IBM Redbooks

Jon Tate

Andrew Beattie

Christian Burns

Libor Miklas

Torben Jensen

Data is the new currency of business, the most critical asset of the modern organization. In fact, enterprises that can gain business insights from their data are twice as likely to outperform their competitors; yet, 72 percent of them have not started or are only planning big data activities. In addition, organizations often spend too much money and time managing where their data is stored. The average firm purchases 24% more storage every year, but uses less than half of the capacity it already has. A member of the IBM® Storwize® family, IBM SAN Volume Controller (SVC) Data Platform is a storage virtualization system that enables a single point of control for storage resources to help support improved business application availability and greater resource utilization. The objective is to manage storage resources in your IT infrastructure and to make sure they are used to the advantage of your business, and do it quickly, efficiently, and in real time, while avoiding increases in administrative costs. Virtualizing storage with SVC Data Platform helps make new and existing storage more effective. SVC Data Platform includes many functions traditionally deployed separately in disk systems. By including these in a virtualization system, SVC Data Platform standardizes functions across virtualized storage for greater flexibility and potentially lower costs. SVC Data Platform functions benefit all virtualized storage. For example, IBM Easy Tier® optimizes use of flash storage. And IBM Real-time CompressionTM enhances efficiency even further by enabling the storage of up to five times as much active primary data in the same physical disk space. Finally, high-performance thin provisioning helps automate provisioning. These benefits can help extend the useful life of existing storage assets, reducing costs. Integrating these functions into SVC Data Platform also means that they are designed to operate smoothly together, reducing management effort. In this IBM Redbooks® publication, we discuss the latest features and functions of the SVC 2145-DH8 and software version 7.3, implementation, architectural improvements, and Easy Tier.

IBM SAN Volume Controller 2145-DH8 Introduction and Implementation

Peter Eicher

Kamlesh Lad

Prashant Jagannathan

Data is the currency of the new economy, and organizations are increasingly tasked with finding better ways to protect, recover, access, share, and use data. Traditional storage technologies are being stretched to the breaking point. This challenge is not because of storage hardware performance, but because management tools and techniques have not kept pace with new requirements. Primary data growth rates of 35% to 50% annually only amplify the problem. Organizations of all sizes find themselves needing to modernize their IT processes to enable critical new use cases such as storage self-service, Development and Operations (DevOps), and integration of data centers with the Cloud. They are equally challenged with improving management efficiencies for long established IT processes such as data protection, disaster recovery, reporting, and business analytics. Access to copies of data is the one common feature of all these use cases. However, the slow, manual processes common to IT organizations, including a heavy reliance on labor-intensive scripting and disparate tool sets, are no longer able to deliver the speed and agility required in today's fast-paced world. Copy Data Management (CDM) is an IT modernization technology that focuses on using existing data in a manner that is efficient, automated, scalable, and easy to use, delivering the data access that is urgently needed to meet the new use cases. Catalogic ECX, with IBM® storage, provides in-place copy data management that modernizes IT processes, enables key use cases, and does it all within existing infrastructure. This IBM Redbooks® publication shows how Catalogic Software and IBM have partnered together to create an integrated solution that addresses today's IT environment.

IT Modernization using Catalogic ECX Copy Data Management and IBM Spectrum Storage

Wenzel Kalabza

Christian Schoessler

Patrick Schill

Bertrand Dufrasne

Sandor Lengyel

The IBM XIV® Storage System has a rich set of copy functions suited for various data protection scenarios that enable you to enhance your business continuance, disaster recovery, data migration, and online backup solutions. These functions allow point-in-time copies, known as snapshots and full volume copies, and also include remote copy capabilities in either synchronous or asynchronous mode. A three-site mirroring function is now available to further improve availability and disaster recovery capabilities. These functions are included in the XIV software and all their features are available at no extra charge. The various copy functions are reviewed in separate chapters, which include detailed information about usage and practical illustrations. The book also illustrates the use of IBM® Tivoli® Storage Productivity Center for Replication to manage XIV Copy Services. This IBM Redbooks® publication is intended for anyone who needs a detailed and practical understanding of the XIV copy functions.

IBM XIV Storage System Business Continuity Functions

Christian Burns

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