IBM Spectrum Virtualize Software for SAN Volume Controller Storage Utility 8.4

IBM Spectrum Virtualize Software for SAN Volume Controller Storage Utility 8.4

SAN Volume Controller (SVC) systems can utilize Spectrum Virtualize software for SVC Utility licensing to deploy flexible, consumption-based “utility” licenses for installations that require highly flexible capacity and billing options. This model is useful when capacity management tends to vary greatly over time, such as when managing storage in an as-a-service environment.

When managing storage in environments with highly variable utilization of storage capacity, a utility model may be preferential to a traditional licensing model. SVC hardware is not included in the utility billing and an SVC cluster may use either the standard SVC software licenses or the utility licenses, but not both.

This base capacity should be estimated at the lowest average level of consumption that is expected throughout the lease term. The managed capacity is reported through Spectrum Insights and the managed capacity is averaged each month. If this average utilization is higher than the base commitment, the additional capacity is billed per managed tebibyte, per month. This overage is billed per quarter.

Software requirements: SVC utility models (5639-UTL) require configuration and monitoring of the capacity utilized by IBM Storage Insights or Pro (5725-U02).

Hardware requirements: Spectrum Virtualize software for SVC requires at least one pair of System Storage SVC storage engines (2145-SV1, 2145-DH8, 2145-SA2, 2145-SV2, 2147- SV1, 2147-SA2, or 2147-SV2) for installation.

Current support summaries, including specific software, hardware, and firmware levels supported, are maintained on the SVC support website.

Planned availability date: February 19, 2021