… Storwize V7000 Software V6.4.0 …

IBM Corp.‘s Storwize V7000 disk system delivers performance, advanced function, HA, and modular and scalable storage capacity:

• Supports RAID-0, -1, -5, -6, and -10
• Provides SAN-attached 8G FC, 1GbE and 10GbE iSCSI host connectivity
• Accommodates up to twenty-four 2.5-inch disk drives or twelve 3.5-inch disk drives installed within the Storwize V7000 Control Enclosure
• Includes attachment support for up to nine Storwize V7000 Expansion Enclosures, providing modular and scalable storage solutions that range up to 240TB physical storage capacity, and 480TB physical storage capacity in a clustered system
• Supports intermixing of SAS drives, nearline SAS drives, and SSDs within the Storwize V7000 Control Enclosures and the V7000 Expansion Enclosures
• Includes IBM Easy Tier technology for automatically moving heavily used data extents onto performance storage devices
• Supports attachment of other storage devices via the FC interface just as the SVC
• Supports a set of SVC functions, including FlashCopy, RemoteCopy, volume mirroring, and thin provisioning

Storwize V7000 is designed to improve storage efficiency by compressing data by as much as 80% through supported real-time compression for block storage, enabling up to five times as much data to be stored in the same physical disk 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, expanding the range of candidate data that can benefit from compression. As its name implies, Real-time Compression operates as data is written to disk avoiding the need to store uncompressed data while awaiting compression.

Data mobility has been enhanced with flexibility for non-disruptive volume moves. Previous versions of Storwize V7000 provided the ability to move volumes non-disruptively within the dual controllers in one enclosure. It now supports moving volumes anywhere within a clustered system while avoiding disruption of host access to storage.

Storwize V7000 provides increased scalability and performance with four-way clustered systems. It now supports clustered systems with up to four control enclosures, nearly doubling maximum capacity and performance of a Storwize V7000 system.

Storwize V7000 systems with 10GE ports now support attachment to next-generation Converged Enhanced Ethernet (CEE) networks using FCoE. This support enables connecting Storwize V7000 to servers for host attachment and to other Storwize V7000 systems for clustering or for mirroring using FC or FCoE interfaces using these networks. The same ports may also be used for iSCSI server connections.

Key prerequisites

• Software requirements: Storwize V7000 Software V6.4 (5639-VM1, 5639-EV1, 5639-RM1, and 5639-CP1) has the same software prerequisites as Storwize V7000 V6.1.
• Hardware requirements: This program requires at least one Storwize V7000 control enclosure (2076-112, 2076-124, 2076-312, or 2076-324) for installation.

Planned availability date
June 15, 2012