IBM Storwize Family Software V7.4.0 Enhanced

IBM Storwize Family Software V7.4 provides software-defined storage capabilities across platforms including SAN Volume Controller, Storwize V7000 (Unified), Storwize V5000, Storwize V3700, and Storwize V3500.

These offerings help customers reduce
complexities and cost of managing their storage by:

Centralizing management of storage volumes to enable administrators to manage storage volumes from a single point
Improving utilization of storage capacity with virtual volumes to enable businesses to tap into previously unused disk capacity
Avoiding downtime for backups, maintenance, and upgrades
Performing data migration without disruption to applications
Enabling all storage devices to be organized into storage pools from which virtual volumes, whether standard, compressed, or thin-provisioned, are created with the desired characteristics
Delivering automation of storage management with SmartCloud Virtual Storage Center, Tivoli Storage Productivity Center (as applicable by platform), and Tivoli Storage FlashCopy Manager (as applicable by platform)
Increasing the performance efficiency of storage pools with Easy Tier
Restoring data access quickly with near and remote copy capabilities across FC, FCoE, and IP networks

Storwize Family Software V7.4 improves storage efficiency with the ability to run two instances of the Real-time Compression engine, and with global mirror covering greater replication distances by increasing the round-trip latency tolerance on the SAN.

There are more ways to safeguard your data by introducing protection information checking in line with the SCSI T10 standard data integrity field (DIF), and an option to stop you from deleting volumes with active I/O. Storwize V7000 (with model 2076-524) users now have the ability to encrypt data at rest on native volumes. SMI-S 1.6 support and NIST 800-131a compliance are also available in this release.

Maintaining Storwize family hardware is easier with a quicker way to replace drives without needing to complete the usual directed maintenance procedure (DMP), and Storwize family software is now compatible with 4KB block sizes in support of larger disk drives in the market.

Software requirements

SAN Volume Controller V7.4 (5641-VC7 and 5641-CP7) has the same software prerequisites as SAN Volume Controller V7.3.
Storwize V7000 V7.4 (5339-CB7, 5639-XB7, 5639-EB7, 5639-VM7, 5639-EV7, 5639-RM7, and 5639-CP7) has the same software prerequisites as Storwize V7000 V7.3.
Storwize Family Software V7.4 is not available for Flex System V7000. Flex System V7000 V7.2 (5639-NZ7, 5639-EX7, 5639-RE7, and 5639-CM7) has the same software prerequisites as Flex System V7000 V7.1.
Storwize V5000 V7.4 (5639-CT7, 5639-XT7, and 5639-ET7) has the same software prerequisites as Storwize V5000 V7.3.

Hardware requirements

Storwize Family Software for SAN Volume Controller requires at least one pair of System Storage SAN Volume Controller (2145-DH8) storage engines with integrated battery backup units, or at least one pair of System Storage SAN Volume Controller (2145-CG8, 2145-CF8, 2145-8A4, or 2145-8G4) storage engines with dual uninterruptible power supplies for installation.
Storwize Family Software for Storwize V7000 requires at least one Storwize V7000 Control Enclosure (2076-524, 2076-112, 2076-124, 2076-312, or 2076-324) for installation.
Storwize Family Software V7.4 is not available for the Flex System V7000. Storwize Family Software for Flex System V7000 V7.2 requires at least one Flex System V7000 (4939-A49, 4939-H49, or 4939-X49) Control Enclosure for installation.
Storwize Family Software for Storwize V5000 requires at least one IBM Storwize V5000 control enclosure (2077-12C, 2077-24C, 2078-12C, or 2078-24C) for installation.

Planned availability date

November 28, 2014: Storwize Family Software V7.4
December 12, 2014: Storwize V7000 File Module Software V1.5.1