This IBM® Redbooks® Product Guide describes the IBM Storage Networking SAN768C-6. IBM Storage Networking SAN768C-6 has the industry's highest port density for a storage area network (SAN) director and features 768 line-rate 32 gigabits per second (Gbps) or 16 Gbps Fibre Channel ports. Designed to support multiprotocol workloads, IBM Storage Networking SAN768C-6 enables SAN consolidation and collapsed-core solutions for large enterprises, which reduces the number of managed switches and leads to easy-to-manage deployments. IBM Storage Networking SAN768C-6 supports the 48-Port 32 Gbps Fibre Channel Switching Module, the 48-Port 16 Gbps Fibre Channel Switching Module, the 48-port 10 Gbps FCoE Switching Module, the 24-port 40 Gbps FCoE switching module, and the 24/10-port SAN Extension Module. By reducing the number of front-panel ports that are used on inter-switch links (ISLs), it also offers room for future growth. IBM Storage Networking SAN768C-6 addresses the mounting storage requirements of today's large virtualized data centers. As a director-class SAN switch, IBM Storage Networking SAN768C-6 uses the same operating system and management interface as other IBM data center switches. It brings intelligent capabilities to a high-performance, protocol-independent switch fabric, and delivers uncompromising availability, security, scalability, simplified management, and the flexibility to integrate new technologies. You can use IBM Storage Networking SAN768C-6 to transparently deploy unified fabrics with Fibre Channel and Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) connectivity to achieve low total cost of ownership (TCO). For mission-critical enterprise storage networks that require secure, robust, cost-effective business-continuance services, the FCIP extension module is designed to deliver outstanding SAN extension performance, reducing latency for disk and tape operations with FCIP acceleration features, including FCIP write acceleration and FCIP tape write and read acceleration.

Dynamic organizations want to accelerate growth while reducing costs. To do so, they must speed the deployment of business applications and adapt quickly to any changes in priorities. Organizations today require an IT infrastructure that is easy, efficient, and versatile. The VersaStack solution by Cisco and IBM® can help you accelerate the deployment of your data centers. It reduces costs by more efficiently managing information and resources while maintaining your ability to adapt to business change. The VersaStack solution combines the innovation of Cisco UCS Integrated Infrastructure with the efficiency of the IBM Storwize® storage system. The Cisco UCS Integrated Infrastructure includes the Cisco Unified Computing System (Cisco UCS), Cisco Nexus and Cisco MDS switches, and Cisco UCS Director. The IBM FlashSystem® V9000 enhances virtual environments with its Data Virtualization, IBM Real-time Compression™, and IBM Easy Tier® features. These features deliver extraordinary levels of performance and efficiency. The VersaStack solution is Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) ready. Your IT team can build, deploy, secure, and maintain applications through a more agile framework. Cisco Intercloud Fabric capabilities help enable the creation of open and highly secure solutions for the hybrid cloud. These solutions accelerate your IT transformation while delivering dramatic improvements in operational efficiency and simplicity. Cisco and IBM are global leaders in the IT industry. The VersaStack solution gives you the opportunity to take advantage of integrated infrastructure solutions that are targeted at enterprise applications, analytics, and cloud solutions. The VersaStack solution is backed by Cisco Validated Designs (CVD) to provide faster delivery of applications, greater IT efficiency, and less risk. This IBM Redbooks® publication is aimed at experienced storage administrators who are tasked with deploying a VersaStack solution with Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC) and IBM Spectrum™ Protect.

Dynamic organizations want to accelerate growth while reducing costs. To do so, they must speed the deployment of business applications and adapt quickly to any changes in priorities. Organizations require an IT infrastructure to be easy, efficient, and versatile. The VersaStack solution by Cisco and IBM® can help you accelerate the deployment of your datacenters. It reduces costs by more efficiently managing information and resources while maintaining your ability to adapt to business change. The VersaStack solution combines the innovation of Cisco Unified Computing System (Cisco UCS) Integrated Infrastructure with the efficiency of the IBM Storwize® storage system. The Cisco UCS Integrated Infrastructure includes the Cisco UCS, Cisco Nexus and Cisco MDS switches, and Cisco UCS Director. The IBM Storwize V7000 storage system enhances virtual environments with its Data Virtualization, IBM Real-time Compression™, and IBM Easy Tier® features. These features deliver extraordinary levels of performance and efficiency. The VersaStack solution is Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) ready. Your IT team can build, deploy, secure, and maintain applications through a more agile framework. Cisco Intercloud Fabric capabilities help enable the creation of open and highly secure solutions for the hybrid cloud. These solutions accelerate your IT transformation while delivering dramatic improvements in operational efficiency and simplicity. Cisco and IBM are global leaders in the IT industry. The VersaStack solution gives you the opportunity to take advantage of integrated infrastructure solutions that are targeted at enterprise applications, analytics, and cloud solutions. The VersaStack solution is backed by Cisco Validated Designs (CVDs) to provide faster delivery of applications, greater IT efficiency, and less risk. This IBM Redbooks® publication is aimed at experienced storage administrators that are tasked with deploying a VersaStack solution with IBM DB2® High Availability (DB2 HA), IBM Spectrum™ Protect, and IBM Spectrum Control™.

Dynamic organizations want to accelerate growth while reducing costs. To do so, they must speed the deployment of business applications and adapt quickly to any changes in priorities. Organizations today require an IT infrastructure to be easy, efficient, and versatile. The VersaStack solution by Cisco and IBM® can help you accelerate the deployment of your data centers. It reduces costs by more efficiently managing information and resources while maintaining your ability to adapt to business change. The VersaStack solution combines the innovation of Cisco UCS Integrated Infrastructure with the efficiency of the IBM Storwize® storage system. The Cisco UCS Integrated Infrastructure includes the Cisco Unified Computing System (Cisco UCS), Cisco Nexus and Cisco MDS switches, and Cisco UCS Director. The IBM Storwize V7000 enhances virtual environments with its Data Virtualization, IBM Real-time Compression™, and IBM Easy Tier® features. These features deliver extraordinary levels of performance and efficiency. The VersaStack solution is Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) ready. Your IT team can build, deploy, secure, and maintain applications through a more agile framework. Cisco Intercloud Fabric capabilities help enable the creation of open and highly secure solutions for the hybrid cloud. These solutions accelerate your IT transformation while delivering dramatic improvements in operational efficiency and simplicity. Cisco and IBM are global leaders in the IT industry. The VersaStack solution gives you the opportunity to take advantage of integrated infrastructure solutions that are targeted at enterprise applications, analytics, and cloud solutions. The VersaStack solution is backed by Cisco Validated Designs (CVD) to provide faster delivery of applications, greater IT efficiency, and less risk. This IBM Redbooks® publication is aimed at experienced storage administrators that are tasked with deploying a VersaStack solution with Microsoft Sequel (SQL), IBM Spectrum™ Protect, and IBM Spectrum Control™.

IBM® System Storage® Gen 5 fabric backbones are among the industry's most powerful Fibre Channel switching infrastructure offerings. They provide reliable, scalable, and high-performance foundations for mission-critical storage. These fabric backbones also deliver enterprise connectivity options to add support for IBM FICON® connectivity, offering a high-performing and reliable FICON infrastructure with fast and scalable IBM System z® servers. Designed to increase business agility while providing nonstop access to information and reducing infrastructure and administrative costs, Gen 5 Fibre Channel fabric backbones deliver a new level of scalability and advanced capabilities to this robust, reliable, and high-performance technology. Although every network type has unique management requirements, most organizations face similar challenges managing their network environments. These challenges can include minimizing network downtime, reducing operational expenses, managing application service level agreements (SLAs), and providing robust security. Until now, no single tool could address these needs across different network types. To address this issue, the IBM Network Advisor management tool provides comprehensive management for data, storage, and converged networks. This single application can deliver end-to-end visibility and insight across different network types by integrating with Fabric Vision technology; it supports Fibre Channel SANs, including Gen 5 Fibre Channel platforms, IBM FICON, and IBM b-type SAN FCoE networks. In addition, this tool supports comprehensive lifecycle management capabilities across different networks through a simple, seamless user experience. This IBM Redbooks® publication introduces the concepts, architecture, and basic implementation of Gen 5 and IBM Network Advisor. It is aimed at system administrators, and pre- and post-sales support staff.

To meet today's complex and ever-changing business demands, you need a solid foundation of server, storage, networking and software resources that is simple to deploy and can quickly and automatically adapt to changing conditions. You also need access to, and the ability to take advantage of, broad expertise and proven best practices in systems management, applications, hardware maintenance and more. IBM® PureFlex™ System, which is a part of the IBM PureSystems™ family of expert integrated systems, combines advanced IBM hardware and software along with patterns of expertise and integrates them into three optimized configurations that are simple to acquire and deploy so you can achieve faster time to value. If you want a pre-configured, pre-integrated infrastructure with integrated management and cloud capabilities, factory tuned from IBM with x86 and Power hybrid solution, IBM PureFlex System is the answer. In this IBM Redbooks® publication, we use EX4500 core switches to demonstrate interoperability with the System Networking switches (RackSwitch™ G8264 top of rack switch and the Flex system fabric EN4093 10Gb scalable switch). We also describe a redundant environment using QFX3500 switches running IBM Virtual-Link Aggregation Group (MC-LAG/vLAG) and Juniper Multi- Chassis-Link Aggregation Group.

This IBM® Redbooks® publication describes the new features that have been added with the release of the IBM System Storage® SAN Volume Controller (SVC) and IBM System Storage Storwize® V7000 6.4.0 code, including Replication Family Services. Replication Family Services refers to the various copy services available on the SVC and Storwize V7000 including IBM FlashCopy®, Metro Mirror and Global Mirror, Global Mirror with Change Volumes, Volume Mirroring, and Stretched Cluster Volume Mirroring. The details behind the theory and practice of these services are examined, and SAN design suggestions and troubleshooting tips are provided. Planning requirements, automating copy services processed, and fabric design are explained. Multiple examples including implementation and server integration are included, along with a discussion of software solutions and services that are based on Replication Family Services. This book is intended for use by pre-sales and post-sales support, and storage administrators. Readers are expected to have an advanced knowledge of the SVC, Storwize V7000, and the SAN environment. The following publications are useful resources that provide background information: Implementing the IBM System Storage SAN Volume Controller V6.3, SG24-7933 Implementing the IBM Storwize V7000 V6.3, SG24-7938 IBM SAN Volume Controller and Brocade Disaster Recovery Solutions for VMware, REDP-4626[ IBM System Storage SAN Volume Controller Upgrade Path from Version 4.3.1 to 6.1, REDP-4716[ Real-time Compression in SAN Volume Controller and Storwize V7000, REDP-4859 SAN Volume Controller: Best Practices and Performance Guidelines, SG24-7521 Implementing the Storwize V7000 and the IBM System Storage SAN32B-E4 Encryption Switch, SG24-7977

This IBM® Redbooks® document introduces the IBM Converged Switch B32. This switch supports Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE), Fibre Channel, Converged Enhanced Ethernet (CEE), and traditional Ethernet protocol connectivity for servers and storage. FCoE is a new protocol that can expand Fibre Channel into the Ethernet environment, and it helps to combine and leverage the advantages of two technologies, Fibre Channel protocol and Ethernet. Features of the IBM Converged Switch B32 include: A 32-port multiprotocol switch for server I/O consolidation Enterprise-class availability for business continuance Improved return on investment and investment protection Fabric security for mission-critical information

"Do everything that is necessary and absolutely nothing that is not." This IBM® Redbooks® publication, written at a Data Center Fabric Manager v10.1.4 and Fabric Operating System v6.4 level, consolidates critical information while also covering procedures and tasks that you are likely to encounter on a daily basis when implementing an IBM b-type SAN. The products that we describe in this book have more functionality than we can possibly cover in a single book. A storage area network (SAN) is a powerful infrastructure for consolidation, distance solutions, and data sharing. The quality applications that the IBM SAN portfolio provides can help you take full advantage of the benefits of the SAN. In this book, we cover the latest additions to the IBM b-type SAN family and show how you can implement them in an open systems environment. In particular, we focus on the Fibre Channel Protocol (FCP) environment. We address the key concepts that these products bring to the market and, in each case, we provide an overview of the functions that are essential to building a robust SAN environment.

The rapid spread and adoption of production storage area networks (SANs) has fueled the need for multiprotocol routers. The routers provide improved scalability, security, and manageability by enabling devices in separate SAN fabrics to communicate without merging fabrics into a single, large SAN fabric. This capability enables clients to initially deploy separate SAN solutions at the departmental and data center levels. Then, clients can consolidate these separate solutions into large enterprise SAN solutions as their experience and requirements grow and change. Alternatively, multiprotocol routers can help to connect existing enterprise SANs for a variety of reasons. For instance, the introduction of Small Computer System Interface over IP (iSCSI) provides for the connection of low-end, low-cost hosts to enterprise SANs. The use of an Internet Protocol (IP) in the Fibre Channel (FC) environment provides for resource consolidation and disaster recovery planning over long distances. And the use of FC-FC routing services provides connectivity between two or more fabrics without having to merge them into a single SAN. This IBM® Redbooks® publication targets storage network administrators, system designers, architects, and IT professionals who sell, design, or administer SANs. It introduces you to products, concepts, and technology in the IBM System Storage™ SAN Routing portfolio, which is based on Brocade products and technology. This book shows the features of these products and examples of how you can deploy and use them.