This IBM® Redbooks® publication describes the concepts, architecture, and implementation of the IBM Storage DS8900F family. The book provides reference information to assist readers who need to plan for, install, and configure the DS8900F systems. This edition applies to DS8900F systems with IBM Storage DS8000® Licensed Machine Code (LMC) 7.9.30 (bundle version 89.30.xx.x), referred to as Release 9.3. The DS8900F systems are all-flash exclusively, and they are offered as three classes: DS8980F: Analytic Class: The DS8980F Analytic Class offers best performance for organizations that want to expand their workload possibilities to artificial intelligence (AI), Business Intelligence (BI), and machine learning (ML). IBM DS8950F: Agility Class: The Agility Class consolidates all your mission-critical workloads for IBM Z®, IBM LinuxONE, IBM Power, and distributed environments under a single all-flash storage solution. IBM DS8910F: Flexibility Class: The Flexibility Class reduces complexity while addressing various workloads at the lowest DS8900F family entry cost. The DS8900F architecture relies on powerful IBM POWER9™ processor-based servers that manage the cache to streamline disk input/output (I/O), which maximizes performance and throughput. These capabilities are further enhanced by High-Performance Flash Enclosures (HPFE) Gen2. Like its predecessors, the DS8900F supports advanced disaster recovery (DR) solutions, business continuity solutions, and thin provisioning.

This IBM Redpaper publication presents and positions the DS8910F Model 993 storage system. This modular system can be integrated into a 16U contiguous space of an IBM z15™ model T02 or IBM z14® Model ZR1 with Feature Code 0937 and IBM LinuxONE III model LT2 or LinuxONE Rockhopper II model LR1 with Feature Code 0938. The DS8910F Model 993 allows you to take advantage of the performance boost of all-flash systems and advanced features while limiting data center footprint and power infrastructure requirements.

This IBM® Redbooks Product Guide provides an overview of the features and functions that are available with the IBM Storage DS8900F models that run microcode Release 9.3.2 (Bundle 89.32/Licensed Machine Code 7.9.32). As of February 2023, the DS8900F with DS8000 Release 9.3.2 is the latest addition. The DS8900F is an all-flash system exclusively, and it offers three classes: IBM DS8980F: Analytic Class: The DS8980F Analytic Class offers best performance for organizations that want to expand their workload possibilities to artificial intelligence (AI), Business Intelligence, and Machine Learning. IBM DS8950F: Agility Class: The agility class is efficiently designed to consolidate all your mission-critical workloads for IBM zSystems, IBM LinuxONE, IBM Power Systems, and distributed environments under a single all-flash storage solution. IBM DS8910F: Flexibility Class: The flexibility class delivers significant performance for midrange organizations that are looking to meet storage challenges with advanced functionality delivered as a single rack solution.

This IBM® Redpaper™ publication describes the IBM DS8880 High-Performance Enclosure (HPFE) Gen2 architecture and configuration, as of DS8900 Release 9.1. The IBM® DS8000® High-Performance Flash Enclosure Gen2 (HPFE Gen2) is a 2U storage enclosure that is installed in pairs in DS8900F and DS8880 models. The flash enclosure and Flash RAID adapters are installed in pairs. Each storage enclosure pair can support 16, 32, or 48 encryption-capable flash drives (2.5-inch, 63.5 mm form factor).

This IBM® Redpaper™ publication describes the concepts and functions of IBM System Storage® Easy Tier®, and explains its practical use with the IBM DS8000® series and License Machine Code 7.9.0.xxx (also known as R9.0).. Easy Tier is designed to automate data placement throughout the storage system disks pool. It enables the system to (automatically and without disruption to applications) relocate data (at the extent level) across up to three drive tiers. The process is fully automated. Easy Tier also automatically rebalances extents among ranks within the same tier, removing workload skew between ranks, even within homogeneous and single-tier extent pools. Easy Tier supports a Manual Mode that enables you to relocate full volumes. Manual Mode also enables you to merge extent pools and offers a rank depopulation function. Easy Tier fully supports thin-provisioned Extent Space Efficient fixed block (FB) and count key data (CKD) volumes in Manual Mode and Automatic Mode. Easy Tier also supports extent pools with small extents (16 MiB extents for FB pools and 21 cylinders extents for CKD pools). Easy Tier also supports high-performance and high-capacity flash drives in the High-performance flash enclosure, and it enables additional user controls at the pool and volume levels. This paper is aimed at those professionals who want to understand the Easy Tier concept and its underlying design. It also provides guidance and practical illustrations for users who want to use the Easy Tier Manual Mode capabilities. Easy Tier includes additional capabilities to further enhance your storage performance automatically: Easy Tier Application, and Easy Tier Heat Map Transfer.

This IBM® Redbooks® publication is intended for individuals who want to maximize the performance of their DS8900 storage systems and investigate the planning and monitoring tools that are available.

This IBM Redbooks publication describes the concepts, architecture, and implementation of the IBM DS8900F family. The book provides reference information to assist readers who need to plan for, install, and configure the DS8900F systems. This edition applies to DS8900F systems with IBM DS8000® Licensed Machine Code (LMC) 7.9.10 (bundle version 89.10.xx.x), referred to as Release 9.1. The DS8900F family offers two classes: IBM DS8910F: Flexibility Class all-flash: The Flexibility Class is designed to reduce complexity while addressing various workloads at the lowest DS8900F family entry cost. IBM DS8950F: Agility Class all-flash: The Agility Class is designed to consolidate all your mission-critical workloads for IBM Z®, IBM LinuxONE, IBM Power Systems, and distributed environments under a single all-flash storage solution. The DS8900F architecture relies on powerful IBM POWER9™ processor-based servers that manage the cache to streamline disk input/output (I/O), which maximizes performance and throughput. These capabilities are further enhanced by High-Performance Flash Enclosures (HPFE) Gen2. Like its predecessors, the DS8900F supports advanced disaster recovery (DR) solutions, business continuity solutions, and thin provisioning. The IBM DS8910F Rack-Mounted model 993 is described in a separate publication: IBM DS8910F Model 993 Rack-Mounted Storage System Release 9.1, REDP-5566.

Built on over 50 years of enterprise storage expertise, the IBM® DS8000® series is the flagship of disk storage systems within the IBM System Storage portfolio. As of October 2020, the DS8900F with DS8000 Release 9.1 is the latest addition. The DS8900F is an all-flash system exclusively, and it offers two classes: DS8910F: Flexibility Class The flexibility class delivers significant performance improvements compared to the previous IBM DS8880F generation. DS8950F: Agility Class The agility class is efficiently designed to consolidate all your mission-critical workloads for IBM Z®, IBM LinuxONE, IBM Power Systems, and distributed environments under a single all-flash storage solution. This IBM Redbooks® Product Guide gives an overview of the features and functions that are available with the IBM DS8900F models running microcode Release 9.1 (Bundle 89.10 / Licensed Machine Code 7.9.10).

This IBM® Redpaper publication presents and positions the DS8910F Model 993. The modular system can be integrated into 15U contiguous space of a standard 19-inch wide rack, or 16U contiguous space when placed in an IBM z14® Model ZR1 (z14 Model ZR1), or IBM LinuxONE Rockhopper II (z14 Model LR1). The DS8910F Model 993 allows you to take advantage of the performance boost of all-flash systems and advanced features while limiting datacenter footprint and power infrastructure requirements.

This IBM® Redbooks® publication describes the concepts, architecture, and implementation of the IBM DS8900F family. This book provides reference information to assist readers who need to plan for, install, and configure the DS8900F systems. This edition applies to DS8900F systems running microcode Release 9.0 (Bundle 89.0 / Licensed Machine Code (LMC) 7.9.0.xxx). The DS8900F family offers two new classes: IBM DS8910F: Flexibility Class all-flash: The Flexibility Class is designed to reduce complexity while addressing various workloads at the lowest DS8900F family entry cost. IBM DS8950F: Agility Class all-flash: The Agility Class is designed to consolidate all your mission-critical workloads for IBM Z®, IBM LinuxONE, IBM Power Systems, and distributed environments under a single all-flash storage solution. The DS8900F architecture relies on powerful IBM POWER9™ processor-based servers that manage the cache to streamline disk input/output (I/O), which maximizes performance and throughput. These capabilities are further enhanced by High-Performance Flash Enclosures (HPFE) Gen2. Like its predecessors, the DS8900F supports advanced disaster recovery (DR) solutions, business continuity solutions, and thin provisioning. The IBM DS8910F Rack-Mounted model 993 is described in a separate publication, IIBM DS8910F Model 993 Rack-Mounted Storage System, REDP-5566.

Built on over 50 years of Enterprise storage expertise, the IBM® DS8000® series is the flagship of disk storage systems within the IBM System Storage™ portfolio. As of September 2019, the DS8900F is the latest addition and offers two new classes: DS8910F: Flexibility Class all-flash DS8950F: Agility Class all-flash The agility class is efficiently designed to consolidate all your mission-critical workloads for IBM Z®, IBM LinuxONE, IBM Power Systems, and distributed environments under a single all-flash storage solution. This IBM Redbooks® Product Guide gives an overview of the features and functions that are available with the IBM DS8900F models running microcode Release 9.0 (Bundle 89.0 / Licensed Machine Code 7.9.0.xxx).

This IBM Redbooks® Product Guide gives an overview of the features and functions that are available with the IBM DS8880 models running microcode Release 8.51 (DS8000 License Machine Code 8.8.51.xx.xx). The IBM DS8880 architecture relies on powerful IBM POWER8® processor-based servers that manage the cache to streamline disk input/output (I/O), maximizing performance and throughput. These capabilities are further enhanced with the availability of the second generation of high-performance flash enclosures (HPFE Gen-2). The IBM DS8888, DS8886, and DS8884 models excel at supporting the IBM Z Enterprise server and IBM Power server environments, offering many synergy features.

Ever-increasing storage demands have a negative effect on an organization's IT budget and complicate the overall storage infrastructure and management. Companies are looking at ways to use their storage resources more efficiently. Thin provisioning can help by reducing the amount of unused storage that is typically allocated to applications or users. Now available for the IBM® DS8880 for Fixed Block (FB) and Count Key Data (CKD) volumes, thin provisioning defers the allocation of actual space on the storage system until the time that the data must effectively be written to disk. This IBM Redpaper™ publication provides an overall understanding of how thin provisioning works on the IBM DS8880. It also provides insights into the functional design and its implementation on the DS8880 and includes illustrations for the configuration of thin-provisioned volumes from the DS GUI or the DS CLI. This edition applies to DS8880 Release 8.5 or later.

Abstract This IBM® Redbooks® publication describes the concepts, architecture, and implementation of the IBM DS8880 family. The book provides reference information to assist readers who need to plan for, install, and configure the DS8880 systems. The IBM DS8000® family is a high-performance, high-capacity, highly secure, and resilient series of disk storage systems. The DS8880 family is the latest and most advanced of the DS8000 offerings to date. The high availability, multiplatform support, including IBM Z, and simplified management tools help provide a cost-effective path to an on-demand and cloud-based infrastructures. The IBM DS8880 family now offers business-critical, all-flash, and hybrid data systems that span a wide range of price points: DS8884 -- Business Class DS8886 -- Enterprise Class DS8888 -- Analytics Class The DS8884 and DS8886 are available as either hybrid models, or can be configured as all-flash. Each model represents the most recent in this series of high-performance, high-capacity, flexible, and resilient storage systems. These systems are intended to address the needs of the most demanding clients. Two powerful IBM POWER8® processor-based servers manage the cache to streamline disk I/O, maximizing performance and throughput. These capabilities are further enhanced with the availability of the second generation of high-performance flash enclosures (HPFEs Gen-2) and newer flash drives. Like its predecessors, the DS8880 supports advanced disaster recovery (DR) solutions, business continuity solutions, and thin provisioning. All disk drives in the DS8880 storage system include the Full Disk Encryption (FDE) feature. The DS8880 can automatically optimize the use of each storage tier, particularly flash drives, by using the IBM Easy Tier® feature.

This IBM® Redbooks® publication describes the concepts, architecture, and implementation of the IBM DS8880 family. The book provides reference information to assist readers who need to plan for, install, and configure the DS8880 systems. The IBM DS8000® family is a high-performance, high-capacity, highly secure, and resilient series of disk storage systems. The DS8880 family is the latest and most advanced of the DS8000 offerings to date. The high availability, multiplatform support, including IBM z Systems®, and simplified management tools help provide a cost-effective path to an on-demand world. The IBM DS8880 family now offers business-critical, all-flash, and hybrid data systems that span a wide range of price points: DS8884 -- Business Class DS8886 -- Enterprise Class DS8888 -- Analytics Class The DS8884 and DS8886 are available as either hybrid models, or can be configured as all-flash. Each model represents the most recent in this series of high-performance, high-capacity, flexible, and resilient storage systems. These systems are intended to address the needs of the most demanding clients. Two powerful IBM POWER8® processor-based servers manage the cache to streamline disk I/O, maximizing performance and throughput. These capabilities are further enhanced with the availability of the second generation of high-performance flash enclosures (HPFEs Gen-2). Like its predecessors, the DS8880 supports advanced disaster recovery (DR) solutions, business continuity solutions, and thin provisioning. All disk drives in the DS8880 storage system include the Full Disk Encryption (FDE) feature. The DS8880 can automatically optimize the use of each storage tier, particularly flash drives and flash cards, through the IBM Easy Tier® feature. The DS8880 also includes the Copy Services Manager code and allows for easier integration in a Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) infrastructure.

This IBM® Redbooks® publication provides guidance about how to configure, monitor, and manage your IBM DS8880 storage systems to achieve optimum performance, and it also covers the IBM DS8870 storage system. It describes the DS8880 performance features and characteristics, including hardware-related performance features, synergy items for certain operating systems, and other functions, such as IBM Easy Tier® and the DS8000® I/O Priority Manager. The book also describes specific performance considerations that apply to particular host environments, including database applications. This book also outlines the various tools that are available for monitoring and measuring I/O performance for different server environments, and it describes how to monitor the performance of the entire DS8000 storage system. This book is intended for individuals who want to maximize the performance of their DS8880 and DS8870 storage systems and investigate the planning and monitoring tools that are available. The IBM DS8880 storage system features, as described in this book, are available for the DS8880 model family with R8.0 release bundles (Licensed Machine Code (LMC) level 7.8.0).

This IBM® Redbooks® publication describes the concepts, architecture, and implementation of the IBM DS8880 family. The book provides reference information to assist readers who need to plan for, install, and configure the DS8880 systems. The IBM DS8000® family is a high-performance, high-capacity, highly secure, and resilient series of disk storage systems. The DS8880 family is the latest and most advanced of the DS8000 offerings to date. The high availability, multiplatform support, including the IBM z Systems™, and simplified management tools help provide a cost-effective path to an on-demand world. The new IBM DS8880 family includes two high-performance models (DS8886 Model 981 with its associated DS8886 Expansion Unit Model 98E, and the DS8884 Model 980 with its associated Expansion Unit Model 98B). Two powerful IBM POWER8® processor-based servers manage the cache to streamline disk I/Os, maximizing performance and throughput. These capabilities are further enhanced with the availability of high-performance flash enclosures (HPFEs). A major change with the introduction of the DS8880 is the reduction of the footprint to a 19-inch rack. Like its predecessors, the DS8880 supports advanced disaster recovery (DR) solutions, business continuity solutions, and thin provisioning. All disk drives in the DS8880 storage system include the Full Disk Encryption (FDE) feature. The DS8880 can automatically optimize the use of each storage tier, particularly flash drives and flash cards, through the IBM Easy Tier® feature. The DS8880 also can be integrated in a Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) infrastructure.

This IBM® Redbooks® publication describes the concepts, architecture, and implementation of the IBM DS8870. The book provides reference information to assist readers who need to plan for, install, and configure the DS8870. The IBM DS8870 is the most advanced model in the IBM DS8000® series and is equipped with IBM POWER7+™ based controllers. Various configuration options are available that scale from dual 2-core systems up to dual 16-core systems with up to 1 TB of cache. The DS8870 also features enhanced 8 Gbps device adapters and host adapters. Connectivity options, with up to 128 Fibre Channel/IBM FICON® ports for host connections, make the DS8870 suitable for multiple server environments in open systems and IBM System z® environments. The DS8870 supports advanced disaster recovery solutions, business continuity solutions, and thin provisioning. All disk drives in the DS8870 storage system have the Full Disk Encryption (FDE) feature. The DS8870 also can be integrated in a Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) infrastructure. The DS8870 features high-density storage enclosures and can be equipped with flash drives. An all-flash drive configuration is also available. The DS8870 can automatically optimize the use of each storage tier, particularly flash drives, through the IBM Easy Tier® feature, which is available at no extra charge. Easy Tier is covered in separate publications: IBM DS8000 Easy Tier Concepts and Usage, REDP-4667; IBM System Storage DS8000 Easy Tier Server, REDP-5013; IBM System Storage DS8000 Easy Tier Application, REDP-5014; and IBM System Storage DS8000 Easy Tier Heat Map Transfer, REDP-5015.

This IBM® Redbooks® publication provides guidance about how to configure, monitor, and manage your IBM System Storage® DS8800 and DS8700 storage systems to achieve optimum performance. It describes the DS8800 and DS8700 performance features and characteristics, including IBM System Storage Easy Tier® and DS8000® I/O Priority Manager. It also describes how they can be used with the various server platforms that attach to the storage system. Then, in separate chapters, we detail specific performance recommendations and discussions that apply for each server environment, as well as for database and DS8000 Copy Services environments. We also outline the various tools available for monitoring and measuring I/O performance for different server environments, as well as describe how to monitor the performance of the entire DS8000 storage system. This book is intended for individuals who want to maximize the performance of their DS8800 and DS8700 storage systems and investigate the planning and monitoring tools that are available. The IBM System Storage DS8800 and DS8700 storage system features, as described in this book, are available for the DS8700 with Licensed Machine Code (LMC) level 6.6.2x.xxx or higher and the DS8800 with Licensed Machine Code (LMC) level 7.6.2x.xxx or higher. For information about optimizing performance with the previous DS8000 models, DS8100 and DS8300, see the following IBM Redbooks publication: DS8000 Performance Monitoring and Tuning, SG24-7146.