… DS3500 Storage Controllers Enhanced …

IBM Corp. announces technology updates for DS3500 storage controllers.

They provide technologies that include Dynamic Disk Pooling, Enhanced FlashCopy, and thin provisioning functionality. Additional they improve host connectivity with new Asymmetric Logical Unit Access (ALUA) host connection types and increase VMWare host efficiency with vStorage APIs for Array Integration (VAAI).

With Dynamic Disk Pooling, customers will see simplified provisioning, performance of their storage device through new disk virtualization functions, and a recovery advantage in improved rebuild times.

Thin provisioning allows storage administrators to drive up storage capacity utilization with little administrative overhead, maximizing the utilization of their infrastructure, reducing initial acquisition costs, and growing capacity as needed.

The Enhanced FlashCopy features increase the number of FlashCopies available, allow multiple consistency groups, and provides the new FlashCopy Rollback which restores the snapshots nearly instantaneously through mapping the FlashCopy volume to back to the base volume. The new features are able to be tested with the new Try and Buy feature, allowing a test of the functionality for 90 days before purchasing the premium feature.

ALUA allows access to a LUN without triggering an ownership transfer, simplifying path failover and increasing its speed. ALUA takes advantage of native failover in most network operating systems.

VMWare VAAI adds functionality from VMWare to the DS3500, allowing it to complete storage tasks, such as copying virtual machines, without the direct interaction of the VMWare host, making the VMWare host more efficient.

Key prerequisites
Any model of machine type 1746.

Planned availability date
June 15, 2012