IBM XIV Storage System Gen3 Software V11.5.0

IBM XIV Storage System Gen3 with software version 11.5.0 is designed to deliver the following enhancements.

Enhanced XIV value for cloud

• XIV multi-tenancy brings flexibility and simplicity to management of tenant data and storage resources across multiple XIV systems with the following features:
  • Secure division and isolation of XIV Storage resources among numerous tenants
  • Simple, quick delegation of administration tasks and role-based permissions
  • Simple, rapid deployment without the need for extensive planning and tuning, as well as field upgradability
• VMware vCloud Suite integration empowers service providers with XIV simplicity, flexibility, and efficiency in VMware cloud management environments through the following features:
  • VMware vCenter Orchestrator (vCO) integration expands VMware environment automation and embeds native XIV discovery, provisioning, and lifecycle operations into an organization’s workflows
  • VMware vCenter Operations Manager (vCOPS) integration allows monitoring and analysis of XIV health, performance, and capacity, along with their impact on VMs and applications, and can dynamically remediate with policy-governed workflows to maintain SLAs
  • VMware vCloud Automation Center (vCAC) integration allows XIV provisioning in VMware’s unified, policy-based, cloud management environment within self-service catalog offerings, while optimizing cloud resource utilization through XIV Storage automation
  • IBM Storage Integration Server v1.5 provides a single point of integration to deliver simplified deployment and certification of XIV-VMware vCloud Suite integration into your environment, providing centrally configured, secure, auditable, and aggregated control of IBM Storage. Note: This functionality is available to XIV releases v10.2.4, or later, through IBM Storage Integration Server v1.5.
• Enhanced Performance classes allow virtual tiers of storage services without the need to move data around by enabling the ability to associate hosts, domains, and pools to performance classes and offering support for up to 500 classes
• RESTful API enhancements expand cloud automation integration by now supporting all XIV features, including copy services and multi-tenancy. Note: RESTful API v2.0 is available to all XIV release via Hyper-Scale Manager included in XIV Management Tools v4.4.

HA, security, and DR with three-site mirroring

• Three-site mirroring delivers world-class HA and DR, and facilitates to comply with business, government, and industry-driven requirements and regulations through the following features:
  • Three concurrent copies of data in three locations
  • Simple failover and failback while keeping data mirrored to ensure BC
  • Negligible performance impact with the same ultra-efficient, field-proven XIV mirroring
• IBM XIV Storage System software version 11.5.0 delivers the following security enhancements as required by PCI-DSS standard:
  • Auditing via Syslog: All user actions performed on XIV are logged and exported to Syslog server
  • Idle UI locking: XIV UI (XCLI, GUI) locks itself after a predefined period of idle time, and requires re-authentication

Industry-first management tools

• Intuitive reports on capacity growth, utilization, and trends empower administrators to understand and respond quickly to storage needs through:
  •  Hassle-free, infographic-style reporting across multiple systems eases capacity planning
  •   No need for add-ons, tools or external databases as it is built into IBM Hyper-Scale Manager. Note: Capacity Planning report is available to all XIV releases through the Hyper-Scale Manager included in XIV Management Tools v4.4.
• Mobile device notifications provide storage managers with real-time alerts anytime, anywhere, enabling them to react rapidly to potential storage issues:
  • Notifications report critical issues to iOS and Android mobile devices
  •  One-click from notification to IBM XIV Mobile Dashboard view for remediation
• XIV GUI now supports three languages: English, Japanese, Chinese

Key prerequisites
An order of a validly configured XIV Storage System Gen3 machine type 2810 or 2812 Model 214 must occur at the same time as an initial XIV Storage System software V11.5.0 order.

Planned availability date

• August 21, 2014: All v11.5 enhancements
• August 27, 2014: ISIS vCloud integration