBM FlashSystem V9000 scalable environment
    1. A.1 Overview
    2. A.2 Guidelines: The performance method
    3. A.3 Guidelines: The infrastructure savings method
    4. A.4 Guidelines: Zoning
    5. A.5 Summary
    6. A.6 Supported environments
  19. Related publications
    1. IBM Redbooks
    2. Other publications
    3. Online resources
    4. Help from IBM
  20. Back cover

Product information

  • Title: Introducing and Implementing IBM FlashSystem V9000
  • Author(s):
  • Release date: November 2015
  • Publisher(s): IBM Redbooks
  • ISBN: 9780738441061