IBM DS8870 Architecture and Implementation

IBM DS8870 Architecture and Implementation

by Bertrand Dufrasne, Juan Brandenburg, Jeff Cook, Jean Francois Lepine, Stephen Manthorpe, Maged Sallam
Released September 2014
Publisher(s): IBM Redbooks
ISBN: None

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Book description

This IBM® Redbooks® publication describes the concepts, architecture, and implementation of the IBM DS8870. The book provides reference information to assist readers who need to plan for, install, and configure the DS8870.

The IBM DS8870 is the most advanced model in the IBM DS8000® series and is equipped with IBM POWER7+™ based controllers. Various configuration options are available that scale from dual 2-core systems up to dual 16-core systems with up to 1 TB of cache.

The DS8870 features an integrated high-performance flash enclosure with flash cards that can delivers up to 250,000 IOPS and up to 3.4 GBps bandwidth. A high performance all-flash drive configuration is also available. The DS8870 also features enhanced 8 Gbps device adapters and host adapters. Connectivity options, with up to 128 Fibre Channel/IBM FICON® ports for host connections, make the DS8870 suitable for multiple server environments in open systems and IBM System z® environments.

The DS8870 supports advanced disaster recovery solutions, business continuity solutions, and thin provisioning. All disk drives in the DS8870 storage system have the Full Disk Encryption (FDE) feature. The DS8870 also can be integrated in a Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) infrastructure.

The DS8870 can automatically optimize the use of each storage tier, particularly flash drives and flash cards, through the IBM Easy Tier® feature, which is available at no extra charge.

Table of contents

  1. Front cover
  2. Notices
    1. Trademarks
  3. Preface
    1. Authors
    2. Now you can become a published author, too!
    3. Comments welcome
    4. Stay connected to IBM Redbooks
  4. Part 1 Concepts and architecture
    1. Chapter 1. Introduction to the IBM DS8870
      1. 1.1 Introduction to the DS8870
        1. 1.1.1 Features of the DS8870
      2. 1.2 DS8870 controller options and frames
      3. 1.3 DS8870 architecture and functions overview
        1. 1.3.1 Overall architecture and components
        2. 1.3.2 Storage capacity
        3. 1.3.3 Supported environments
        4. 1.3.4 Configuration flexibility
        5. 1.3.5 Copy Services functions
        6. 1.3.6 Resource Groups for copy services scope limiting
        7. 1.3.7 Service and setup
        8. 1.3.8 IBM Certified Secure Data Overwrite
        9. 1.3.9 Performance features
        10. 1.3.10 Sophisticated caching algorithms
        11. 1.3.11 Flash storage
        12. 1.3.12 Multipath Subsystem Device Driver
        13. 1.3.13 Performance for System z
        14. 1.3.14 Performance enhancements for IBM Power Systems
    2. Chapter 2. IBM DS8870 models
      1. 2.1 IBM DS8870
      2. 2.2 Model overview
      3. 2.3 DS8870 storage options
      4. 2.4 Additional licenses that are needed
    3. Chapter 3. DS8870 hardware components and architecture
      1. 3.1 Frames
        1. 3.1.1 DS8870 High Performance All-Flash Configuration
        2. 3.1.2 DS8870 Enterprise Class Configuration
        3. 3.1.3 DS8870 Business Class configuration
        4. 3.1.4 DS8870 Base Frame
        5. 3.1.5 DS8870 Expansion frames
        6. 3.1.6 DS8870 Frame operator panel
      2. 3.2 DS8870 architecture overview
        1. 3.2.1 The IBM POWER7+ processor-based server
        2. 3.2.2 Processor memory
        3. 3.2.3 Flexible service processor and system power control network
        4. 3.2.4 Peripheral Component Interconnect Express adapters
        5. 3.2.5 I/O enclosures
        6. 3.2.6 Cross cluster communication
        7. 3.2.7 I/O enclosure adapter cards
      3. 3.3 Disk subsystem
        1. 3.3.1 Flash cards and disk drives
        2. 3.3.2 Standard Drive Enclosures
        3. 3.3.3 High-performance flash enclosures
      4. 3.4 Power and cooling
      5. 3.5 Management console network
        1. 3.5.1 Ethernet switches
    4. Chapter 4. RAS on the IBM DS8870
      1. 4.1 Names and terms for the DS8870
      2. 4.2 DS8870 Processor Complex RAS features
        1. 4.2.1 POWER7+ Hypervisor
        2. 4.2.2 POWER7+ processor
        3. 4.2.3 AIX operating system
        4. 4.2.4 Cross cluster communication
        5. 4.2.5 Environmental monitoring
        6. 4.2.6 Resource deconfiguration
      3. 4.3 CPC failover and failback
        1. 4.3.1 Dual cluster operation and data protection
        2. 4.3.2 Failover
        3. 4.3.3 Failback
        4. 4.3.4 NVS and power outages
      4. 4.4 Data flow in DS8870
        1. 4.4.1 I/O enclosures
        2. 4.4.2 Host connections
        3. 4.4.3 Metadata checks
      5. 4.5 RAS on the HMC
        1. 4.5.1 Microcode updates
        2. 4.5.2 Call home and remote support
      6. 4.6 RAS on the disk system
        1. 4.6.1 RAID configurations
        2. 4.6.2 Disk path redundancy
        3. 4.6.3 Predictive Failure Analysis
        4. 4.6.4 Disk scrubbing
        5. 4.6.5 Smart Rebuild
        6. 4.6.6 RAID 5 overview
        7. 4.6.7 RAID 6 overview
        8. 4.6.8 RAID 10 overview
        9. 4.6.9 Spare creation
      7. 4.7 RAS on the power subsystem
        1. 4.7.1 Components
        2. 4.7.2 Line power loss
        3. 4.7.3 Line power fluctuation
        4. 4.7.4 Power control
        5. 4.7.5 Unit emergency power off
      8. 4.8 Other features
        1. 4.8.1 Internal network
        2. 4.8.2 Remote support
        3. 4.8.3 Earthquake resistance
        4. 4.8.4 Secure Data Overwrite
    5. Chapter 5. Virtualization concepts
      1. 5.1 Virtualization definition
      2. 5.2 The abstraction layers for drive virtualization
        1. 5.2.1 Array sites
        2. 5.2.2 Arrays
        3. 5.2.3 Ranks
        4. 5.2.4 Extent pools
        5. 5.2.5 Logical volumes
        6. 5.2.6 Space-efficient volumes
        7. 5.2.7 Allocation, deletion, and modification of LUNs and CKD volumes
        8. 5.2.8 Logical subsystem
        9. 5.2.9 Volume access
        10. 5.2.10 Virtualization hierarchy summary
      3. 5.3 Benefits of virtualization
      4. 5.4 z/OS FICON Discovery and Auto-Configuration
      5. 5.5 EAV V2: Extended address volumes
    6. Chapter 6. IBM DS8000 Copy Services overview
      1. 6.1 Copy Services
      2. 6.2 FlashCopy and FlashCopy Space Efficient
        1. 6.2.1 Basic concepts
        2. 6.2.2 Benefits and use
        3. 6.2.3 FlashCopy options
        4. 6.2.4 FlashCopy SE-specific options
        5. 6.2.5 Remote Pair FlashCopy
      3. 6.3 Remote Mirror and Copy
        1. 6.3.1 Metro Mirror
        2. 6.3.2 Global Copy
        3. 6.3.3 Global Mirror
        4. 6.3.4 Metro/Global Mirror
        5. 6.3.5 Multiple Global Mirror sessions
        6. 6.3.6 Thin provisioning enhancements on open environments
        7. 6.3.7 GM and MGM improvement because of collision avoidance
        8. 6.3.8 z/OS Global Mirror
        9. 6.3.9 z/OS Metro/Global Mirror
        10. 6.3.10 Summary of Remote Mirror and Copy function characteristics
        11. 6.3.11 Consistency group considerations
        12. 6.3.12 GDPS on z/OS environments
        13. 6.3.13 Tivoli Storage Productivity Center for Replication functionality
      4. 6.4 Resource Groups for Copy Services
    7. Chapter 7. Designed for performance
      1. 7.1 DS8870 hardware: Performance characteristics
        1. 7.1.1 Vertical growth and scalability
        2. 7.1.2 POWER7 and POWER7+
        3. 7.1.3 The high-performance flash enclosure
        4. 7.1.4 DS8870 Switched Fibre Channel Arbitrated Loops
        5. 7.1.5 Fibre Channel device adapter
        6. 7.1.6 Eight-port and four-port host adapters
      2. 7.2 Software performance: Synergy items
        1. 7.2.1 Synergy with Power Systems
        2. 7.2.2 Synergy with System z
      3. 7.3 Performance considerations for disk drives
      4. 7.4 DS8000 superior caching algorithms
        1. 7.4.1 Sequential Adaptive Replacement Cache
        2. 7.4.2 Adaptive Multi-stream Prefetching
        3. 7.4.3 Intelligent Write Caching
      5. 7.5 Performance considerations for logical configuration
        1. 7.5.1 Workload characteristics
        2. 7.5.2 Data placement in the DS8000
      6. 7.6 I/O Priority Manager
        1. 7.6.1 Performance policies for open systems
        2. 7.6.2 Performance policies for System z
      7. 7.7 IBM Easy Tier
        1. 7.7.1 Easy Tier generations
      8. 7.8 Performance and sizing considerations for open systems
        1. 7.8.1 Determining the number of paths to a LUN
        2. 7.8.2 Dynamic I/O load-balancing: Subsystem Device Driver
        3. 7.8.3 Automatic port queues
        4. 7.8.4 Determining where to attach the host
      9. 7.9 Performance and sizing considerations for System z
        1. 7.9.1 Host connections to System z servers
        2. 7.9.2 Parallel access volume
        3. 7.9.3 z/OS Workload Manager: Dynamic PAV tuning
        4. 7.9.4 HyperPAV
        5. 7.9.5 PAV in z/VM environments
        6. 7.9.6 Multiple Allegiance
        7. 7.9.7 I/O priority queuing
        8. 7.9.8 Performance considerations on Extended Distance FICON
        9. 7.9.9 High Performance FICON for z
  5. Part 2 Planning and installation
    1. Chapter 8. DS8870 physical planning and installation
      1. 8.1 Considerations before installation
        1. 8.1.1 Who should be involved
        2. 8.1.2 What information is required
      2. 8.2 Planning for the physical installation
        1. 8.2.1 Delivery and staging area
        2. 8.2.2 Floor type and loading
        3. 8.2.3 Overhead cabling features
        4. 8.2.4 Room space and service clearance
        5. 8.2.5 Power requirements and operating environment
        6. 8.2.6 Host interface and cables
        7. 8.2.7 Host adapter Fibre Channel specifics for open environments
        8. 8.2.8 FICON specifics on z/OS environment
        9. 8.2.9 Preferred practice for host adapters
        10. 8.2.10 WWNN and WWPN determination
      3. 8.3 Network connectivity planning
        1. 8.3.1 Hardware Management Console and network access
        2. 8.3.2 IBM Tivoli Storage Productivity Center
        3. 8.3.3 DS command-line interface
        4. 8.3.4 Remote support connection
        5. 8.3.5 Remote power control
        6. 8.3.6 Storage area network connection
        7. 8.3.7 IBM Security Key Lifecycle Manager server for encryption
        8. 8.3.8 Lightweight Directory Access Protocol server for single sign-on
      4. 8.4 Remote Mirror and Copy connectivity
      5. 8.5 Disk capacity considerations
        1. 8.5.1 Disk sparing
        2. 8.5.2 Disk capacity
        3. 8.5.3 DS8000 Flash drives (solid-state drives or SSDs) considerations
        4. 8.5.4 DS8000 flash cards considerations
    2. Chapter 9. DS8870 HMC planning and setup
      1. 9.1 Hardware Management Console overview
        1. 9.1.1 Storage HMC hardware
        2. 9.1.2 Private Ethernet networks
      2. 9.2 Hardware Management Console software
        1. 9.2.1 DS Storage Manager GUI
        2. 9.2.2 DS command-line interface
        3. 9.2.3 DS Open application programming interface
        4. 9.2.4 Web-based user interface
      3. 9.3 HMC activities
        1. 9.3.1 HMC planning tasks
        2. 9.3.2 Planning for microcode upgrades
        3. 9.3.3 Time synchronization
        4. 9.3.4 Monitoring DS8870 with the HMC
        5. 9.3.5 Call home and remote support
      4. 9.4 HMC and IPv6
      5. 9.5 HMC user management
      6. 9.6 External HMC
        1. 9.6.1 HMC redundancy benefits
      7. 9.7 Configuration worksheets
      8. 9.8 Configuration flow
    3. Chapter 10. DS8870 features and licensed functions
      1. 10.1 DS8870 licensed functions
        1. 10.1.1 Licensing
        2. 10.1.2 Licensing: Cost structure
      2. 10.2 Activating licensed functions
        1. 10.2.1 Obtaining DS8000 machine information
        2. 10.2.2 Obtaining activation codes
        3. 10.2.3 Applying activation codes by using the GUI
        4. 10.2.4 Applying activation codes by using the DS CLI
      3. 10.3 Licensed scope considerations
        1. 10.3.1 Why you have a choice
        2. 10.3.2 Using a feature for which you are not licensed
        3. 10.3.3 Changing the scope to All
        4. 10.3.4 Changing the scope from All to FB
        5. 10.3.5 Applying an insufficient license feature key
        6. 10.3.6 Calculating how much capacity is used for CKD or FB
  6. Part 3 Storage configuration
    1. Chapter 11. Configuration flow
      1. 11.1 Configuration worksheets
      2. 11.2 Disk encryption
      3. 11.3 Network security
      4. 11.4 Configuration flow
        1. 11.4.1 General storage configuration guidelines
    2. Chapter 12. Configuration by using the DS Storage Manager GUI
      1. 12.1 DS Storage Manager GUI overview
        1. 12.1.1 Accessing the DS GUI
        2. 12.1.2 DS GUI Overview window
      2. 12.2 User management for the DS GUI
      3. 12.3 Logical configuration introduction
      4. 12.4 Configuring DS8870 storage
        1. 12.4.1 Defining a storage complex
        2. 12.4.2 Creating arrays
        3. 12.4.3 Creating ranks
        4. 12.4.4 Creating extent pools
        5. 12.4.5 Configuring I/O ports
        6. 12.4.6 Configuring logical host systems
        7. 12.4.7 Creating fixed block volumes
        8. 12.4.8 Creating volume groups
        9. 12.4.9 Creating LCUs and CKD volumes
        10. 12.4.10 Extra tasks on LCUs and CKD volumes
      5. 12.5 Other DS GUl functions
        1. 12.5.1 Easy Tier
        2. 12.5.2 I/O Priority Manager
        3. 12.5.3 Checking the status of the DS8000
        4. 12.5.4 Preview of the new DS8000 GUI
    3. Chapter 13. Configuration with the DS command-line interface
      1. 13.1 DS command-line interface overview
        1. 13.1.1 Flash drives
        2. 13.1.2 Supported operating systems for the DS CLI
        3. 13.1.3 DS CLI Version
        4. 13.1.4 User accounts
        5. 13.1.5 User management by using the DS CLI
        6. 13.1.6 DS CLI profile
        7. 13.1.7 Configuring DS CLI to use a second HMC
        8. 13.1.8 Command structure
        9. 13.1.9 Using the DS CLI application
        10. 13.1.10 Return codes
        11. 13.1.11 User assistance
      2. 13.2 Configuring the I/O ports
      3. 13.3 Configuring the DS8870 storage for fixed block volumes
        1. 13.3.1 Creating arrays
        2. 13.3.2 Creating ranks
        3. 13.3.3 Creating extent pools
        4. 13.3.4 Creating FB volumes
        5. 13.3.5 Creating volume groups
        6. 13.3.6 Creating host connections
        7. 13.3.7 Mapping open systems host disks to storage unit volumes
      4. 13.4 Configuring DS8870 storage for CKD volumes
        1. 13.4.1 Create arrays
        2. 13.4.2 Ranks and extent pool creation
        3. 13.4.3 Logical control unit creation
        4. 13.4.4 Creating CKD volumes
        5. 13.4.5 Resource Groups
        6. 13.4.6 Performance I/O Priority Manager
        7. 13.4.7 Easy Tier
      5. 13.5 Metrics with DS CLI
      6. 13.6 Private network security commands
      7. 13.7 Copy Services commands
  7. Part 4 Maintenance and upgrades
    1. Chapter 14. Licensed machine code
      1. 14.1 How new microcode is released
      2. 14.2 Bundle installation
      3. 14.3 Concurrent and non-concurrent updates
      4. 14.4 Code updates
      5. 14.5 Host adapter firmware updates
      6. 14.6 Loading the code bundle
      7. 14.7 Fast Path function for CCL
      8. 14.8 Postinstallation activities
      9. 14.9 Summary
    2. Chapter 15. Monitoring with Simple Network Management Protocol
      1. 15.1 SNMP implementation on the DS8000
        1. 15.1.1 Message Information Base file
        2. 15.1.2 Predefined SNMP trap requests
      2. 15.2 SNMP notifications
        1. 15.2.1 Serviceable event that uses specific trap 3
        2. 15.2.2 Copy Services event traps
        3. 15.2.3 I/O Priority Manager SNMP
        4. 15.2.4 Thin provisioning SNMP
      3. 15.3 SNMP configuration
        1. 15.3.1 SNMP preparation
        2. 15.3.2 SNMP configuration from the HMC
        3. 15.3.3 SNMP configuration with the DS CLI
    3. Chapter 16. Remote support
      1. 16.1 Introduction to remote support
        1. 16.1.1 Suggested reading
        2. 16.1.2 Organization of this chapter
      2. 16.2 IBM policies for remote support
      3. 16.3 VPN rationale and advantages
      4. 16.4 Remote connection types
        1. 16.4.1 Asynchronous modem
        2. 16.4.2 IP network
        3. 16.4.3 IP network with traditional VPN
        4. 16.4.4 Assist On-site
      5. 16.5 DS8870 support tasks
        1. 16.5.1 Call home and heartbeat: Outbound
        2. 16.5.2 Data offload: Outbound
        3. 16.5.3 Code download: Inbound
        4. 16.5.4 Remote support: Inbound and two-way
      6. 16.6 Remote connection scenarios
        1. 16.6.1 No connections
        2. 16.6.2 Modem only
        3. 16.6.3 VPN only
        4. 16.6.4 Modem and network with no VPN
        5. 16.6.5 Modem and traditional VPN
      7. 16.7 Assist On-site
        1. 16.7.1 DS8870 Embedded AOS
      8. 16.8 Further remote support enhancements
      9. 16.9 Audit logging
    4. Chapter 17. DS8800 to DS8870 model conversion
      1. 17.1 Introducing model conversion
      2. 17.2 Model conversion overview
        1. 17.2.1 Configuration considerations
        2. 17.2.2 Hardware considerations
      3. 17.3 Model conversion phases
        1. 17.3.1 Planning
        2. 17.3.2 Prerequisites
        3. 17.3.3 Mechanical conversion
        4. 17.3.4 Post conversion operations
  8. Appendix A. Tools and service offerings
    1. A.1 Planning and administration tools
    2. A.2 IBM Service offerings
  9. Appendix B. Resiliency improvements
    1. B.1 SCSI reserves detection and removal
    2. B.2 Querying CKD path groups
    3. B.3 z/OS Soft Fence
  10. Related publications
    1. IBM Redbooks publications
    2. Other publications
    3. Online resources
    4. How to get IBM Redbooks publications
    5. Help from IBM
  11. Back cover
  12. IBM System x Reference Architecture for Hadoop: IBM InfoSphere BigInsights Reference Architecture
    1. Introduction
    2. Business problem and business value
    3. Reference architecture use
    4. Requirements
    5. InfoSphere BigInsights predefined configuration
    6. InfoSphere BigInsights HBase predefined configuration
    7. Deployment considerations
    8. Customizing the predefined configurations
    9. Predefined configuration bill of materials
    10. References
    11. The team who wrote this paper
    12. Now you can become a published author, too!
    13. Stay connected to IBM Redbooks
  13. Notices
    1. Trademarks

Product information

  • Title: IBM DS8870 Architecture and Implementation
  • Author(s): Bertrand Dufrasne, Juan Brandenburg, Jeff Cook, Jean Francois Lepine, Stephen Manthorpe, Maged Sallam
  • Release date: September 2014
  • Publisher(s): IBM Redbooks
  • ISBN: None