IBM Revamps V5000

On April 2nd IBM announced several key enhancements across the Storwize V5000 portfolio and along with new models. These new models include the V5010E, 5030E and the V5100. The E stands for EXPRESS.) To further complicate the story, it utilizes Broadwell, Intel’s new 14 nanometer die shrink of its Haswell microarchitecture. Broadwell did not completely replace the full range of CPUs from Intel’s previous Haswell microarchitecture but IBM is using it widely in the new V5000 models.

IBM NVMe Flash Core Module

And the results can be impressive. From a scale-out perspective the V5010E supports a single controller configuration, while the V5030E and V5100 both support up to two controller clusters. This provides for a maximum of 392 drives in the V5010E and a massive 1520 drives in either the V5030E or V5100 dual controller clusters. The V5030E includes the Broadwell DE 1.9GHz, 6 core processor in its two canisters. Each canister supports a maximum of 32GB of RAM. Better still, the V5100 boasts a single Skylake 1.7Ghz processor with 8 cores in each canister. RAM is increased to a total of 576GB for the entire controller, or 288GB maximum per canister.

.For the next generation Storwize V5000 platforms IBM encouraging them to be called Gen3. The Gen3 encompasses 8 new MTM (Machine Type Model) based on 3 hardware models, V5010E, V5030E and V5100. The V5100 comes in two models, a hybrid (HDD and Flash) and the All Flash model V5100F. Of these 4 types, each is available with a 1 year or 3 year warranty.

The V5000E models are based on the Gen2 hardware, with various enhancements, including more memory options on the V5010E. The V5100 models are all new hardware and bring same NVMe Flash Core Modules (FCM) that are available on the V7000 and FlashSystem9100 products, completing Core Modules the transition of the Storwize family to all NVMe arrays. If you haven’t seen or heard about IBM’s FCM technology introduced last year to optimize NVMe FCM are a family of high-performance flash drives that utilizes the NVMe protocol, a PCIe Gen3 interface, and high-speed NAND memory to provide high throughput and IOPS and very low latency. FCM is available in 4.8 TB, 9.6 TB, and 19.2 TB capacities. Hardware-based data compression and self-encryption are built in.

The all flash (F) variants of the V5000 can also attach SAS expansions to extend capacity using SAS based Flash drives to allow expansion up to 1520 drives. The drives, however, are not interchangeable with the new FCM drives. The E variants allow attachment of SAS 2.5” and 3.5” HDD drives, with the V5010E expandable to 392 drives and the others up to 1520.

Inbuilt host attachments come in the form of 10GbE ports for iSCSI workloads, with optional 16Gbit FibreChannel (SCSI or FC-NVMe) as well as additional 10GbE or 25GbE iSCSI. The V5100 models can also use the iSER (an iSCSI translation layer for operation over RDMA transports, such as InfiniBand) protocol over the 25GbE ports for clustering capability, with plans to support NVMeF over Ethernet. In terms of cache memory, the V5000E products are expandable up to 64GB per controller (IO Group) and the V5100 can support up to 576GB per controller. Similarly, IBM issued as a statement of direction for all 25GbE port types across the entire Spectrum Virtualize family of products.

As Lloyd Dean, IBM Senior Certified Executive IT Architect noted, the new lineup for the V5000 is impressive; regarding the quantity of drives, and the storage available per model will “blow your mind”. How mind blowing will depend, of course, on your configuration and IBM’s pricing. As usual, IBM talks about affordable and comparative cost and storage efficiency but they usually never state a price. But they did once 3 years ago: List price then for the V5010 was $9,250 including hardware, software and a one-year warranty, according to a published report. Today IBM will likely steer you to cloud pricing, which may or may not be a bargain depending on how the deal is structured and priced. With the cloud, everything is in the details.

DancingDinosaur is Alan Radding, a veteran information technology analyst, writer, and ghost-writer. Follow DancingDinosaur on Twitter, @mainframeblog, and see more of his work at technologywriter.com.

IBM Enhances Storage for 2019

It has been a while since DancingDinosaur last looked closely at IBM’s storage efforts. The latest 4Q18 storage briefing, actually was held on Feb. 5, 2019 but followed by more storage announcements 2/11 and 2/12 For your sake, this blog will not delve into each of these many announcements. You can, however, find them at the previous link.

Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta–IBM RESEARCH

As IBM likes to say whenever it is trying to convey the value of data: “data is more valuable than oil.”  Maybe it is time to update this to say data is more valuable than fresh, clean water, which is quickly heading toward becoming the most precious commodity on earth.

IBM CEO Ginny Rometty, says it yet another way: “80% of the world’s data, whether it’s decades of underwriting, pricing, customer experience, risk in loans… That is all with our clients. You don’t want to share it. That is gold,” maybe more valuable even, say, the value of fresh water. But whatever metaphor you choose to use—gold, clean water, oil, something else you perceive as priceless, this represents to IBM the value of data. To preserve the value it represents this data must be economically stored, protected, made accessible, analyzed, and selectively shared. That’s where IBM’s storage comes in.

And IBM storage has been on a modest multi-year storage growth trend.  Since 2016, IBM reports shipping 700 new NVMe systems, 850 VeraStack systems, 3000 DS8880 systems, 5500 PB of capacity, attracted 6,800 new IBM Spectrum (virtualized) storage customers, and sold 3,000 Storwize All-flash system along with 12,000 all-flash arrays shipped.

The bulk of the 2/5 storage announcements fell into 4 areas:

1. IBM storage for containers and cloud
2. AI storage
3. Modern data protection
4. Cyber resiliency

Except for modern data protection, much of this may be new to Z and Power data centers. However, some of the new announcements will interest Z shops. In particular, 219-135 –Statement of direction: IBM intends to deliver Managed-from-Z, a new feature of IBM Cloud Private for Linux on IBM Z. This will enable organizations to run and manage IBM Cloud Private applications from IBM Linux on Z or LinuxONE platforms. The new capability furthers IBM’s commitment to deliver multi-cloud and multi-architecture cloud-native technologies on the platform of the customer’s choice. Watson, too, will now be available on more platforms through newly announced Watson Anywhere—a version of IBM’s cognitive platform that can run Watson on-premises, in IBM’s cloud, or any other cloud, be it private or public.

Another interesting addition to the IBM storage line, the FlashSystem 9100. IBM FlashSystem 9100, as IBM explains it, combines the performance of flash and Non-Volatile Memory Express (NVMe) end-to-end with the reliability and innovation of IBM FlashCore technology and the rich features of IBM Spectrum Virtualize, — all packed into a 2U enterprise-class storage system. Providing intensive data driven multi-cloud storage capacity, FlashSystem 9100 is deeply integrated with the software defined (virtualized) capabilities of IBM Spectrum Storage, allowing organizations to easily add multi-cloud solutions that best support their business..

Finally, 219-029 –IBM Spectrum Protect V8.1.7 and IBM Spectrum Protect Plus V10.1.3 deliver new application support and optimization for long term data retention. Think of it this way: as the value of data increases, you will want to retain and protect it in more data in more ways for longer and longer. For this you will want the kind of flexible and cost-efficient storage available through Spectrum Protect.

In addition, at Think, IBM announced Watson Anywhere, a version of Watson that runs on-premises, in IBM’s cloud, or any other cloud, be it private or public.

DancingDinosaur is Alan Radding, a veteran information technology analyst, writer, and ghost-writer. Follow DancingDinosaur on Twitter, @mainframeblog, and see more of his work at technologywriter.com.

FlashSystem 9100 Includes NVMe and Spectrum Software

The new IBM FlashSystem 9100 comes with all the bells and whistles included, especially NVMe and Spectrum Software.  For software, IBM includes its full suite of software-defined capabilities for your data both on-premises and in the cloud and across public and private clouds. It also aims to modernize your infrastructure with new capabilities for private and hybrid clouds as well as optimize operations.

FlashSystem 9100 with new capabilities built-in end-to-end

It also includes AI-assisted, next-generation technology for multi-cloud environments. This should allow you to optimize business critical workloads in an effort to optimize your technology infrastructure and prepare for the era of multi-cloud digitized business now emerging.

The IT infrastructure market is changing so quickly and so radically that technology that might have been still under consideration can no longer make it to the short list. DancingDinosuar, for example, won’t even attempt to create an ROI analysis of hard disk for primary storage. Other than straight-out falsification the numbers couldn’t work.

The driver behind this, besides the advances in technology price/performance and what seems like return to Moore’s Law levels of gains, lies the success of the big hyperscalers, who are able to sustain amazing price and performance levels. DancingDinosaur readers are no hyperscalers but they are capitalizing on hyperscaler gains in the cloud and they can emulate hyperscaler strategies in their data centers wherever possible.

IBM puts it a little more conventionally: As more and more organizations move on to a multi-cloud strategy they are having more data-driven needs such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and containers, it writes. All of these new needs require a storage solution that is powerful enough to address all the needs while being built on proven technology and support both the existing and evolving data centers. IBM’s response to these issues is the expansion of its FlashSystem to include the new 9100 NVMe end-to-end solution while piling on the software.

Aside from being an all NVMe storage solution, IBM is leveraging several IBM technologies such as IBM Spectrum Virtualize and IBM FlashCore as well as software from IBM’s Spectrum family. This combination of software and technology helps the 9100 store up to 2PB of data in a 2U space (32PB in a larger rack). FlashCore also enables consistent microsecond latency, with IBM quoting performance of 2.5 million IOPS, 34GB/s, and 100μs latency for a single 2U array. For storage, the FlashSystem 9100 uses FlashCore modules with an NVMe interface. These 2.5” drives come in 4.8TB, 9.6TB, and 19.2TB capacities with up to 5:1 compression. The drives leverage 64-Layer 3D TLC NAND and can be configured with as little as four drives per system.   You might not be a hyperscaler but this is the kind of stuff you need if you hope to emulate one.

To do this, IBM packs in the goodies. For starters it is NVMe-accelerated and Multi-Cloud Enabled.  And it goes beyond the usual flash array. This is an NVMe-accelerated Enterprise Flash Array – 100% NVMe end-to-end and includes NVMe IBM FlashCore modules and NVMe industry standard SSD. It also supports physical, virtual and Docker environments.

In addition, the system includes IBM Storage Insights for AI-empowered predictive analytics, storage resource management, and support delivered over the cloud. Also, it offers Spectrum Storage Software for array management, data reuse, modern data protection, disaster recovery, and containerization (how it handles Docker). Plus, IBM adds:

• IBM Spectrum Virtualize
• IBM Spectrum Copy Data Management
• IBM Spectrum Protect Plus
• IBM Spectrum Virtualize for Public Cloud
• IBM Spectrum Connect
• FlashSystem 9100 Multi-Cloud Solutions

And just in case you think you are getting ahead of yourself, IBM is adding what it calls blueprints. As IBM explains them: the blueprints take the form of three pre-validated, cloud-focused solution plans.

1. Data Reuse, Protection and Efficiency solution leverages the capabilities of IBM Spectrum Protect Plus and IBM Spectrum Copy Data Management (CDM) to provide enhanced data protection features for virtual applications with powerful data copy management and reuse functionality both on premises and in the cloud.
2. Business Continuity and Data Reuse solution leverages IBM Spectrum Virtualize for Public Cloud to extend data protection and disaster recovery capabilities into the IBM Cloud, as well as all the copy management and data reuse features of IBM Spectrum CDM.
3. Private Cloud Flexibility and Data Protection solution enables simplified deployment of private clouds, including the technology needed to implement container environments, and all of the capabilities of IBM Spectrum CDM to manage copy sprawl and provide data protection for containerized applications.

The blueprints may be little more than an IBM shopping list that leaves you as confused as before and a little poorer. Still, the FlashSystem 9100, along with all of IBM’s storage solutions, comes with Storage Insights, the company’s enterprise, AI-based predictive analytics, storage resource management, and support platform delivered over the cloud. If you try any blueprint, let me know how it works, anonymously of course.

DancingDinosaur is Alan Radding, a veteran information technology analyst, writer, and ghost-writer. Follow DancingDinosaur on Twitter, @mainframeblog. See more of his work at technologywriter.com and here.

 

IBM Jumps into the Next Gen Server Party with POWER9

IBM re-introduced its POWER9 lineup of servers  this week starting with 2-socket and 4-socket systems and more variations coming in the months ahead as IBM, along with the rest of the IT vendor community grapples with how to address changing data center needs. The first, the AC922, arrived last fall. DancingDinosaur covered it here. More, the S922/S914/S924 and H922/H924/L922, are promised later this quarter.

The workloads organizations are running these days are changing, often dramatically and quickly. One processor, no matter how capable or flexible or efficient will be unlikely to do the job going forward. It will take an entire family of chips.  That’s as true for Intel and AMR and the other chip players as IBM.

In some ways, IBM’s challenge is even qwerkier. Its chips will not only need to support Linux and Windows, but also IBMi and AIX. IBM simply cannot abandon its IBMi and AIX customer bases. So chips supporting IBMi and AIX are being built into the POWER9 family.

For IBMi the company is promising POWER9 exploitation for:

• Expanding the secure-ability of IBMi with TLS, secure APIs, and logs for SIEM solutions
• Expanded Install options with an installation process using USB 3.0 media
• Encryption and compression for cloud storage
• Increasing the productivity of developers and administrators

This may sound trivial to those who have focused on the Linux world and work with x86 systems too, but it is not for a company still mired in productive yet aging IBMi systems.

IBM also is promising POWER9 goodies for AIX, its legacy Unix OS, including:

• AIX Security: PowerSC and PowerSC MFA updates for malware intrusion prevention and strong authentication
• New workload acceleration with shared memory communications over RDMA (SMC-R)
• Improved availability: AIX Live Update enhancements; GDR 1.2; PowerHA 7.2
• Improved Cloud Mgmt: IBM Cloud PowerVC Manager for SDI; Import/Export;
• AIX 7.2 native support for POWER9 – e.g. enabling NVMe

Again, if you have been running Linux on z or LinuxONE this may sound antiquated, but AIX has not been considered state-of-the-art for years. NVMe alone gives is a big boost.

But despite all the nice things IBM is doing for IBMi and AIX, DancingDinosaur believes the company clearly is betting POWER9 will cut into Intel x86 sales. But that is not a given. Intel is rolling out its own family of advanced x86 Xeon machines under the Skylake code name. Different versions will be packaged and tuned to different workloads. They are rumored, at the fully configured high end, to be quite expensive. Just don’t expect POWER9 systems to be cheap either.

And the chip market is getting more crowded. As Timothy Prickett Morgan, analyst at The Next Platform noted, various ARM chips –especially ThunderX2 from Cavium and Centriq 2400 from Qualcomm –can boost non-X86 numbers and divert sales from IBM’s POWER9 family. Also, AMD’s Epyc X86 processors have a good chance of stealing some market share from Intel’s Skylake. So the POWER9 will have to fight for every sale IBM wants.

Morgan went on: IBM differentiated the hardware and the pricing with its NVLink versions, depending on the workload and the competition, with its most aggressive pricing and a leaner and cheaper microcode and hypervisor stack reserved for the Linux workloads that the company is chasing. IBM very much wants to sell its Power-Linux combo against Intel’s Xeon-Linux and also keep AMD’s Epyc-Linux at bay. Where the Power8 chip had the advantage over the Intel’s Haswell and Broadwell Xeon E5 processors when it came to memory capacity and memory bandwidth per socket, and could meet or beat the Xeons when it came to performance on some workloads that is not yet apparent with the POWER9.

With the POWER9, however, IBM will likely charge a little less for companies buying its Linux-only variants, observes Morgan, effectively enabling IBM to win Linux deals, particularly where data analytics and open source databases drive the customer’s use case. Similarly, some traditional simulation and modeling workloads in the HPC and machine learning areas are ripe for POWER9.

POWER9 is not one chip. Packed into the chip are next-generation NVIDIA NVLink and OpenCAPI to provide significantly faster performance for attached GPUs. The PCI-Express 4.0 interconnect will be twice the speed of PCI-Express 3.0. The open POWER9 architecture also allows companies to mix a wide range of accelerators to meet various needs. Meanwhile, OpenCAPI can unlock coherent FPGAs to support varied accelerated storage, compute, and networking workloads. IBM also is counting on the 300+ members of the OpenPOWER Foundation and OpenCAPI Consortium to launch innovations for POWER9. Much is happening: Stay tuned to DancingDinosaur

DancingDinosaur is Alan Radding, a veteran information technology analyst, writer, and ghost-writer. Follow DancingDinosaur on Twitter, @mainframeblog. See more of his work at technologywriter.com and here.