IBM FlashSystem V9000 Virtualized SAN Storage

IBM FlashSystem V9000 enables companies to deploy flash storage for less than the cost of traditional SANs with real-time Compression. The IBM FlashSystem V9000 uses patented enhanced multilevel cell (eMLC) flash technology, delivering the fasted flash SAN storage solution on the market (micro-seconds). The IBM FlashSystem V9000 provides up to 57 TB of protected “usable” flash storage capacity in 6U and up to 2.2 PB of protected “usable” flash storage capacity in a scale-out enclosure with up to 32 PB of protected “usable” external flash storage capacity. IBM FlashSystem delivers unmatchable enterprise reliability through Variable Stripe RAID and two-dimensional flash RAID. The FlashSystem V9000 also provides real-time compression, dynamic tiering, thin provisioning, snapshots, cloning, replication, data copy services and high-availability configurations. In contrast, the IBM FlashSystem 900 model provide the hardware only benefits, without virtualization software.

Other IBM FlashSystem Models include:
IBM FlashSystem 5100 FS5015 2072-2N2 2072-2N4
IBM FlashSystem FS5100 FS5035 2072-3N2 2072-3N2
IBM FlashSystem FS5200 4662-6H2
IBM FlashSystem FS7200 2076-824 2076-U7C 
IBM FlashSystem FS7300 4657-924
IBM FlashSystem FS9500 4666-AH8
IBM FlashSystem FS9500R 4666-AH8
IBM FlashSystem 900 9840

The IBM FlashSystem V9000 provides configurable flash storage capacity that is hot-swappable and can be populated with four, six, eight, ten, or twelve flash modules. Flash modules capacities include: 1.2 TB (AF23), 2.9 TB (AF24), or 5.7 TB (AF25). Capacities cannot be inter-mixed within a single building block. Usable RAID 5 protected capacity points are listed below for 1.2 TB, 2.9 TB, and 5.7 TB modules:

IBM V9000 FlashSystem capacity options using (AF23) 1.2 TB eMLC flash storage modules:

2.4 TB: Four 1.2 TB flash modules with RAID 5 protection
4.8 TB: Six 1.2 TB flash modules with RAID 5 protection
7.2 TB: Eight 1.2 TB flash modules with RAID 5 protection
9.6 TB: Ten 1.2 TB flash modules with RAID 5 protection
12 TB: Twelve 1.2 TB flash modules with RAID 5 protection

IBM V9000 FlashSystem capacity options using (AF24) 2.9 TB eMLC flash storage modules:

17.4 TB: Eight 2.9 TB flash modules with RAID 5 protection
23.2 TB: Ten 2.9 TB flash modules with RAID 5 protection
29 TB: Twelve 2.9 TB flash modules with RAID 5 protection

IBM V9000 FlashSystem capacity options using (AF25) 5.7 TB eMLC flash storage modules:

34.2 TB: Eight 5.7 TB flash modules with RAID 5 protection
46.6 TB: Ten 5.7 TB flash modules with RAID 5 protection
57 TB: Twelve 5.7 TB flash modules with RAID 5 protection

Connectivity:  10 X 8 Gbps FC | 8 X 16 Gbps FC | 8 X 10 Gbps FCoE | 8 X 10 Gbps iSCSI
Flash Storage Capacity (usable):  from 2.4 TB to 456 TB (internal), 32 PB (external)
Max Performance (fixed building block / 100% read, cache miss):
          Min. Latency = 200 µs
          IOPS (4K) = 526,000
          Bandwidth (128K) = 6.2 GB/s
Max Performance (scalable building block / 100% read, cache miss):
          Min. Latency = 200 µs
          IOPS (4K) = 630,000
          Bandwidth (128K) = 6.2 GB/s
Max Performance (scaled out / 100% read, 4 building blocks):  
          Min. Latency = 200 µs
          IOPS (4K) = 2,520,000
          Bandwidth (128K) = 19.2 GB/s
          IOPS (4K) using Real-time Compression = 1,200,000

The FlashSystem V9000 and model 900 will accelerate all types of applications and infrastructures, but it provides the most significant benefits for high-performance database applications such as Oracle, DB2, MS SQL, SAP, VDI, Big Data, BI and Cloud environments, as well as to replace existing Tier 1 storage that have I/O and bottleneck issues. IBM FlashSystems will accelerate multiple workloads simultaneously, both physical and virtual. The FlashSystem V9000 will undoubtedly have an immediately performance impact all users will notice, but will also reduce both CAPEX and OPEX costs, as well as improve customer satisfaction. Deploying a V9000 FlashSystem will generate up to 5:1 real-time compression data reduction, providing a huge ROI. IBM’s FlashSystems can take the place of multiple racks of HDDs, lowering your power, space and cooling costs. Flash storage will also increase server efficiency, which can further cut power and cooling costs and reduce software licensing expenses. It has been proven in many customer environments that IBM’s FlashSystems will significantly drive down the total cost of ownership for storage. Studies show typical heterogeneous enterprise workloads running on IBM FlashSystem yields an estimated 76% ROI over traditional storage.

FlashSystem V9000 has a scalable architecture that allows flash capacity to be added (scaled up) to support multiple applications. The virtualized system can also be expanded (scaled out) to support higher IOPS and bandwidth, or the solution can be simultaneously scaled up and out to improve capacity, IOPS, and bandwidth while maintaining MicroLatency. As a result, your organization can gain a competitive advantage through a more flexible, responsive, and efficient storage environment. 

A fixed FlashSystem V9000 storage platform consists of two FlashSystem V9000 Control Enclosures directly cabled to one FlashSystem V9000 Storage Enclosure (SE), representing a fixed building block (BB). For balanced increase of performance and scale, up to four FlashSystem building blocks can be clustered into a single storage system, multiplying performance and capacity with each addition.

The scalable building blocks require dedicated internal Fibre Channel switches. The scalable building block configurations also allow for the addition of up to four individual FlashSystem Storage Enclosures to be added to the storage system. If 228 TB from four building blocks isn't enough capacity, up to four additional Storage Enclosures (SEs) can then be added. In total, a FlashSystem V9000 Storage System can contain a maximum of eight FlashSystem V9000 Storage Enclosures, offering a potential storage capacity of 456 TB, and up to 2.2 PB effective capacity is available at 80% compression. Real-time Compression is available as a software feature that allows users to elect to deploy Real-time Compression where it is desired.

The FlashSystem V9000 includes a feature-rich, software-defined storage layer that virtualizes and extends its functionality for all your storage. In this virtual storage environment, it acts as the virtualization layer between the host and other external storage systems, providing flexibility and extending functionality to the virtualized external storage capacity. Up to 32 PB of external storage can be managed by a single FlashSystem V9000 array, and because the storage is virtualized, volumes can be non-disruptively moved between external and internal storage capacity. This functionality enables very agile integration into existing storage environments and seamless data migrations 

The following functions are provided with the FlashSystem V9000 base software license: 

Thin provisioning: Helps improve efficiency by allocating disk storage space in a flexible manner among multiple users, based on the minimum space that is required by each user at any time.

Data migration: Enables easy and non-disruptive moves of volumes from another storage system onto the FlashSystem V9000 system by using Fiber Channel connectivity. Dynamic migration helps speed data migrations from weeks or months to days, eliminating the cost of add-on migration tools and providing continuous availability of applications by eliminating downtime.

Simple GUI: Simplified management with the intuitive GUI enables storage to be quickly deployed and efficiently managed. The GUI runs on the FlashSystem V9000 system, so there is no need for a separate console. All that you need to do is point your web browser to the system.

Easy Tier technology: This feature provides a mechanism to seamlessly migrate data to the most appropriate tier within the FlashSystem V9000. This migration can be to the internal flash memory within FlashSystem V9000 Storage Enclosure, or to external storage systems that are virtualized by FlashSystem V9000 Control Enclosure. EasyTier technology adds more blended economy of capacity and is useful for cost effective expansion and usage of your existing storage capacity investment. Easy Tier allows for up to three tiers of storage. For example, you can set up a storage pool intended for Easy Tier volumes where the pool is composed of the FlashSystem V9000 storage enclosures, 15K RPM Fibre Channel disk drives, and SAS disk drives.

Automatic restriping of data across storage pools: When growing a storage pool by adding more storage to it, FlashSystem V9000 software can restripe your data on pools of storage without having to implement any manual or scripting steps. This helps grow storage environments with greater ease while retaining the performance benefits that come from striping the data across the disk systems in a storage pool.

The following functions are included with the FlashSystem V9000 base software license for internal storage only:

FlashCopy: FlashCopy provides a volume level point-in-time copy function for any storage that is virtualized by FlashSystem V9000. FlashCopy and snapshot functions enable you to create copies of data for backup, parallel processing, testing, and development, and have the copies available almost immediately.

Real-time Compression: Helps improve efficiency by compressing data by as much as 80%, enabling storage of up to 5x as much data in the same physical space. Unlike other approaches to compression, Real-time Compression is designed to be used with active primary data such as production databases and email systems, dramatically expanding the range of candidate data that can benefit from compression.

Remote Mirroring: Provides storage system-based data replication by using either synchronous or asynchronous data transfers over Fibre Channel communication links:

• Metro Mirror maintains a fully synchronized copy at metropolitan distances (up to 300 km).
• Global Mirror operates asynchronously and maintains a copy at much greater distances (up to 8000 km). Both functions support VMware Site Recovery Manager to help speed disaster recovery. FlashSystem V9000 remote mirroring interoperates with other FlashSystem V9000, V840, SAN Volume Controller, and V7000 storage systems.

FlashSystem V9000 supports Integration of vSphere APIs for Storage Awareness (VASA) and vStorage
API for Array Integration (VAAI) by using IBM Storage Integrated Server version 1.5. IBM Storage
Integration Server is a centralized server system that consolidates a range of IBM storage provisioning,
virtualization, cloud, automation, and monitoring solutions through a unified server platform. The next
version is Spectrum Control Base Edition 2.0.0. VASA provides insight and awareness to VMware and
vSphere about the configurations, capabilities and storage health, and events of a storage system. With
this capability, VMware administrators are able to independently and centrally manage their storage
resources on IBM storage systems.

The following optional licensed features are offered with the FlashSystem V9000 Software for external storage:

External storage virtualization: Enables FlashSystem V9000 to manage capacity in other Fiber Channel SAN storage systems. When FlashSystem V9000 virtualizes a storage system, its capacity becomes part of the FlashSystem V9000 system. Capacity in external storage systems inherits all the functional richness of the FlashSystem V9000.

Real-time Compression: Helps improve efficiency by compressing data by as much as 80%, enabling storage of up to 5x as much data in the same physical space. Unlike other approaches to compression, Real-time Compression is designed to be used with active primary data such as production databases and email systems, dramatically expanding the range of candidate data that can benefit from compression.

FlashCopy: provides a volume level point-in-time copy function for any storage that is virtualized by FlashSystem V9000. FlashCopy and snapshot functions enable you to create copies of data for backup, parallel processing, testing, and development; and have the copies available almost immediately.

Remote Mirroring: provides storage system-based data replication by using either synchronous or asynchronous data transfers over Fiber Channel communication links:

• Metro Mirror maintains a fully synchronized copy at metropolitan distances (up to 300 km).
• Global Mirror operates asynchronously and maintains a copy at much greater distances (up to 8000 km).

IBM FlashSystems deliver microsecond response times, faster than any other storage product on the market, and provide the least amount of latency. Why? IBM does not use commodity SSDs like other flash storage vendors. IBM uses their own MicroLatency module that can provide 4X greater capacity than competing flash storage products. IBM doesn’t use open source operating systems or off the shelf interfaces, they built their FlashSystem using decades of experience in hardware accelerated I/O engineering (without any software in the datapath), using its patented enhanced MLC technology, two-dimensional flash RAID and advanced flash management technology. IBM guarantees many of its FlashSystem performance and reliability objectives, where no other competing storage vendor will dare comment. Competing flash storage products usually include a form of system level RAID, they do not typically include module-level protections like IBM Variable Stripe RAID. Competing flash storage products (pretty much use third-party SSDs), will likely experience more SSD failures.

Contact us for a free performance analysis of your system to determine the correct IBM flash storage for your workloads. We will provide you with a detailed report explaining how your environment would perform running on a FlashSystem. After the performance analysis completed, you may choose to install a FlashSystem demo unit running your applications for 30 days as a proof of concept.