News and Information on IBM’s N series

Do you have older storage on your floor taking up space and is too costly to replace?  Why not use a N series Gateway to help add value to that asset and ‘recycle’ the storage for other uses.  We are all looking for ways to do more with fewer resources and demand on IT keeps getting larger.

N series storage can use older disk subsystems at the same time using its own native disks.  It allows clients to use technology like deduplication, snapshots and thin provisioning with out having to rip and replace your existing footprint.  The Gateway uses the underlying storage structure’s RAID for protection so there is no bloat with additional raid from the gateway itself.

If you have multiple storage units, no problem.  We can connect via Fibre Channel to multiple storage platforms.  This allows us to create teirs of storage for your applications so that slower systems are used for archives and faster systems are used for production data.  Once the gateway is configured, the N series will present data just as if the disk were native.

We also add value for systems that don’t support certain technologies.  For example, if you are interested in moving into 10Gbps networking.  N series is the only platform that supports it at this time.  You could use your storage system that you have now, put a gateway in front of it with a 10Gbps card and voila’.  It is that easy.

Now you don’t have to use older storage appliance behind a gateway, we are using gateways in front of XiV, SVC and DS5k /8k.  Now if you are looking for just Fibre Channel attachment this might not be a good fit but if you are looking for multiprotocol, application integration with Exchange/SQL/Oracle/VMware and the like.  We can use the underlying storage system and make it more productive with the N series portfolio.

Other uses for a Gateway include disaster recovery, archiving, VDI projects, Dev and Test environments and much more.  We see Gateways being used for data migrations, for site to site mirroring and recovery of data centers.

For more information about N series Gateways, check out the IBM site for N series

(formerly known as the IBM System Storage Symposium.)

If you sign up early you get access to both the Storage University and the System X and Blade Center University.  They are at the same time and you can walk from one to other as needed.

There is a ton of information about IBM Storage at this event, if you have never been before, you should atleast take a look at the amount of material that will be covered.

IF your are interested in presenting or would like to know more feel free to reach out to me and I can put you in  contact with our staff.

System Storage Technical University

There is a demo on January 14 that will go over the basics of N series and Data ONTAP, and more.  Here is the description along with the link to sign up.

WHEN: Thursday, January 14th, 10-11:30am CST.
PRESENTED BY: Gary Sewell
REGISTER TODAY!

The topics that will be discussed during this N series presentation are:

1. Simplifying Data Management
2. Storage Efficiency
3. Protecting mission critical business applications (Oracle, Exchange, SQL, VMware & SAP) better than our competitors
4. Most importantly, see how we recover these applications in a matter of minutes!

Welcome back from the holiday season! I am sure some of you worked through the holidays and hopefully most of you had time to spend time with friends and family the past few weeks.  I have been doing some of both, IBM doesn’t shut down for the holidays but I was able to spend more time at home with my family just the same.

As we look forward to the first year of this decade, storage admins are facing new issues with conserving storage.  The footprint is (and has been for some time) getting larger, we are keeping data longer, and everyone wants more space for less money without a performance penalty.  I am sure you seeing similar issues and more in your own data centers, but what are storage vendors doing to help you solve these issues?

If you take a look at your storage plan today, does it match your business plan or a strategic plan?  If your company has a strategic plan in place how can you look at that and gauge the storage plan?  You may not have a plan in place today but that doesn’t have to stop you from looking 6 months ahead.

A couple of factors that can help you put a plan together.

1.  Where is your data today?  Clients are always looking to put the right data on the right system.  Look for the benefits of both hardware (cache, processor, HBA, NICs) and software (snapshots, mirroring, data locking) to match a data type to the system.  Does your Windows File server really need to run over the Fibre Channel SAN?

2.  Is it on the right disk type or speed?  Different disk types have different disk I/O measurements.  Look at how your SATA vs FC vs SAS drives match the data set.  Are you using high end disk for data that is hardly being used?

3.  Can you be saving space by de-duping your data?  We all multiple copies of the same files out there on storage.  Why keep multiple copies of the same files/blocks if you can de-dupe that data on the storage system itself and free up storage for new data.  Sales people love to sale new storage and help clients add on to their systems but you can extend the time to purchase by condensing the data you already have purchased.

4.  How many systems are you running today? Can you consolidate those into a single platform?   There are pros and cons of moving to a single platform, but instead of running three, think about running two?  If you have multiple file servers, can you consolidate them on the N series system using its CIFS license? or Multi-store?  With it on the storage side, you save money (AV agent license, backup license, OS license) and de-dupe the data so you don’t ‘need’ as much to begin with.

5.  What is your backup/restore/retention schedule?  Do you really need tape? It is 2010, people in 1980 were asking the same question and have been ever since.  Tape still plays a big play in the data center today, but are you relying on it for restores? Whats your restore time?  How reliable is the restore ?

There should be other parts of your plan but these questions should get you started.  Take a different approach and interview other parts of IT like DB admins, developers even those network guys.  Also different parts of the business, accountants, HR, Operations.  You make get a better idea of their needs for the near future.  Take the time to plan out the storage this year and hopefully it will save you not only time and money but a piece of mind as well

There are a few new training classes that IBM is offering and our training partner FastLane.

If you are looking for simple, self paced online training check here

For more traditional classes on N series:

Data ONTAP CIFS and NFS Administration

Supporting IBM N series

Also our training partner Fastlane now has N series training.  Here is an excerpt from their site:

“Fast Lane is now an IBM N series Authorized training partner for the IBM System Storage N series product line. Fast Lane is now offering classroom courses for the entire IBM N series Unified Storage Solutions product line for IBMers, Business Partners and Customers.

In addition to our publicly available courses, Fast Lane can bring these standard courses or customized versions of these courses to your location at your request.”

If you are looking for training these are a good start, and remember you can always take classes at the Netapp University.

Some of you had asked to know when this was released so here it is.  Please, as always take time to read through the release notes and the admin guides to familiarize yourself with the changes.  There are new commands and some have been retired.

A couple of key things for this release:

Support for the EXN 3000 disk shelf

FCoE support

SnapMirror Compression

Port based load balancing option for multimode VIFs

There is a lots of good information in the release notes that a lot of people miss and end up calling support.  Everything in the document is linked so you can quickly move around and find things easily.

7.3.2 Release Notes

7.3.2 Publications

7.3.2 Download

There are MS Exchange admins out there that if you ask them how long does it take to recovery an Exchange server, you will see them shudder over the thought.  And those who are recovering from tape? It gets even worse.  I know there are requirements for tape and there are some that still like putting a tape in a fire proof safe just in case but lets talk about recovery.

Messaging is increasing becoming a top priority in companies around the world.  We use it to communicate latest releases, respond to clients requests, get the scores from last night.  It may not be as important as keeping the SAP database online, but its provides value that is noticed when down.

Not all recoveries are done through swinging the entire data center through the DR strategy.  There are times when we need to restore a mailbox for legal reasons or people asking for certain emails to be brought back from an errand delete.  How quick is your restore at that point?  Can you pull the data off tape quicker than someone can recreate the excel spreadsheet?

With SnapManager for Exchange, we can quickly backup and restore exchange mailboxes.  The same technology that we use for file level snapshots apply to here to a database.  We put the database into a backup mode and take a consistent snapshot of the data with out the end user noticing.  Backups can then be mirrored to another system either at a DR site or just another exchange cluster.  This allows you to have a point in time capture of the data in case you need to restore.

Restores seem to be the more of the headache for most admins.  With the snapshot restore via SnapManger for Exchange, an admin can simple choose which recovery point they want to restore from and they can have the data restore over the production or they can restore to a recovery storage post.  The restore is quick and is intuitive which also cuts down on the overall recovery time.

Here is a quick video of the backup and restore function of SnapManager for Exchange.

I have been asked about the VMware SRM tool a few times  this week and its already Tuesday.  Netapp has published a great demo on you tube that goes through the process of protecting the VMware environment.  SRM allows VMware administrators to automate and test the disaster recovery strategy.

The main question people are asking is how do we know the DR site data is going to work when we really need it.  For most customers I have suggested using the flex clone technology that allows you to clone a volume from a snapshot.  This cloned volume does not take any more space from the N series system which allows you to create multiple copies of the volume if needed.

SRM automates this process of snapmirroring the virtual machines and the creation of the cloned VMs.  Here is a great video of the tool and how it works.

For more information about SMVI, Snapmirror and flexclones, go to the IBM N series page

Event at the NYC Netapp office.  Gain perspective on the business and architectural considerations required to support an end-to-end,
virtualized data center. Learn more about how the IBM N Series Storage uniquely compliments vSphere environments. Understand how the proven technologies such as deduplication, thin provisioning and snapshot can significantly reduce the amount of storage needed in a virtual environment while enhancing performance and streamlining administration.

Sponsered by IBM, Netapp, VMware and Brocade

The Virtualized Dynamic Data Center

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

3:00 Registration
3:30 - 5:30 Virtualized Dynamic Data Center Presentation

Breakout Sessions: Cloud Computing, Brocade,
IBM System X
Wine Tasting Reception

100 Park Avenue, 13th Floor,  New York, New York -

IBM N series Release News 4 of 4

TGIF everyone! Our final installment of the IBM N series release news. I have updated you on the new generation PAM II Cards, SnapManger for Hyper V and today we will discus 10GB Ethernet/FCoE.

Consolidation is a great topic you will find lots of bloggers talking about and we mainly talk about either server consolidation with virtualization or storage consolidation with deduplication or cloning technologies. But now we have the technology to consolidate your network topology into larger pipes using 10GB ethernet.

This idea of moving from a slower network speed like 10 MB to 100MB or 100mb to 1GB has been all based on faster performance and building a bigger pipe to applications. Now that we can push 10GB there is a different idea behind the movement.

The movement comes on the heels of virtualization and ‘Doing more with less’ mentality. No longer are we looking for just faster speed, but we are looking at the cost that we can save by consolidating all of the 1GB links down into a single 10GB link.

I still think most people will recommend two 10GB links to help with high availability but why not use 1 10GB port as a primary and then a few 1GB links teamed (Vifed together) as a backup or failover. This will allow you to utilize the speed and performance with the hit of having to use two 10GB ports on your switch.

Just like the 1GB switches when they arrived on the data center scene, 10GB switches are still expensive. But if you look at history, the cost per port will start to come down after the ‘newness’ of it wears off and more and more people start adapting it as their standard.

IBM N series now supports the 10GB ethernet card with dual ports. This allows you to connect to two different switches or create a 20GB vif. The setup of the 10GB is the same as the 1 GB ehternet ports you have been using for years.

IBM N series is the first storage product (and only as of now) to support FCoE. The FCoE cards do come in two different flavors, fibre or copper ports. They are both setup as target cards and use a PCIe slot.

For more information about IBM Dynamic Infrastructure click here