This chapter introduces the IBM Elastic Storage Server (IBM ESS) and IBM Elastic Storage System (also IBM ESS) solutions. In this chapter, we describe their characteristics, value, how they integrate with IBM Spectrum Scale, and where they fit in today’s business environments.

The latest IBM Elastic Storage Server 3500 is the most innovative system that provides investment protection to expand or build a new Global Data Platform and use current storage. The system allows enhanced, non-disruptive upgrades to grow from flash to hybrid or from hard disk drives (HDDs) to hybrid. IBM ESS can scale up or out with two different storage mediums in the environment, and it is ready for technologies like 200 Gb Ethernet or InfiniBand NDR-200 connectivity.

This chapter also describes some of the software and hardware characteristics of the
IBM ESS, IBM Spectrum Scale RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks) software, and the storage building block concepts of the solution.

This chapter includes the following topics:

The IBM Elastic Storage System and IBM Elastic Storage Server (both referred to as
IBM ESS) are integrated IBM Spectrum Scale storage solutions for high-performance, reliable file, and object storage. Scalable to petabyte levels, they are suitable for analytics, big data, artificial intelligence, and enterprise data ocean requirements. IBM ESS provides scalable storage for IBM Spectrum Scale (see Figure 1-1), which is the IBM parallel clustered file system. The IBM ESS 3000 was released in December 2019. The IBM ESS 3000 is the first of the generation three IBM ESS models. Generation three models starting with the most recent one includes the IBM ESS 3500, IBM ESS 3200, IBM ESS 5000, and IBM ESS 3000. The prior generation of IBM ESS models were released under the product name IBM Elastic Storage Server.

IBM ESS is a pair of cross-connected IBM Spectrum Scale Data Servers, which are deployed in a fully integrated, tested storage building block solution (see Figure 1-2). Instead of hardware-based disk RAID controllers, IBM ESS uses IBM Spectrum Scale RAID, which uses declustered erasure code technology to deliver consistent high performance. This feature mitigates storage drive failures and RAID rebuild overhead.

IBM ESS with IBM Spectrum Scale RAID also provides superior data protection by reducing rebuild times to a fraction of the time that is needed with conventional hardware-based RAID controllers.

Data access to IBM ESS storage is available by using one of the following methods:

The IBM ESS is a software-defined storage (SDS) building block that uses the IBM Spectrum Scale high-performance parallel clustered file system (suitable for petabyte scale data storage).

IBM ESS integrates IBM Spectrum Scale, IBM Storage enclosures, IBM Power servers, or x86 servers (depending on the IBM ESS model) into a complete management and installation software stack. It also provides an integrated tested IBM Spectrum Scale storage building block solution. IBM Service supports IBM ESS as an integrated solution.

An IBM ESS base building block consists of a 1 Gb Ethernet (GbE) network switch, servers for IBM ESS Management nodes and I/O nodes or data server nodes, and I/O storage enclosures. Multiple IBM ESS building blocks can be integrated into an IBM Spectrum Scale cluster.

In this section, we describe how IBM ESS is part of an IBM Spectrum Scale cluster.

Within the IBM Spectrum Scale cluster, IBM ESS is an integrated IBM Spectrum Scale storage building block that reads and writes data for IBM Spectrum Scale users. IBM ESS combines storage hardware with IBM Spectrum Scale software to manage data in storage.

In the following sections, we provide a brief overview of the following topics:

Here, we provide a high-level IBM Spectrum Scale and IBM ESS solution overview. For more information, see Chapter 2, “IBM Elastic Storage System architecture” on page 15.

IBM Spectrum Scale is IBM’s strategic high-performance parallel file system shared storage platform for end-to-end collaborative common enterprise, data platform, big data analytics, and AI workflows (see Figure 1-3).

IBM Spectrum Scale is designed to provide the following major value propositions:

Although multiple types of IBM Spectrum Scale cluster configurations are available, the configuration into which IBM ESS is commonly deployed is the IBM Spectrum Scale Network Shared Disk (NSD) configuration, as shown in Figure 1-4.

IBM ESS is a pair of IBM Spectrum Scale NSD Data Servers, which are configured together as a tested, integrated, highly available (HA), and reliable IBM Spectrum Scale storage building block solution.

As shown in Figure 1-4 on page 5, eight IBM Spectrum Scale nodes are application workstations, servers, or users. Four nodes also are IBM Spectrum Scale data server nodes. The user workstations are running the IBM Spectrum Scale client in this IBM Spectrum Scale configuration. The IBM Spectrum Scale client provides multi-threaded, highly parallel access data on the IBM Spectrum Scale Data Servers, as shown in Figure 1-5.

The IBM Spectrum Scale client achieves high performance by performing simultaneous real-time parallel I/O to all IBM Spectrum Scale data servers and storage volumes and NSDs simultaneously.

An IBM Spectrum Scale cluster can grow by adding nodes, whether they are IBM Spectrum Scale clients or IBM Spectrum Scale data servers, as shown in Figure 1-6.

An IBM Spectrum Scale cluster can provide 1 - 256 logical POSIX file systems to users and workstations. The IBM Spectrum Scale client provides the appearance of a mountable POSIX file system to the applications and users on the workstation where the IBM Spectrum Scale client is installed.

IBM Spectrum Scale users are unaware of the physical distribution of data in the IBM Spectrum Scale data server physical storage pools. The automatically balanced data distribution is seamlessly determined by the IBM Spectrum Scale policy engine at the time that the data is imported. The policy engine can also transparently move data from one storage pool to another storage pool while the data is accessed and active.

The IBM Spectrum Scale parallel file system provides an enterprise capability for data management of large amounts of data, while also performing constant auto-balance of workload and storage by equally distributing I/O and data within a storage pool or among different storage pools.

The preferred method of accessing IBM Spectrum Scale data is to install the IBM Spectrum Scale client on every workstation or server that accesses IBM Spectrum Scale data. The IBM Spectrum Scale client provides the multiple threads and communication with multiple data servers to provide enterprise high-performance parallel throughput. While doing so, IBM Spectrum Scale also manages full read/write data integrity between multiple users who are working with the data in the file system.

Protocol nodes are part of the IBM Spectrum Scale solution. You can access IBM Spectrum Scale data by using SMB, NFS, or object protocols without installing IBM Spectrum Scale software on a node. To provide this access, IBM Spectrum Scale provides the protocol node functions.

The value of protocol nodes is that applications, workstations, and users that do not have the IBM Spectrum Scale client can still access IBM Spectrum Scale data through an SMB, NFS, or object protocol. IBM Spectrum Scale often is used as an enterprise data lake or central enterprise data repository.

Protocol nodes are IBM Spectrum Scale nodes that are designed, configured, and set up to provide the following benefits:

Figure 1-7 shows protocol nodes that were added to the IBM Spectrum Scale cluster.

When IBM Spectrum Scale data is accessed through protocol nodes, the limiting factor on performance is the single-threaded SMB, NFS, or object protocols. These protocols cannot deliver the highly parallelized performance of the IBM Spectrum Scale client. However, the value of accessing the IBM Spectrum Scale data through SMB, NFS, or object protocols is a flexible means for enterprise-wide user access to IBM Spectrum Scale data.

IBM ESS with IBM Spectrum Scale is a pair of IBM Spectrum Scale Data Servers that are cross-configured together into a tested, integrated, HA, and reliable IBM Spectrum Scale storage building block. IBM ESS provides a fully tested, integrated, and supported IBM solution to deploy, manage, and maintain IBM Spectrum Scale data and storage by using a building block approach.

Two IBM ESS models are deployed to provide most of the IBM Spectrum Scale storage, as shown in Figure 1-8.

IBM ESS can coexist with other IBM Spectrum Scale data servers in the same IBM Spectrum Scale cluster. IBM ESS provides a powerful, flexible, fully integrated, and supported option for deploying IBM Spectrum Scale storage in the most efficient manner possible.

An IBM ESS storage building block is designed as a unit of storage expansion for an
IBM Spectrum Scale cluster. If more storage is needed, an IBM ESS I/O enclosure or
IBM ESS building block can be dynamically added to an IBM Spectrum Scale cluster.

To provide high reliability and consistent high performance, IBM ESS runs IBM Spectrum Scale RAID erasure coding, which is designed to maintain high performance even while mitigating performance effects and transparently recovering from storage media or storage data server failures. IBM Spectrum Scale RAID also provides checksum and disk hospital functions to prevent silent data corruption issues and maintain high availability (HA) of petabyte scale file systems.

As part of an IBM ESS order, you also can order more IBM Power servers to use as
IBM Spectrum Scale protocol nodes. These protocol nodes are managed by the IBM ESS solution software stack and the IBM ESS GUI. They also provide a complete, integrated IBM solution for an IBM Spectrum Scale cluster that includes IBM ESS and IBM Spectrum Scale protocol nodes.

For more information about planning for the usage of protocol nodes, see 2.2.8, “Protocol nodes” on page 32.

The following sections describe why the IBM ESS brings added value advantages for deploying IBM Spectrum Scale storage.

Today’s AI and big data applications require large, high-performance, manageable, and flexible storage growth.

The IBM ESS is designed to provide an integrated (see Figure 1-9) and tested IBM Spectrum Scale storage building block that provides this storage growth. Incorporating IBM ESS storage servers flexibly adds to the overall IBM Spectrum Scale capacity, bandwidth, and performance, all within a single global namespace.

As shown in Figure 1-9, IBM ESS is an integrated IBM Spectrum Scale solution that significantly accelerates the time-to-value of deploying IBM Spectrum Scale environments. IBM ESS provides the following benefits:

For more information about the IBM ESS, see the following web pages:

Every part of the IBM ESS solution is engineered to provide high performance and enterprise data availability and reliability, from entry system to petabyte scale.

IBM engineering and testing teams worked cohesively on designing, building, testing, and delivering an end-to-end IBM ESS solution that was integrated and tested for reliability. The complete IBM ESS solution is verified again during manufacturing.

In the deployment stage, IBM ESS-specific tools and scripts are used for deployment. IBM Systems Lab Services are available and recommended to provide installation of the IBM ESS solution and to assist you in integrating IBM ESS into your client environment.

IBM ESS provides optimized storage configurations that include the following benefits:

IBM ESS offers scalability from terabytes to hundreds of petabytes. IBM ESS supports high-speed data networks, including 200 GbE, and Extended Data Rate (EDR) or High Dynamic Range (HDR) InfiniBand. Alternatively or in addition, IBM ESS supports slower speed network access, including 10, 25, and 40 GbE.

IBM ESS uses IBM Spectrum Scale RAID, which is a declustered RAID erasure code technology that recovers from multiple disk failures in minutes, versus hours or days as in older technology. This reduced recovery time gives the IBM ESS solution predictable performance and data protection, 8+2 and 8+3 RAID protection, and platter-to-client data protection.

A high-performance parallel file system environment, such as IBM Spectrum Scale, can run only as fast as its slowest component. IBM ESS that uses IBM Spectrum Scale RAID is designed to provide consistent high performance by masking and mitigating performance effects of storage hardware failures, even if multiple drive failures occur. In this way, IBM ESS assures that the larger IBM Spectrum Scale parallel file system always runs at optimum efficiency and consistently delivers expected high performance, even if storage hardware or media failures occur.

IBM ESS technology deployment methods use Red Hat Ansible driven container orchestration, which results in faster installation, upgrades, and less effort and skills that are required (see Figure 1-10).

As shown in Figure 1-10, IBM ESS provides a fully tested and integrated solution that is composed of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), IBM Spectrum Scale, and IBM ESS integration code. Installation modules are driven by Ansible-driven container orchestration and Ansible playbook bundles (APBs), which create a standard, fast, and manageable mechanism of automated, faster deployment of IBM ESS and IBM Spectrum Scale storage.

The IBM ESS is supported as a solution. Clients who call IBM Service and Support for assistance on IBM ESS and IBM Spectrum Scale RAID receive support from a dedicated IBM team that is cross-trained on all IBM ESS components (hardware and software) for the
IBM ESS solution. This specialized IBM ESS Service and Support team can debug and advise on all aspects of IBM ESS.

If more detailed support is needed by an IBM ESS component, IBM ESS service and support records show and document the problem resolution progress for the overall IBM Service and Support team. The resulting fast time to resolution contributes to the added value of purchasing an integrated, tested IBM Spectrum Scale IBM ESS storage solution from IBM.

For more information about IBM service and support of the IBM ESS, see IBM Elastic Storage System (ESS) Support Reference Guide (IBMid log in required).

IBM ESS is an IBM Spectrum Scale storage building block that is available in various models. These models offer a flexible portfolio of IBM Spectrum Scale storage building block options with NVMe or hard disk drive (HDD) storage.

The general physical arrangement for an IBM ESS is an IBM rack that features the following components:

An example of the various models of IBM ESS over time is shown in Figure 1-11.