My library button
  • Book cover of Introduction to Storage Area Networks

    The superabundance of data that is created by today's businesses is making storage a strategic investment priority for companies of all sizes. As storage takes precedence, the following major initiatives emerge: Flatten and converge your network: IBM® takes an open, standards-based approach to implement the latest advances in the flat, converged data center network designs of today. IBM Storage solutions enable clients to deploy a high-speed, low-latency Unified Fabric Architecture. Optimize and automate virtualization: Advanced virtualization awareness reduces the cost and complexity of deploying physical and virtual data center infrastructure. Simplify management: IBM data center networks are easy to deploy, maintain, scale, and virtualize, delivering the foundation of consolidated operations for dynamic infrastructure management. Storage is no longer an afterthought. Too much is at stake. Companies are searching for more ways to efficiently manage expanding volumes of data, and to make that data accessible throughout the enterprise. This demand is propelling the move of storage into the network. Also, the increasing complexity of managing large numbers of storage devices and vast amounts of data is driving greater business value into software and services. With current estimates of the amount of data to be managed and made available increasing at 60% each year, this outlook is where a storage area network (SAN) enters the arena. SANs are the leading storage infrastructure for the global economy of today. SANs offer simplified storage management, scalability, flexibility, and availability; and improved data access, movement, and backup. Welcome to the cognitive era. The smarter data center with the improved economics of IT can be achieved by connecting servers and storage with a high-speed and intelligent network fabric. A smarter data center that hosts IBM Storage solutions can provide an environment that is smarter, faster, greener, open, and easy to manage. This IBM® Redbooks® publication provides an introduction to SAN and Ethernet networking, and how these networks help to achieve a smarter data center. This book is intended for people who are not very familiar with IT, or who are just starting out in the IT world.

  • No image available

    The plethora of data that is created by the businesses of today is making storage a strategic investment priority for companies of all sizes. As storage takes precedence, three major initiatives emerge: Flatten and converge your network IBM takes an open, standards-based approach to implement the latest advances in the flat, converged data center network designs of today. IBM System Networking solutions enable clients to deploy a high-speed, low-latency Unified Fabric Architecture. Optimize and automate virtualization Advanced virtualization awareness reduces the cost and complexity of deploying physical and virtual data center infrastructure. Simplify management IBM data center networks are easy to deploy, maintain, scale, and virtualize, delivering the foundation of consolidated operations for dynamic infrastructure management. Storage is no longer an afterthought. Too much is at stake. Companies are searching for more ways to efficiently manage expanding volumes of data, and to make that data accessible throughout the enterprise. This demand is propelling the move of storage into the network. Also, the increasing complexity of managing a large numbers of storage devices and vast amounts of data is driving greater business value into software and services. With current estimates of the amount of data to be managed and made available increasing at 60 percent each year, this outlook is where a storage area network (SAN) enters the arena. SANs are the leading storage infrastructure for the global economy of today. SANs offer simplified storage management, scalability, flexibility, and availability; and improved data access, movement, and backup. Welcome to the era of Smarter Networking for Smarter Data Centers. The smarter data center with improved economics of IT can be achieved by connecting servers and storage with a high-speed and intelligent network fabric. A smarter data center that hosts IBM System Networking solutions can provide an environment that is smarter, faster, greener, open, and easy to manage. This IBM Redbooks® publication provides an introduction to the SAN and Ethernet networking, and how these networks help to achieve a smarter data center. This book is intended for people who are not very familiar with IT, or who are just starting out in the IT world. For more information, and a deeper dive into the SAN world, you might find the following Redbooks publications especially useful to expand your SAN knowledge: Implementing a ...

  • Book cover of IBM System Storage DS5000 Series Hardware Guide

    This IBM® Redbooks® publication consolidates, in one document, detailed descriptions of the hardware configurations and options offered as part of the IBM System Storage DS5000 families of products. This edition covers updates and additional functions available with the IBM System Storage DS® Storage Manager Version 10.77 (firmware level 7.77). This book presents the concepts and functions used in planning and managing the storage servers, such as multipathing and path failover. The book offers a step-by-step guide to using the Storage Manager to create arrays, logical drives, and other basic (as well as advanced) management tasks. This publication also contains practical information about diagnostics and troubleshooting, and includes practical examples of how to use scripts and the command-line interface. This publication is intended for customers, IBM Business Partners, and IBM technical professionals who want to learn more about the capabilities and advanced functions of the DS5000 series of storage servers with Storage Manager Software V10.77. It also targets those who have a DS5000 storage subsystem and need detailed advice about how to configure it. This book is designed specifically to address the hardware features and configuration of the IBM System Storage DS5000 family and can be used in conjunction with the following IBM Redbooks publications: IBM System Storage DS5000 Series Implementation and Best Practices Guide, SG24-8024 IBM System Storage DS Storage Manager Copy Services Guide, SG24-7822

  • Book cover of Introduction to Storage Area Networks
  • Book cover of IBM System Storage DS5000 Series Implementation and Best Practices Guide

    This IBM® Redbooks® publication represents a compilation of best practices for deploying and configuring the IBM System Storage® DS5000 Series family of products. This book is intended for IBM technical professionals, Business Partners, and customers responsible for the planning, deployment, and maintenance of the IBM System Storage DS5000 Series family of products. We realize that setting up DS5000 Storage Servers can be a complex task. There is no single configuration that will be satisfactory for every application or situation. First, we provide a conceptual framework for understanding the hardware in a Storage Area Network. Then, we offer our guidelines, hints, and tips for the physical installation, cabling, and zoning, using the Storage Manager setup tasks. Next, we provide a quick guide to help you install and configure the DS5000 using best practices. After that, we turn our attention to the performance and tuning of various components and features, including numerous guidelines. We look at performance implications for various application products such as IBM DB2®, Oracle, IBM Tivoli® Storage Manager, Microsoft SQL server, and in particular, Microsoft Exchange server. Then we review the various tools available to simulate workloads and to measure, collect, and analyze performance data. We also consider the IBM AIX® environment, including IBM High Availability Cluster Multiprocessing (HACMPTM) and IBM General Parallel File System (GPFSTM). This edition of the book also includes guidelines for managing and using the DS5000 with the IBM System Storage SAN Volume Controller (SVC) and IBM Storwize® V7000.

  • Book cover of IBM SAN Volume Controller 2145-DH8 Introduction and Implementation

    Data is the new currency of business, the most critical asset of the modern organization. In fact, enterprises that can gain business insights from their data are twice as likely to outperform their competitors; yet, 72 percent of them have not started or are only planning big data activities. In addition, organizations often spend too much money and time managing where their data is stored. The average firm purchases 24% more storage every year, but uses less than half of the capacity it already has. A member of the IBM® Storwize® family, IBM SAN Volume Controller (SVC) Data Platform is a storage virtualization system that enables a single point of control for storage resources to help support improved business application availability and greater resource utilization. The objective is to manage storage resources in your IT infrastructure and to make sure they are used to the advantage of your business, and do it quickly, efficiently, and in real time, while avoiding increases in administrative costs. Virtualizing storage with SVC Data Platform helps make new and existing storage more effective. SVC Data Platform includes many functions traditionally deployed separately in disk systems. By including these in a virtualization system, SVC Data Platform standardizes functions across virtualized storage for greater flexibility and potentially lower costs. SVC Data Platform functions benefit all virtualized storage. For example, IBM Easy Tier® optimizes use of flash storage. And IBM Real-time CompressionTM enhances efficiency even further by enabling the storage of up to five times as much active primary data in the same physical disk space. Finally, high-performance thin provisioning helps automate provisioning. These benefits can help extend the useful life of existing storage assets, reducing costs. Integrating these functions into SVC Data Platform also means that they are designed to operate smoothly together, reducing management effort. In this IBM Redbooks® publication, we discuss the latest features and functions of the SVC 2145-DH8 and software version 7.3, implementation, architectural improvements, and Easy Tier.

  • No image available

    The superabundance of data that is created by today's businesses is making storage a strategic investment priority for companies of all sizes. Companies are searching for more ways to efficiently manage expanding volumes of data, and to make that data accessible throughout the enterprise. This demand is propelling the move of storage into the network. The smarter data center with the improved economics of IT can be achieved by connecting servers and storage with a high-speed and intelligent network fabric. A smarter data center that hosts IBM Storage solutions can provide an environment that is smarter, faster, greener, open, and easy to manage. This book provides an introduction to SAN and Ethernet networking, and how these networks help to achieve a smarter data center. --

  • No image available

    Abstract This IBM® Redbooks publication is a detailed technical guide to the IBM System Storage® SAN Volume Controller, which is powered by IBM Spectrum Virtualize V8.1. IBM SAN Volume Controller is a virtualization appliance solution that maps virtualized volumes that are visible to hosts and applications to physical volumes on storage devices. Each server within the storage area network (SAN) has its own set of virtual storage addresses that are mapped to physical addresses. If the physical addresses change, the server continues running by using the same virtual addresses that it had before. Therefore, volumes or storage can be added or moved while the server is still running. The IBM virtualization technology improves the management of information at the "block" level in a network, which enables applications and servers to share storage devices on a network.

  • No image available

  • No image available

    IBM® offers storage solutions that address the key needs of storage efficiency and data protection and retention. This IBM Redbooks® publication shows that IBM has the technology, products, and services to help keep your storage systems enabled and your business flourishing. The information presented is structured as follows: Storage efficiency: - Virtualization - Tiering ?- Thin provisioning ?- Flexible delivery ?- Compression ?- Deduplication - Visibility Data protection: ?- Backup and restore ?- Continuous operations ?- Retention and compliance This book has been written for those most concerned about efficient, protected, and available data, along with maintaining their IT environment at a competitive price. The audience for this book is that of IT professionals, such as CEOs, CIOs, CFOs, practitioners, information architects, and current and prospective IBM clients and Business Partners.