Your data is arguably the most important commodity to your business. Client records, research data, financial information, project planning files, product/service archives and more are what molded your business into what it is today. The safety of this data should always be a primary concern. The speed at which you are able to access your data should be a concern as well. Such criterion have been taken to heart in the design of the IBM DS8000 series storage system. This solution offers unique features not found on other systems.

The IBM DS8000 makes use of a Symmetric Multi-Processor system that can support dual two-way or dual four-way configurations of processors. Such design allows each processor to act independently while connected to a shared main memory. The DS8000 system is part IBM’s Z Architecture design which allows the system to work beyond the capacity of a traditional 64bit system by allocating multiple 2 GB spaces in memory. This grants the system an edge in processing power as large commands can be executed in tandem. This particular system is ideally designed to make use of IBM POWER series processors. There are many benefits to the IBM POWER series processors, but most notably each core of the IBM POWER6 processor features a 64 KB cache. Combine this with the implementation of IBM’s FICON (Fibre Channel) based host ports and port controllers as well as the ultra-fast 6 GB per second SAS disk connections, the DS8000 makes its mark as perhaps the fastest storage system available.

The IBM DS8000 series boasts an impressive amount of storage capacity. The unit can support up 1536 physical drives. Not only does the system implement traditional hard disks but it may also utilize solid state drives (SSDs). The integration of SSD drives greatly improves speed of read and write operations, nicely complimenting the above mentioned hardware features. The system can make use of RAID 5, RAID 6 and RAID 10 configurations; the striping feature of a RAID configuration can be extended across different hard disks, including the SSD drives. The drives are hot-swappable, so that when a drive fails it can be immediately replaced without shutting down the server.

The IBM DS8000 features the IBM Tivoli Storage Productivity Center which is accessible on a web based GUI. This allows network administrators an easy and functional way to manage the server. The system analyzes its own operational integrity and compiles reports on hardware functionality. This can help network support specialists isolate potential problems sometimes often before they even surface. The system also makes use of a data management system known as Easy Tier. This system consolidates data based on usage statistic and segregates it based on how often it is used. Easy Tier optimizes the usage of drives and identifies when storage device is added or removed and what kind of drive it is. This alleviates the network administrators need to provision the system with instructions on how to reallocate data, thus freeing that individual from the tedious task of manually manipulating data.

Nordisk systems is an IBM Business Partner based in Portland, Oregon. It specializes in managing products like Tivoli storage manager for all your data center needs. IBM Cloud computing services provider supplies the data center, computing infrastructure, and management of these assets. Organize your Cloud computing services with SaaS, IaaS and PaaS.