IBM DS8000 – Product Brief

Overview

The DS8000 is IBM’s high-end enterprise storage system supporting both mainframe and open system attachment. The DS8000 storage system currently consists of the DS8900F models with various choices of base and expansion elements to address specific configuration needs from a capacity, connectivity, and performance perspective. F is the designation for all flash models such as the previous DS8880F systems and the current DS8900F.

The DS8000 series is based upon the IBM POWER 9 server technology that is also integrated with the IBM Virtualization Engine technology. The DS8000 consists of a storage unit and one or two Hardware Management Consoles. A storage complex is the storage unit and the Management Consoles that manage it.

The DS8900F systems are all flash models that replaced the previous generation DS8880 hybrid models that were built upon IBM POWER 8 technology. The DS8900F provides the following features:

• Two processor complexes with System-p POWER 9 processors
• Models
  • DS8910F All Flash System
  • DS8950F All Flash System
• PCIe Gen 3 adapters and Flash Enclosure connection
  • 6 Gb/s SAS-2 connections for devices
  • Up to 5.9 PB of physical flash storage
• Up to 3.4 TB of processor memory (cache)
• Up to 16 host adapters (HAs) supporting Fibre Channel and FICON host connectivity
• Easy Tier for dynamic tiering of SSDs and HDDs and the Flash Enclosure
  • API for software developers to control data placement
  • Storage Tier Advisor tool for tiering optimization
• Gen-2 Flash enclosure with dual-active PCIe connected controllers that utilize 2.5” Flash modules and custom flash controllers for accelerated performance.  RAID card with custom ASIC pair for redundancy
• Multi-target replication with PPRC licensed feature
• 19” rack with 40U rack expandable to 46U
• Copy Services Manager – automation for advanced copy services and multi-site migration and disaster recover – both mainframe and open
• zHyperLink for low response time system z connection and data protection
• End to end encryption of data in-flight and at-rest

Transparent cloud tiering where data is automatically migrated to IBM Cloud Object Storage, IBM Cloud, or IBM TS7700 was added in 2017. This allows the mainframe to control movement for ECKD volumes with DFSMShsm to move data to and from the DS8000 and cloud object storage.

IBM DS8000 Product Brief Includes:

Highlights
Overview
Usage
EvaluScale Product Review Methodology
Evaluator Group Commentary

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