IBM launched its DS8900F storage systems yesterday – high-end products which are designed to work securely and at very high speeds when coupled with its mainframes, although they could also be used with other suppliers’ high-end servers. Coincidentally it’s an all-flash device, although IBM isn’t making much fuss about that in the announcement. The launch coincides with the introduction of its z15 server, which I am also on this site. IBM’s storage division is constantly expanding its market into cloud, software and OEM business; this announcement is about securing its important customer base of Financial Services and Government organizations and winning back some of those who tie other vendor’s storage to its mainframes.
In-built encryption and world-beating performance
The company’s new system has significantly higher performance than both the current IBM DS8880F and Dell EMC’s latest PowerMax array, which was announced yesterday. IBM’s new box includes:
- In-built AES-256bit GCM encryption for data in-flight or at rest, which applies to point-to-point and SAN connections. All data stored on the array is encrypted with no performance impact, unlike the older machine.
- Mind-boggling High Availability (HA) response times of 18 microseconds when attached to the z15 via a zHyperlink card, which IBM claims is 5 times better latency than Dell EMC’s very latest array and 90 microseconds when used in distributed systems configurations. This leads to real time improvement in transaction times – a 50% reduction in the case of IBM’s DB2 database for instance.
- Transparent Cloud Tiering (TCT) enabling hybrid multicloud storage tiering for data protection, long-term retention and data archiving. No additional server or gateway is needed when moving data to an IBM TS7760 Virtual Tape Library (configured as an object storage target) or public cloud for archiving.
- Seven nines (99.99999%) resiliency when used with HyperSwap – an improvement over the six nines of the DS8880F. This equates to new service levels of 3.1 seconds unplanned downtime a year verses 31 seconds on the older machine.
- 3 and 4 site replication with 2 to 4 seconds Recovery Point Objective (RPO) and less than 60 seconds Recovery Time Objective (RTO) at more than 1,000 miles using Global Mirror. This will help improve the resiliency of data center operations.
- Improved data recovery from a cyber attack with Safeguard Copy, which stops mission and time critical data from being modified or delete accidentally or deliberately.
- Cloud-based management and support using its Storage Insights SaaS program, which we mentioned in April. Storage Insights is appropriate for any block storage device and can help with better capacity planning, information on failing drives or fans
Like the z15 the IBM DS8900F is being housed in industry standard 19” racks, which will help it gain acceptance in previously non-mainframe data centers. At launch IBM is introducing 2 separate models – the DS8910F and DS8950F, which differ in the standard and maximum amounts for flash drives, capacity and other features. The arrays offer a staggering maximum IOPS of 860k and 2,320k respectively.
We need high-end storage and SANs to sustain increasing transaction workloads securely
IBM DS8900F storage arrays ship in small numbers, but at high prices. They are the top of the range for IBM as the primary directly attached to its mainframes. Sometimes in the past analysts have overlooked them as the main thrust of storage systems development moved away from DAS and SAN and to NAS, to flash and, most recently, to NVMe-based devices, as readers of my posts will know only too well.
IBM has the advantage in being the only significant mainframe supplier left in the market and has spent time to make sure its new storage system is fully integrated with the new server. Nevertheless it has strong competition from Dell EMC, which currently has a greater share of the high-end array market. It will be interesting to see whether and to what extent this new product enables IBM to win back customers over time. I intend to take a closer look at the Dell EMC box before forming a strong opinion on that.
The introduction of much faster storage devices has led to a renewal of the SAN market and is focusing attention on high-end storage again. Increasing digital risks are a natural, but often unacknowledged, consequence of the accelerating computerization (and re-computerization) of older processes through digital transformation, which is being embraced by almost all enterprise organizations. I am most impressed with the constant focus IBM places on increasing the resiliency and security of all of its products – but especially its mainframe servers and storage systems.
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