IBM XIV Storage System
The IBM XIV Storage System is a high-end, flash-optimized, fully scalable enterprise disk storage system that is based on a grid of standard, off-the-shelf hardware components. The enterprise-class business enabler is designed around a self-healing, data protected cloud-centric foundation ideal for public, private, or hybrid clouds.
XIV cloud economics provide world-class business continuity for applications that require zero tolerance downtime. Its predictable, consistent, high performance design allows organizations to take control of their storage, and gain business insights from their data. The architecture of the system is designed to deliver performance, scalability, and ease of management while harnessing the high capacity and cost benefits of serial-attached SCSI (SAS) drives.
Optional IBM Real-time Compression technology helps reduce the amount of physical storage that is required in your environment. You can reuse free space in the existing storage without archiving or deleting data.
This chapter includes the following sections:
7.1 Product overview
IBM XIV is a high-end, grid-scale storage system that stands out for tuning-free high performance, extreme ease of use, and excellent data economics including inline, field-proven IBM Real-time Compression. XIV is ideal for cloud. It offers high service levels for dynamic workloads, easy hyper-scaling including in multi-tenant environments, and flexible consumption models, as well as robust cloud automation and orchestration through OpenStack, RESTful API, and VMware. It offers security and data protection through advanced mirroring, hot encryption and self-healing, and XIV storage abstraction through vSphere Storage APIs for Storage Awareness (VASA) 2.0 support. Industry benchmarks underscore stellar XIV performance and cost benefits.
Built with IBM Spectrum Accelerate, IBM XIV offers unified management and operational agility across your data center and hybrid clouds. For more information about IBM Spectrum Accelerate, see 2.3.2, “IBM Spectrum Accelerate” on page 35.
7.1.1 XIV models
The XIV Gen3 Storage System family consists of two machine types and two models:
•XIV Storage System Gen3 Model 214
•XIV Storage System Gen3 Model 2810/ 2812- 314
XIV Model 214
The XIV Storage System Gen3 Model 214 shares all of the concepts and software architecture of its predecessor Model 114. The primary hardware component upgrades to the previous model are in the following areas:
•Interface and data modules:
 – Processor
 – Memory
 – Power Supply Unit
 – 1 TB, 2 TB, 3 TB, 4 TB, and 6 TB SAS self-encrypting drives (SEDs)
 – 400 GB flash drive cache option or 800 GB flash drive with 4 TB configurations
•Interface modules:
 – Two-port 10 GbE adapter
•Software:
 – IBM XIV software version 11.5
XIV Model 314
IBM XIV Storage System Model 314 is the latest addition to the XIV family. It is a hardware-enhanced XIV Gen3 storage system that is targeted for customers requesting high utilization of XIV IBM Real-time Compression without performance degradation. It has these improvements:
•Compared to Model 214, its compressed capacity is now up to five times larger.
•On compressed workloads, performance sees an improvement of 50% or more (with IBM XIV software version 11.6.1). It can also compress smaller volumes.
•The Real-time Compression feature is included in the IBM XIV license, and the feature is enabled by default.
7.1.2 Did you know?
IBM XIV provides the following advantages:
•IBM XIV has one of the fastest rebuild times in the storage industry.
•IBM XIV has all functions and features included and supporting software at no extra cost, such as remote mirroring, snapshots, encryption, and VMware integration.
•IBM XIV Gen3 offers industry-standard data at rest encryption while avoiding the performance impact of SED. Encryption can be turned on non-disruptively at any time.
•IBM XIV self-optimizes automatically upon changes in the hardware configuration, such as the addition of modules or replacement of modules upon failure.
•Capacity on Demand (CoD) configurations of XIV Storage Systems are available to provide a method to quickly provision new physical storage and can be ordered at any of the valid partially populated capacities
•The IBM XIV Gen3 Model 314 has the following features:
 – A compression feature is enabled by default, with no separate licensing required
 – Dedicates 48 GB of RAM to IBM Real-time Compression
 – The user configurable max_soft_size can be up to 2 PB
 – The total number of compressed volumes and snapshots is increased to 1024
 
The IBM XIV Storage System is designed to be a scalable enterprise storage system based on a grid array of hardware components.
It is an innovative, high-end, open disk system series that is designed to support business requirements for a highly available information infrastructure. XIV architecture is a grid of standard Intel and Linux components connected in any-to-any topology. This architecture is designed to support enterprise-class reliability, performance, scalability, and energy efficiency.
Figure 7-1 shows the XIV GUI with the front view of the XIV Gen3 system.
Figure 7-1 BM XIV Management GUI System view
7.1.3 Core features
The XIV design has the following features:
•Workload balancing. The workload is evenly distributed over all hardware components at all times. All disks and modules are used equally, regardless of access patterns. Pseudo-random distribution ensures consistent load-balancing even after adding, deleting, or resizing volumes, as well as adding or removing hardware. This balancing of all data on all system components eliminates the possibility of a hotspot being created.
•True virtualization. Unlike other system architectures, storage virtualization is inherent to the basic principles of the XIV Storage System design. Physical drives and their locations are hidden from the user, which dramatically simplifies storage configuration. The automatic layout maximizes the system’s performance by using system resources for each volume, regardless of the user’s access patterns. With the XIV, you no longer decide or plan which type of data protection to use for storing data or plan how many drives you need to dedicate for a specific application. You just have to allocate the needed storage capacity, and the system does the rest. Storage administrators can respond to growing storage needs in minutes instead of the hours or days required with traditional storage systems.
•Ease of management. Ease of management that goes below the surface, with a virtualized architecture, highly intuitive Management GUI, and clever implementation of role-based management all add up to create a streamlined user experience with less administration.
•Fast rebuild. The XIV rebuild times are fast because it keeps track of what blocks contain data and only rebuilds these blocks. This approach results in rebuild times of less than an hour for a 6 TB drive failure, when the XIV is 100% utilized.
7.1.4 Storage efficiency
The following XIV characteristics contribute to storage efficiency
•Real-time Compression. The Real-time Compression engine used in the XIV has been field-proven for several years. For Model 214, a separate license is required for Real-time Compression. For Model 314, Real-time Compression is enabled by default and does not require an additional license.
The XIV Storage software V11.6 and higher includes a comprestimator utility that provides specific compression predictions for workloads. Using compression with XIV results in much higher data density, reducing the storage system total cost of ownership (TCO). The compression feature can be applied with a single click to an existing volume if the system predicts a good compression ratio by using its built-in estimator. There is no need to schedule compression or to schedule conversions between compressed/uncompressed states.
•Efficient capacity usage. Capacity utilization functionality, including space-reclamation for virtualized environments, space-efficient snapshots, and advanced thin provisioning, helps support savings in capacity and cost with fewer administration requirements.
•High-density storage. Enterprise-class, high-density SAS disk drives create increased physical space efficiencies. Using 6 TB drives, XIV Gen3 provides up to 485 TB usable capacity in a single rack. The ability to store so much data in one system with fewer, large capacity drives, and the use of multi-core processors, can help to reduce power and cooling expenses for a more energy efficient solution.
7.1.5 Why XIV is ideal for cloud
IBM XIV Cloud Storage for Service Providers (or client hosted cloud solutions) require elastic, rapid response, and generate dynamic demand that is met with IBM XIV’s 485 TB linear scalability and immediate and automatic redistribution, without interruption, of added capacity. The grid design stripes data across all modules and disks, incorporating data redundancy.
IBM XIV is prepared for the cloud with VMware, OpenStack, and IBM SoftLayer Cloud. It has these characteristics:
•Capacity: Up to 2 PB of effective capacity per system and 288 PB with hyper- scale management of 144 systems. XIV dramatically reduces total cost of ownership by increasing the effective capacity while providing cost savings on physical space, power consumption, and related administrative costs.
•Predictability: Grid architecture that supports SLAs through optimal resource sharing and high I/O predictability without the need for complex analysis or performance tuning.
•Simplicity: Autonomic data distribution, tuning-free high performance, easy capacity planning, and multi-tenant administration; acquisition flexibility; no hidden costs
•Resiliency: Grid redundancy; fast disk rebuilds; uninterrupted data access; data-at-rest encryption
•IBM XIV integrates with VMware vRealize Suite. This functionality is available to all IBM XIV releases through the IBM Spectrum Control Base Edition version 2.1. It is available for no additional charge and enables VASA, VMware vSphere Web Client, vCenter Orchestrator (vCO), vCenter Operations Manager (vCOps), and VMware vCloud Automation Center (vCAC). VMware Virtual Volumes (VVOLs) is designed to enable upcoming VMware vSphere environments to easily automate IBM XIV provisioning, offload snapshots and cloning, and instantly reclaim space. The IBM Spectrum Control Base Edition version 2.1 delivers a range of IBM storage integration services in cloud-based architectures that provide provisioning, automation, and monitoring. For more information, see XIV Storage System in a VMware Environment, REDP-4965.
•IBM XIV can automate storage discovery and provisioning in OpenStack environments by using OpenStack Cinder integration. To manage the cloud more easily, deploy the IBM Cloud Manager. For more information, see Using XIV in OpenStack Environments, REDP-4971.
•IBM XIV can automate custom storage operation by using the IBM XIV RESTful API. For more information, see Exploring RESTful API Support with XIV, REDP-5064.
•IBM XIV multi-tenancy allows secure isolation into domains of IBM XIV storage resources among numerous tenants, with the ability of setting different quality of service (QoS) levels per domain. It enables the division of storage system administration tasks into logical domains by using role-based permissions. It also enables rapid deployments while also minimizing the need for extensive planning, tuning, or field-upgrades.
•IBM XIV scales storage capacity and performance linearly and can manage up to 144 systems by using IBM Hyper-Scale Manager.
•The IBM XIV Cloud Storage for Service Providers product further empowers users with the flexibility to combine a robust set of base functions with license-per-need features. The ability to pay for functionality when it is required enables cloud providers to tailor services to customer needs even more cost effectively.
•Together with IBM Spectrum Accelerate, IBM XIV can be configured to support disaster recovery in Cloud. See Deploying IBM Spectrum Accelerate on Cloud, REDP-5261.
7.1.6 Security and encryption
IBM XIV storage system addresses the data-at-rest encryption demands.
•Self-encrypting drives: IBM XIV Gen3 Model 314 offers industry-standard data at rest encryption at no extra cost, while avoiding performance impact with SEDs. IBM Security Key Lifecycle Manager is used to manage the security keys. Encryption can be turned on non-disruptively with data initially already on disks. For more information about encryption with IBM XIV, see IBM XIV Security with Data-at-Rest Encryption, REDP-5047.
•Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS): Security enhancements such as auditing of user actions and user interface locking after a predefined period of idle time, allow IBM XIV to meet the requirements that are imposed by PCI DSS.
7.1.7 Management
The highly intuitive IBM XIV Management GUI and built-in management tools make administrative tasks easy and efficient, with little training or expertise required, from provisioning volumes to monitoring multiple systems.
Figure 7-2 is an example of a system view with a module pullout in the IBM XIV Management GUI.
Figure 7-2 Statistics monitor view in IBM XIV Management GUI
XIV includes the following features to aid with management:
•The IBM XIV Management GUI acts as the management console for the storage system. A simple and intuitive GUI enables storage administrators to manage and monitor all system aspects easily, with almost no learning curve.
•The IBM XIV TOP application allows the user to view and monitor performance information for defined volumes and hosts in real time. It can be launched independently or from within the IBM XIV Management GUI.
•The XCLI is a comprehensive command-line interface that allows the user to configure and monitor the IBM XIV Storage System. All the functions available in the IBM XIV Management GUI are also available in the XCLI. It can be used in a shell environment for interactive commands or as part of a script to automate lengthy or complex tasks.
•Performance statistics can be monitored through the IBM XIV Management GUI and XCLI at any time. Monitoring through the IBM XIV Management GUI is easily done by selecting filters.
7.1.8 Monitoring with XIV Storage Management GUI and XCLI
The XIV Storage Management graphical user interface (GUI) and XIV Storage System Command-Line Interface (XCLI) include many features that allow you to monitor the system. These features include monitoring for alerts, events, and failed components.
You can show the health state, alerts, and events for multiple IBM XIV systems from the Systems menu. By selecting the Systems view, you can work with a particular storage system or show All Systems Alerts or All Systems Events for every XIV Storage System that is defined to the GUI. The Systems menu does not offer multiple selections when only one XIV Storage System is defined to the GUI.
The XIV Storage Management GUI allows users to work with alerts across multiple systems, regardless of which XIV Storage System is selected. You can access the alert information regardless of which system you are working with, or which window is displayed.
You can access the Alerts, Events, Statistics, and QoS Performance Class for the currently selected machine from the Monitor menu.
Extensive information and many events are logged by the XIV Storage System. The system captures entries about problems with various levels of severity, including warnings and other informational messages. These messages include information about logins, configuration changes, and the status of attached hosts and paths. All of the collected data can be reviewed in the Events window.
 
References: For information about the extensive XIV performance monitoring features, and the no extra licensing costs “all included” concept, see IBM XIV Storage System Architecture and Implementation, SG24-7659.
7.1.9 IBM Hyper-Scale
IBM Hyper-Scale is a family of growing technologies designed around an innovative approach to storage scalability. IBM Hyper-Scale includes the following features:
•Hyper-Scale Manager, which reduces operational complexity and enhances capacity planning through integrated management for large and multi-site IBM XIV deployments. It enables the IBM XIV Management GUI to access and operate on multiple IBM XIV systems concurrently. It also provides support for the RESTful application programming interface (API). The Hyper-Scale Manager runs on a single instance of a virtual machine server or on several servers.
Figure 7-3 illustrates how the Hyper-Scale Manager allows a storage administrator to work with volumes from multiple systems, in this case to create cross-system snapshots.
Figure 7-3 Hyper-Scale Manager
•Hyper-Scale Mobility, which is a powerful function that allows the user to move volumes between storage systems transparently, with no disruption to host applications. It is only available with Gen3 systems.
•Hyper-Scale Consistency, which with cross system consistency (or snapshot) groups enables a coordinated creation of snapshots for inter-dependent consistency groups on multiple systems. This feature is available only through the IBM Hyper-Scale Manager.
7.1.10 Business continuity
The IBM XIV Storage System provides a rich set of copy services functions suited for various data protection scenarios, and enables clients to enhance their business continuance and data migration capabilities:
•Synchronous mirroring is a data replication solution to use between two storage systems that achieves a recovery point objective (RPO) of zero with a distance of less than 100 km. In synchronous mirroring, a host write operation is completed on both the local and remote sites before an acknowledgement is returned to the host. Synchronous mirroring ensures local and remote always have the same copy of data for a zero RPO.
•Asynchronous mirroring is designed for a non-zero RPO at greater distances. Consistent sets of data are copied to the remote location at predefined intervals, whereas the host writes are acknowledged after they are written on the local site.
•Three-site (or 3-way) mirroring is a star topology multi-target disaster recovery solution. It utilizes proven, efficient IBM XIV technology with synchronous and asynchronous mirroring. This option is only available with Gen3 systems.
•IBM XIV data migration is a seamless data transfer tool for migrating data from another source system by simulating host behavior. It synchronizes data between the two storage systems by using transparent copying to the IBM XIV Storage System as a background process. It requires only a short outage on the host side to switch LUN ownership to the IBM XIV and begin the migration process.
7.1.11 Scalability and performance
IBM XIV Storage System is a scalable enterprise storage system based on a grid array of hardware components. The architecture offers the highest performance through maximized and balanced utilization of all disks, distributed cache implementation, and exceptional performance characteristics. It provides these advantages:
•Massive parallelism: With the grid architecture, the system ensures full usage of all system components. All volumes are spread across all spindles in the system. The system harnesses all storage capacity and all internal bandwidth. It takes advantage of all available processing power for host-initiated I/O activity and system-initiated activity, such as rebuild processes and snapshot generation.
•Processing power: The IBM XIV Storage System open architecture uses the latest processor technologies and is more scalable than solutions that are based on a closed architecture. The IBM XIV Storage System avoids sacrificing the performance of one volume over another, and therefore requires little to no tuning.
•Innovative cache memory: Up to 720 GB of total system cache with flexible and powerful cache implementation allows the IBM XIV system to use large slots for reads and pre-fetched data while enabling it to manage a smaller slot size for improved cache management and better performance.
•Flash Cache (optional): For ultra-high performance needs, IBM XIV Gen3 optionally offers up to 12 TB of management-free Flash Caching available to all system data. The flash caching option can be installed non-disruptively and can provide up to a 90% reduction in I/O latency for random read workloads with block size up to 64 KB. Operating with advanced flash algorithms, the latest IBM XIV Gen3 components help meet requirements for extremely high performance workloads.
•Enhanced connectivity: IBM XIV Gen3 offers multiple active/active IO interfaces with improved host connectivity with up to twenty-four 8 Gb FC ports and up to twelve 10 Gb Ethernet ports or twenty-two 1 Gb Ethernet ports for connecting to iSCSI-attached hosts.
7.1.12 Availability and serviceability
The IBM XIV Storage System maximizes continuous operation and minimizes the performance degradation that is associated with non-disruptive planned and unplanned events, while also providing the capability to preserve the data during a disaster. It provides these features:
•Self-healing and self-tuning allow disk failure to be taken care of by an efficient rebuild process that brings the system back to full redundancy in minutes. In addition, the IBM XIV Storage System extends the self-healing concept, resuming redundancy even after failures in components other than disks, or upon changes in the hardware configuration, such as the addition of modules.
•The rapid restoration of redundant data across all available drives and modules in the system during hardware failures and the automatic redistribution of data across all newly installed hardware are fundamental characteristics of the IBM XIV Storage System architecture.
•IBM XIV Storage System dynamically maintains the pseudo-random distribution of data across all modules and disks while ensuring that two copies of data always exist when the system reports Full Redundancy. When a disk drive or a module fails, the IBM XIV data distribution algorithms automatically identify the non-redundant partitions. The system then begins to make copies of just those non-redundant partitions and places this data in reserved areas of the disk drives that exist for just this circumstance.
•Non-Disruptive Code Load (NDCL) enables upgrades to the IBM XIV Storage System software from a current version to a later version without disrupting the application service.
•The provision within the IBM XIV Storage System to efficiently and flexibly create snapshots, coupled with the ability to define consistency groups of volumes, are integral elements of the data preservation strategy. In addition, the IBM XIV Storage System data mirroring functionality facilitates excellent recovery point and recovery time objectives as a central element of the full disaster recovery plan.
7.2 IBM Real-time Compression on the IBM XIV Storage System
Continued data growth and economic pressures are driving the rapid adoption of data reduction technologies. Although much of the attention regarding data reduction has focused on backup, many businesses are applying data reduction throughout the entire data lifecycle.
Traditionally, data deduplication was generally used with highly redundant data sets found in backup-to-disk, virtual tape, and physical tape library applications. Data deduplication can provide an acceptable solution for sequential access workloads that are less sensitive to performance. However, it has limited use cases, and delivers savings in areas such as virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) and backup.
Other data that is not repetitive by nature does not typically benefit from deduplication savings. Therefore, it cannot meet the demanding performance requirements of primary storage for random-access, high transaction volumes, and high throughput.
Compression is suitable for most enterprise workloads and use-cases. It is the most common form of data reduction technology for backups and backups to disk, and might be the most common data reduction technology in disk-based systems.
IBM Real-time Compression Software that is embedded in IBM XIV Storage System addresses all the requirements of primary storage data reduction, including performance. It does so by using a purpose-built technology called IBM Real-time Compression.
Companies need to reduce data and maintain performance, which can be challenging with traditional compression methods.
Using IBM Real-time Compression provides an innovative approach that is designed to overcome these challenges.
7.2.1 IBM Real-time Compression with XIV
IBM Real-time Compression with the IBM XIV Storage System Gen3 effectively and efficiently answers a key requirement that typically challenges traditional approaches to capacity compression. It reduces capacity while maintaining high performance of the storage system. Using IBM Real-time Compression reduces the amount of physical storage that is required in your environment. You can reuse free space in the existing storage without archiving or deleting data.
IBM Real-time Compression provides the following benefits:
•It delivers substantial savings across a versatile range of enterprise workloads.
•It uses the IBM Random Access Compression Engine (RACE) technology, which was purpose-built for real-life primary application workloads. IBM Real-time Compression takes advantage of data temporal locality to maximize data savings and system performance.
It is related to the effect of reading in the same (or similar) order to the write order, and is one of the unique RACE technology core pillars (for a detailed explanation of data temporal locality). RACE enables a larger number of read I/Os to be served from cache, potentially resulting in faster application response time.
•It is easy to use. An administrator simply selects a Compressed check box when creating a new compressed volume. For an existing volume, the system can display an accurate estimation of potential compression savings in the XIV GUI.
•Being able to easily assess potential savings before compressing existing data facilitates deployment of IBM Real-time Compression in existing environments. Furthermore, nondisruptive compression, or alternatively, conversion of uncompressed volumes to compressed volumes (and vice versa) for existing volumes can provide an easy way to reclaim capacity and accelerate return on investment (ROI).
•It benefits from the XIV architecture because evenly distributed compression load across system resources increases performance and efficiency.
•It benefits from the XIV scaling of performance and the amount of system resources that can be allocated to IBM Real-time Compression.
•It works with primary active data. Due to the system’s ability to preserve high performance consistency with compression, IBM Real-time Compression can be used with active primary data. Therefore, it supports workloads that are not candidates for compression in other solutions, and also supports compression of existing data.
Various configuration items affect the performance of compression on the system. To attain high compression ratios and performance, consider the following guidelines:
•If you have only a small number (10 - 20) of compressed volumes, configure them on one I/O group and do not split compressed volumes between different I/O groups.
•For larger numbers of compressed volumes on systems with more than one I/O group, distribute compressed volumes across I/O groups to ensure that access to these volumes is evenly distributed among the I/O groups.
•Identify and use compressible data only. Different data types have different compression ratios, and it is important to determine the ratio of the data that is currently on your system. You can use tools that estimate the compressible data or use commonly known ratios for common applications and data types. Storing these data types on compressed volumes saves disk capacity and improves the benefit of using compression on your system. Table 7-1 shows the compression ratio for common applications and data types.
Table 7-1 Compression ratios for different data types
Data Types/Applications
Compression Ratios
Databases
Up to 80%
Server or Desktop Virtualization
Up to 75%
Engineering Data
Up to 70%
Email
Up to 80%
IBM Real-time Compression uses the reliable, field-proven, and patented IBM RACE technology to achieve a valuable combination of high performance and compression efficiencies:
•It can lower the effective capacity requirements of a volume to 1/5 of the uncompressed capacity.
•No additional hardware is required to use IBM Real-time Compression.
•It can reduce cost for software that is licensed by capacity because less physical storage is required for compressed data.
•It can provide operational expense (OPEX) benefits because it requires no changes to the existing storage environment. It is fully integrated into XIV Gen3 version 11.6, and allows for nondisruptive compression of volumes.
•It can be enabled without changing your existing storage environment (applications, hosts, networks, fabrics, or external storage systems). The solution is not apparent to hosts, so users and applications continue to work as-is.
•Compression occurs within the XIV system itself. The conversion from non-compressed to compressed is inline and does not require downtime.
•Compressed volumes provide an equivalent level of availability as regular volumes. Compression can be implemented into an existing environment without an impact to service. The exception is mirroring, which must be temporarily stopped while volumes are converted. Existing data can be compressed transparently while still being accessed by users and applications.
•Compressed volumes can be mirrored, minimizing requirements for replication bandwidth and capacity requirements on the target system, and correspondingly maximizing system performance due to the reduction of data to transfer.
Remote volume copies are always compressed if the source is compressed. This process not only reduces storage requirements, but also uses less bandwidth because the data is transferred compressed. Mirroring and Hyper-Scale Mobility are faster and require less bandwidth because less data is transferred.
7.2.2 Common use cases
Compression savings are different on every data set. Some data sets can be compressed more than others, resulting in higher capacity savings. For example, image and video data, except for lossless types, are usually already compressed. Therefore IBM Real-time Compression might not provide more savings for these data types.
This section addresses the most common use cases for implementing compression:
•General-purpose volumes
•Databases
•Virtualized infrastructures
 
Understanding compression rates, ratios, and savings: To clarify the meaning of the terms compression ratio, compression savings rate, and compression savings, consider a use case where the original data physical capacity before compression was 100 TB, and the physical data capacity after compression is 40 TB.
The following values help to clarify these terms:
•Compression rate = 60%
•Compression savings rate = 60%
•Compression savings = 60 TB
•Compression ratio = original size (100 TB) divided by the size on disk after compression (40 TB) = 2.5:1
When you consider savings, it is easiest to use the compression rate.
The compression ratio helps in understanding how much effective data you can store on your system. So, when you have a 2.5:1 compression ratio, you will be able to store 250 TB of data on 100 TB of physical capacity.
Figure 7-4 shows typical capacity savings with IBM Real-time Compression.
Figure 7-4 Typical capacity savings with IBM Real-time Compression
These websites are also relevant as further information sources:
•IBM XIV Storage System documentation
•IBM XIV Real-time Compression Evaluation User Guide
Also, see the following publications:
•Implementing IBM Real-time Compression on the IBM XIV Storage System, REDP-5216
•IBM Real Time Compression with IBM XIV Storage System Model 314, REDP-5306
7.3 Architecture and key components
The IBM XIV Storage System Gen3 provides several architectural design factors that contribute to its unique operational capabilities. The IBM XIV Storage System is composed of these physical components (numbers correspond to those in Figure 7-5 on page 172):
•IBM XIV storage system is delivered in a standard IBM T42 rack, fully cabled for 15 modules, even if a partially populated rack is ordered.
•The hardware of the Interface Modules [1] and Data Modules [2] in the IBM XIV Storage SystemGen3 is based on an Intel server platform optimized for data storage
•A patch panel [3] at the rear of the rack is used for connecting the IBM XIV Storage System to the customer’s network. The Fibre Channel ports on the Interface Modules are connected to the patch panel by using 50-micron cables. All external connections must be made through the patch panel. In addition to the host connections and to the network connections, more ports are available on the patch panel for service connections. [4]
•An Automatic Transfer Switch (ATS) [5] allows the IBM XIV Storage System to attach to two independent power sources to protect against loss of customer utility power. During an external power failure, the ATS automatically transfers the load to the redundant power supply.
•The IBM XIV Storage System has three internal Uninterruptible Power Supplies (UPSs) [6] that are used as cache batteries, so the data in cache always will be written down to disk during a power outage. Two of these UPSs are enough to maintain cache battery power availability. This redundant design is n+1 because the IBM XIV Storage System has one redundant UPS. The UPS complex has enough battery reserves to sustain two emergency power shutdowns.
•The 1U Maintenance Module [7] and the modem, which are installed in the middle of the rack, are used for IBM XIV Storage System support and for the IBM personnel to maintain and repair the system. This device is only used to gain remote access to the IBM XIV System through the modem for support personnel.
•The IBM XIV Storage System utilizes redundant InfiniBand switches [8] for communications between the interface and data modules. Each InfiniBand switch contains 36 ports that have 40-Gbps full bidirectional bandwidth per port. The switches are powered by redundant power supplies and fan modules to eliminate any single point of failure.
Figure 7-5 illustrates these physical components.
Figure 7-5 The physical components of an IBM XIV Storage System
7.3.1 Configuration
The rack specifications for capacity, connectivity, system resources, and power usage can be found in Figure 7-6. Note, the specifications differ based on the number of modules in the system, and the size of the disk drives it contains.
Figure 7-6 IBM XIV Gen3 rack configuration
Some of the configurations that are shown in Figure 7-6 include the following items:
•Partially populated configurations of 6, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, or 14 modules, allowing for more granularity of capacity options. Modules can be added as capacity needs increase up to 15 modules. For these configurations, some of the interface modules are not available. Those are labeled as disabled in Figure 7-6.
 
Note: The first column of configuration in Figure 7-6 is applicable to Model 214, not to Model 314. Model 314 starts with a nine module configuration.
•A fully populated rack contains nine data modules and six interface modules for a total of 15 modules. The total usable capacity is 161 TB for a complete system when equipped with 2 TB drives, 243 TB of usable capacity when fully populated with 3 TB drives, 325 TB of usable capacity when fully populated with 4 TB drives, and 485 TB of usable capacity when fully populated with 6 TB.
•Fully and partially populated systems can be configured with either 1 or 10 Gbps iSCSI ports. The number of ports available for the 1 Gbps option is 6 - 22. The number of 10 Gbps ports ranges is 4-12 per system.
•For Model 214, the memory option for fully and partially populated systems is 24 GB per module for systems configured with 1, 2, or 3 TB drives, and 48 GB per module for 4 or 6 TB drives. For Model 314, the memory for fully and partially populated systems is 96 GB per module for systems configured with 4 or 6 TB drives, and 48 GB of the 96 GB RAM is dedicated to Real-time Compression. Figure 7-7 specifies XIV Storage Systems detailed configuration.
Figure 7-7 Detailed Model 214 and Model 314 specification
7.3.2 Configuration options
The IBM XIV Storage System can be purchased with different options. Here are some highlights:
•Flash Cache is an optional feature available for IBM XIV Gen3 systems. The system can be equipped with 400 GB of flash cache for every module. In addition, the IBM XIV Gen3 systems with 4 TB or 6 TB drives can be equipped with 400 GB or 800 GB flash cache for every module. For Model 314, 800 GB flash cache is used regardless of the capacity of hard disks used.
•IBM XIV Cloud Storage for Service Providers offers an innovative pay-per-need scalability matrix. The offer empowers cloud providers to cater to tenant requirements with extreme ease, and efficiency through flexible software licensing. See announcement letter ENUS214-173 at the following link:
•Advanced system placement is a pay-as-you-go program that lets an organization purchase the IBM XIV Storage System for a fraction of the price upon installation. When the system reaches a predetermined capacity threshold, the client will be charged for the full balance of the system and will be able to acquire the next system for $1. This program is designed for rapidly growing environments.
•Capacity on demand is a program that is designed to help organizations with less aggressive growth projections. A Gen3 system can be ordered with a certain amount of authorized storage capacity along with extra capacity that is not intended for initial use. The extra capacity will be purchased as needed when allocated to a storage pool.
7.3.3 Warranty info and upgrades
IBM XIV Storage System Model 314 Device Type 2812 and Device Type 2810 offer a flexible warranty choice. Device Type 2812 supports a 3-year warranty to complement the 1-year warranty offered by the functionally equivalent Device Type 2810. The warranties offer these benefits:
•Technical Advisors (TAs) are available with the initial warranty and for an extra fee after the warranty is up. The TA will support the initial installation and updates of the IBM XIV Storage System. The TA will also enhance end to end support by being a client advocate to proactively manage problem resolution through the support process for hardware.
•Call home and remote support
 – Call home is the capability of the system, when enabled, to send event notifications to the IBM XIV Remote Support Center. This capability enables proactive and failure notifications to be sent directly to IBM for analysis.
 – Remote support enables trained IBM service personnel to connect to the IBM XIV Storage System to analyze a problem, repair it remotely if possible, and assist the onsite IBM service support representative (SSR).
7.4 Related information
For more information, see the following resources:
•IBM XIV Storage System Architecture and Implementation, SG24-7659
•IBM XIV Storage System Business Continuity Functions, SG24-7759
•IBM XIV Gen3 with IBM System Storage SAN Volume Controller and Storwize V7000, REDP-5063
•IBM XIV Storage System: Host Attachment and Interoperability, SG24-7904
•Solid-State Drive Caching in the IBM XIV Storage System, REDP-4842
•IBM XIV and VMware Synergy with IBM Spectrum Control Base Edition, REDP-5131
•XIV Storage System in a VMware Environment, REDP-4965
•IBM XIV Security with Data-at-Rest Encryption, REDP-5047
•IBM Hyper-Scale in XIV Storage, REDP-5053
•IBM XIV Storage System: IBM Hyper-Scale Mobility Overview and Usage, REDP-5007
•IBM XIV Storage System Thin Provisioning and Space Reclamation, REDP-5001
•Using XIV in OpenStack Environments, REDP-4971
•Exploring RESTful API Support with XIV, REDP-5064
•IBM XIV Storage System Multi-Site Mirroring, REDP-5129
•Space Reclamation in IBM XIV with Windows 2012, TIPS1011
•IBM Hyper-Scale: A powerful new approach to scaling storage management (XIV)
•IBM Offering Information page (announcement letters and sales manuals)
 
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