IBM DS8870 Support Multiple-Site DR and Additional Storage Capacity

IBM DS8870 storage systems (machine types 2421, 2422, 2423, and 2424) deliver replication solutions and additional capacity options to meet the demands of environments in need of disaster tolerance and high data growth support.

Resiliency function enhancements
Multiple Target Peer-to-Peer Remote Copy (MT-PPRC) provides the capability to have two PPRC relationships on a single primary volume. With this enhancement, there will be another target available to provide additional data protection to act as a backup if a disaster occurs.

Multiple Increment FlashCopy allows incremental copy of up to twelve volume targets from a single source. With this enhancement, additional data protection from the physical or logical failure of the source volume is provided since the amount of time required to take an incremental FlashCopy is much less than taking a full copy, thus, reducing the background copy time.

Advanced functions for System z and z/OS2
IBM zHyperwrite is a new technology that combines DS8000 and z/OS enhancements that deliver performance benefits for writing operations to DB2 logs in the Metro Mirror environment. This new technology can help reduce up to 43% of the DB2 log write time.

z/OS Global Mirror (XRC) workload-based write pacing with HyperPAV support is designed to work with workload manager to automatically tailor write pacing to the application, and avoid having to monitor the workload and adjust the pacing settings to suit the workload priority. The lower priority write requests can be requeued so that HyperPAV aliases can be used to execute read requests. The use of HyperPAV aliases is also paced when there is congestion to minimize low-priority work from consuming all the available aliases.

Seventh generation of Easy Tier
Easy Tier application for System z is an unified, software-defined storage API to help deploy storage by enabling applications running on System z to direct more optimal placement of data by communicating information about current workload activity and application performance requirements.

Advanced controls are now available for a user to suspend learning at a pool or volume level to support specific workload requirements they may have.

Performance improvement
With the introduction of the 7.4 microcode, the DS8870 code has been optimized for greater I/O performance. Both the POWER7 and POWER7+ processor versions of the DS8870 have been optimized to deliver improvement in IO/s in random I/O workload environments of up to 35%.

Flash optimization III
The High-Performance Flash Enclosure (HPFE), which was previously announced for the base frame in hybrid configurations, is now available on the first expansion frame. The HPFE capacity in hybrid configurations has been doubled with an additional four HPFEs available in the first expansion frame.

The system performance enhancements with the HPFE enables improvement in maximum IO/s in random I/O workload environments of up to 35%.

This release delivers performance improvements geared for those analytic clients who desire greater IO/s performance. With the new DS8000 multi-thread performance accelerator feature, analytic data processing clients can achieve up to 940,000 IO/s in Database Base Open (DBO) environments (70% read, 30% write, 50% hit ratio).

600GB 15,000rpm FDE drives and 1.6TB 2.5-inch FDE SSD drives
DS8870 now offers 600GB 15,000rpm SAS and 1.6TB 2.5-inch SSD encryption drives for additional capacity and cost performance options to meet data growth demands within the same space.

System configuration and monitoring enhancements
The improved DS8000 Storage Management GUI simplifies storage management, monitors system health in real time, and enables faster configuration.

Volume replication and volume retype for OpenStack
DS8870 now supports features in the OpenStack Juno release such as volume replication and volume retype. Support is provided through the OpenStack Cinder driver that will be available for download on Fix Central in December 2014.

Key prerequisites
All announced features and functions are supported on the DS8000 series and require DS8000 LMC 7.7.40.xx.xx (bundle version 87.40.xxx.xx), or later.

Planned availability date

• December 5, 2014
• March 6, 2015: Field (MES) availability for 600GB 15,000rpm FDE drives, 600GB 15,000rpm FDE CoD drives, and 1.6TB FDE SSD drives (feature numbers #5618, #5619, and #6358)