This IBM Redbooks® Product Guide describes IBM FlashSystem® V9000, which is a comprehensive all-flash enterprise storage solution that delivers the full capabilities of IBM FlashCore® technology. In addition, it provides a rich set of software-defined storage features, including IBM Real-time CompressionTM, data reductions, dynamic tiering, thin provisioning, snapshots, cloning, replication, data copy services, and IBM HyperSwap® for high availability. Scale out scale up configurations can now add a hot spare node to further enhance availability. With the release of FlashSystem V9000 Software V8.1, extra functions and features are available, including support for new and more powerful FlashSystem V9000 storage enclosure Model AE3. Software features added include GUI enhancements, a new dashboard, support assistance, and data deduplication. AE3 capacities include Small (3.6 TB), Medium (8.5 TB), and Large (18 TB) IBM MicroLatency® modules for between 14.4 TB and 180 TB usable capacity (TBu), with inline hardware compression increasing the capacity up to 219 TB effective capacity (TBe). New SAS-based small form factor (SFF) and large form factor (LFF) expansion enclosures that provide a mixture of nearline hard disk drives (HDDs) and flash MDisks in a pool that can be used for IBM Easy Tier®. The new IBM FlashSystem V9000 SFF expansion enclosure Model92F offers new tiering options with low-cost solid-state drive (SSD flash drives) and nearline HDDs. Up to 784 drives per node pair of serial-attached SCSI (SAS) expansions are supported per FlashSystem V9000 controller pair, providing up to 480 drives with expansion Model 24F and up to 240 drives with expansion Model 12F. FlashSystem V9000 Software version 8.1 replaces version 7.8, and is available to all IBM FlashSystem V9000 customers with current warranty or software maintenance agreements.

This IBM® Redbooks® Product Guide is an overview of the main characteristics, features, and technology that are used in IBM FlashSystem® A9000Model 425, with IBM FlashSystem A9000 Software V12.3.2. Software version 12.3.2, with Hyper-Scale Manager version 5.6 or later, introduces support for VLAN tagging and port trunking. IBM FlashSystem A9000 storage system uses the IBM FlashCore® technology to help realize higher capacity and improved response times over disk-based systems and other competing flash and solid-state drive (SSD)-based storage. The extreme performance of IBM FlashCore technology with a grid architecture and comprehensive data reduction creates one powerful solution. Whether you are a service provider who requires highly efficient management or an enterprise that is implementing cloud on a budget, FlashSystem A9000 provides consistent and predictable microsecond response times and the simplicity that you need. The A9000 features always on data reduction and now offers intelligent capacity management for deduplication. As a cloud optimized solution, FlashSystem A9000 suits the requirements of public and private cloud providers who require features, such as inline data deduplication, multi-tenancy, and quality of service. It also uses powerful software-defined storage capabilities from IBM SpectrumTM Accelerate, such as Hyper-Scale technology, VMware, and storage container integration.

This IBM® Redbooks® Product Guide is an overview of the main characteristics, features, and technology that are used in IBM FlashSystem® A9000R Model 415 and Model 425, with IBM FlashSystem A9000R Software V12.3.2. Software version 12.3.2, with Hyper-Scale Manager version 5.6 or later, introduces support for VLAN tagging and port trunking.. IBM FlashSystem A9000R is a grid-scale, all-flash storage platform designed for industry leaders with rapidly growing cloud storage and mixed workload environments to help drive your business into the cognitive era. FlashSystem A9000R provides consistent, extreme performance for dynamic data at scale, integrating the microsecond latency and high availability of IBM FlashCore® technology. The rack-based offering comes integrated with the world class software features that are built with IBM SpectrumTM Accelerate. For example, comprehensive data reduction, including inline pattern removal, data deduplication, and compression, helps lower total cost of ownership (TCO) while the grid architecture and IBM Hyper-Scale framework simplify and automate storage administration. The A9000R features always on data reduction and now offers intelligent capacity management for deduplication. Ready for the cloud and well-suited for large deployments, FlashSystem A9000R delivers predictable high performance and ultra-low latency, even under heavy workloads with full data reduction enabled. As a result, the grid-scale architecture maintains this performance by automatically self-optimizing workloads across all storage resources without manual intervention.

This IBM® RedpaperTM publication describes best practices for deploying IBM FlashSystemTM V9000 enterprise storage system in a VMware vSphere environment. It includes guidelines and examples of the latest FlashSystem V9000 hardware and software, integrated with VMware version 6, to demonstrate the business benefits these solutions. Topics illustrate planning, configuring, operations, and preferred practices that include integration of FlashSystem V9000 with the VMware vCloud suite of applications: vCenter Web Client (VWC) vStorage APIs for Storage Awareness (VASA) vStorage APIs for Array Integration (VAAI) vCenter Site Recovery Manager (SRM/SRA) The authors also describe how to deploy a cloud-based solution with FlashSystem V9000 in an environment with VMware and IBM SpectrumTM Control Base Edition 2.1.1. This paper is intended for presales consulting engineers, sales engineers, and IBM clients who want to deploy IBM FlashSystem V9000 in virtualized data centers that are based on VMware vSphere.

This IBM® Redbooks® Product Guide publication describes the IBM FlashSystem® 7200 solution, which is a comprehensive, all-flash, and NVMe-enabled enterprise storage solution that delivers the full capabilities of IBM FlashCore® technology. In addition, it provides a rich set of software-defined storage (SDS) features, including data reduction and de-duplication, dynamic tiering, thin-provisioning, snapshots, cloning, replication, data copy services, and IBM HyperSwap® for high availability (HA). Scale-out and scale-up configurations further enhance capacity and throughput for better availability

This IBM® Redbooks® Product Guide publication describes the IBM FlashSystem® 9200 solution, which is a comprehensive, all-flash, and NVMe-enabled enterprise storage solution that delivers the full capabilities of IBM FlashCore® technology. In addition, it provides a rich set of software-defined storage (SDS) features, including data reduction and de-duplication, dynamic tiering, thin-provisioning, snapshots, cloning, replication, data copy services, and IBM HyperSwap® for high availability (HA). Scale-out and scale-up configurations further enhance capacity and throughput for better availability.

The success or failure of businesses often depends on how well organizations use their data assets for competitive advantage. Deeper insights from data require better information technology. As organizations modernize their IT infrastructure to boost innovation rather than limit it, they need a data storage system that can keep pace with highly virtualized environments, cloud computing, mobile and social systems of engagement, and in-depth, real-time analytics. Making the correct decision on storage investment is critical. Organizations must have enough storage performance and agility to innovate as they need to implement cloud-based IT services, deploy virtual desktop infrastructure, enhance fraud detection, and use new analytics capabilities. At the same time, future storage investments must lower IT infrastructure costs while helping organizations to derive the greatest possible value from their data assets. The IBM® FlashSystem V9000 is the premier, fully integrated, Tier 1, all-flash offering from IBM. It has changed the economics of today's data center by eliminating storage bottlenecks. Its software-defined storage features simplify data management, improve data security, and preserve your investments in storage. The IBM FlashSystem® V9000 SAS expansion enclosures provide new tiering options with read-intensive SSDs or nearline SAS HDDs. IBM FlashSystem V9000 includes IBM FlashCore® technology and advanced software-defined storage available in one solution in a compact 6U form factor. IBM FlashSystem V9000 improves business application availability. It delivers greater resource utilization so you can get the most from your storage resources, and achieve a simpler, more scalable, and cost-efficient IT Infrastructure. This IBM Redbooks® publication provides information about IBM FlashSystem V9000 Software V7.7 and introduces the recently announced V7.8. It describes the product architecture, software, hardware, and implementation, and provides hints and tips. It illustrates use cases and independent software vendor (ISV) scenarios that demonstrate real-world solutions, and also provides examples of the benefits gained by integrating the IBM FlashSystem storage into business environments. This book offers IBM FlashSystem V9000 scalability concepts and guidelines for planning, installing, and configuring, which can help environments scale up and out to add more flash capacity and expand virtualized systems. Port utilization methodologies are provided to help you maximize the full potential of IBM FlashSystem V9000 performance and low latency in your scalable environment. This book is intended for pre-sales and post-sales technical support professionals, storage administrators, and anyone who wants to understand how to implement this exciting technology.