Next-Gen IBM DS8870 Flash Systems

IBM DS8870 systems (machine types 2421, 2422, 2423, and 2424) are designed to offer better performance with next-generation flash storage and concurrent code load and warmstart enhancements.

Flash optimization II
This high-performance flash enclosure delivers up to 250,000 IO/s and up to 3.4GB/s bandwidth in one EIA (1U) of rack space. It will also help to increase IO/s by up to 4 times as compared to SSDs and up to 30 times as compared to spinning drives.

Enhanced Easy Tier capabilities
There are five types of drives managed in up to three different tiers (flash cards and SSDs as tier 0, SAS 15K and 10K rpm drives as tier 1, and nearline drives as tier 2 by IBM Easy Tier within a managed pool.

Flash cards and SSD drives are treated as the same tier. IBM Easy Tier monitors disk activity in real-time, and migrates data across tiers and within a tier to optimize performance automatically flash cards and SSD drives are treated as the same tier and IBM Easy Tier intra-tier auto-rebalance will utilize the higher IO/s capability of flash cards.

In addition, Easy Tier Server will manage the data placement across Flash Adapter 90 within Power 740+ and DS8870 storage tiers by placing a copy of the hottest data on the IBM Flash Adapter 90.

Scalable capacity
DS8870 now offers 200GB 2.5-inch SSD options for customers who require granularity and improved performance on the storage system and do not need a larger capacity of SSD.

It also now offers up to 800GB 2.5-inch SSD to provide additional capacity, useful for transaction processing workloads and data warehousing application.

Concurrent code load enhancement
This enhancement will help to improve the average concurrent code load activation time by up to 50%. With this improvement, there will be no need to sacrifice standby manpower for off-hours and weekend shifts to support DS8870 code load strategy.

Warmstart enhancement
This enhancement will help DS8870 reduce the number of warmstarts and eliminate the need to perform a warmstart after certain events to prevent any impact to the attached host.

Multiple Target Peer to Peer Remote Copy (MT-PPRC)
DS8870 now supports MT-PPRC, but only on 7.2.7 microcode.

MT-PPRC is supported for following relationships:

Two Metro Mirror
One Metro Mirror and one Global Copy
Two Global Copy

MT-PPRC can be requested trough SCORE.

OpenStack support
DS8870 offers support for OpenStack releases Havana and Icehouse. Support is provided through the OpenStack Cinder driver currently available for download.

Key prerequisites
MT-PPRC is supported on the IBM System Storage DS8000 series and requires DS8000 Licensed Machine Code (LMC) 7.7.27.xx.xx (bundle version 87.27.xxx.xx).

All the remaining announced features and functions are supported on DS8000 series and require DS8000 LMC 7.7.30.xx.xx (bundle version 87.20.xxx.xx), or later.

Planned availability date

June 6, 2014: availability
September 5, 2014: Field (MES) availability for 200GB and 800GB FDE SSD drives (feature numbers #6058 and #6258) and high-performance flash enclosure placement indicators (feature numbers #0415, #0416, #0417, and #0418)