IBM Storage Solutions Redbooks

Business Continuity Orchestration for IBM FlashSystem Hybrid Cloud with Red Hat Ansible V1R2
Storage Solutions

Blueprint, published 4 Jun 2021

This document is intended to facilitate the deployment of Red Hat Ansible for IBM® FlashSystem. The document showcases the automation and orchestration of storage provisioning and copy services, such as Global Mirror, Global Mirror with change volumes, Metro Mirror for IBM FlashSystem® in hybrid cloud environments. The Ansible-based automation and orchestration for managing high availability environments by using HyperSwap for IBM FlashSystem storage also is described. To complete the tasks that are described, you must understand IBM FlashSystem and Red Hat Ansible. The information in this ... [more]

IBM SAN Volume Controller Best Practices and Performance Guidelines
Software Defined Storage

Redbooks, published 15 Apr 2021, last updated 14 May 2021

This IBM® Redbooks® publication describes several of the preferred practices and describes the performance gains that can be achieved by implementing the IBM SAN Volume Controller powered by IBM Spectrum® Virtualize V8.4. These practices are based on field experience. This book highlights configuration guidelines and preferred practices for the storage area network (SAN) topology, clustered system, back-end storage, storage pools, and managed disks, volumes, Remote Copy services, and hosts. Then, it provides performance guidelines for IBM SAN Volume Controller, back-end storage, and ... [more]

IBM DS8000 Copy Services: Updated for IBM DS8000 Release 9.1
Storage Solutions

Redbooks, published 9 Apr 2021, last updated 13 May 2021

This IBM® Redbooks® publication helps you plan, install, configure, and manage Copy Services on the IBM DS8000® operating in an IBM Z® or Open Systems environment. This book helps you design and implement a new Copy Services installation or migrate from an existing installation. It includes hints and tips to maximize the effectiveness of your installation, and information about tools and products to automate Copy Services functions. It is intended for anyone who needs a detailed and practical understanding of the DS8000 Copy Services. This edition is an update for the DS8900 Release 9.1. ... [more]

Electronic Health Records with Epic and IBM FlashSystem 9200 Blueprint Version 2 Release 3
Storage Solutions

Blueprint, published 22 Apr 2020, last updated 12 May 2021

This information is intended to facilitate the deployment of IBM® FlashSystem for the Epic Corporation electronic health record (EHR) solution by describing the requirements and specifications for configuring IBM FlashSystem® 9200 and its parameters. The document also describes the steps that are required to configure the server that host the EHR application. To complete the tasks, you must have a working knowledge of IBM FlashSystem 9200 and Epic applications. The information in this document is distributed on an “as is” basis, without any warranty that is either expressed or implied. ... [more]

Using the IBM Block Storage CSI Driver in a Red Hat OpenShift Environment
Storage Solutions

Redpaper, published 10 May 2021, last updated 12 May 2021

RedHat OpenShift container platform is one of the leading enterprise-grade container orchestration platforms. It is designed for rapid deployment of web applications, databases, and microservices. Categorized as a container orchestration Platform as a Service (PaaS), it is based on open industry standards, such as the Container Runtime Interface - Open (CRI-O) and Kubernetes. OpenShift allow developers to focus on the code, while the platform manages the complex IT operations and processes. Although open-source, community-driven container orchestration platforms are available, such as OKD ... [more]

IBM TS7700 Release 5.1 Guide
Storage Solutions

Redbooks, published 4 May 2021

This IBM® Redbooks® publication covers IBM TS7700 R5.1. The IBM TS7700 is part of a family of IBM Enterprise tape products. This book is intended for system architects and storage administrators who want to integrate their storage systems for optimal operation. Building on over 20 years of virtual tape experience, the TS7770 supports the ability to store virtual tape volumes in an object store. The TS7700 supported off loading to physical tape for over two decades. Off loading to physical tape behind a TS7700 is utilized by hundreds of organizations around the world. By using the same ... [more]

IBM TS2900 Tape Autoloader
Tape storage

Web Doc, published 30 Jun 2016, last updated 19 Apr 2021

IBM® TS2900 Tape Autoloader is a low-entry tape storage solution that is designed to address capacity, data protection, reliability, availability, and affordability. With low profile IBM Ultrium® Linear Tape-Open (LTO) 8, 7, and 6 Half-High tape drives, and high-density storage capacity, the TS2900 is ideally suited for backup and archival operations.

IBM Spectrum Protect Plus Practical Guidance for Deployment, Configuration, and Usage
Storage Solutions

Redpaper, published 14 Dec 2020, last updated 31 Mar 2021

IBM® Spectrum Protect Plus is a data protection solution that provides near-instant recovery, replication, retention management, and reuse for virtual machines, databases, and applications backups in hybrid multicloud environments. IBM Knowledge Center for IBM Spectrum® Protect Plus provides extensive documentation for installation, deployment, and usage. In addition, build and size an IBM Spectrum Protect Plus solution. The goal of this IBM Redpaper® publication is to summarize and complement the available information by providing useful hints and tips that are based on the authors’ ... [more]

High Performant File System Workloads for AI and HPC on AWS using IBM Spectrum Scale
Storage Solutions

Redpaper, published 31 Mar 2021

This IBM® Redpaper® publication is intended to facilitate the deployment and configuration of the IBM Spectrum® Scale based high-performance storage solutions for the scalable data and AI solutions on Amazon Web Services (AWS). Configuration, testing results, and tuning guidelines for running the IBM Spectrum Scale based high-performance storage solutions for the data and AI workloads on AWS are the focus areas of the paper. The LAB Validation was conducted with the Red Hat Linux nodes to IBM Spectrum Scale by using the various Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) instances. Simultaneous ... [more]

IBM TS7700 R5.1 Cloud Storage Tier Guide
Storage Solutions

Redpaper, published 23 Mar 2021

Building on over 23 years of virtual tape experience, the IBM® TS7700 (IBM TS7760 and TS7770) now can store virtual tape volumes in object storage. This IBM Redpaper Redbooks publication helps you set up and configure the cloud object storage support for IBM Cloud® Object Storage or Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3). The TS7700 supported offloading to physical tape for over two decades. Using a TS7700 to offload to physical tape is a process that is used by hundreds of organizations around the world. By using the same hierarchical storage techniques, the TS7700 also can offload to ... [more]

IBM TS7700 Series DS8000 Object Store User's Guide Version 2.0
Storage Solutions

Redpaper, published 22 Mar 2021

The IBM® TS7700 features a functional enhancement that allows for the TS7700 to act as an object store for transparent cloud tiering with IBM DS8000® (DS8K), DFSMShsm (HSM), and native DFSMSdss (DSS). This function can be used to move data sets directly from DS8000 to TS7700. This IBM Redpaper publication describes the client value, and how DFSMS, DS8000, and TS7700 are set up to enable and use the function.

IBM Cloud Object Storage Concepts and Architecture System Edition
Software Defined Storage

Redpaper, published 7 Jul 2020, last updated 19 Mar 2021

Object Storage is the primary storage solution that is used in the cloud and on-premises solutions as a central storage platform for unstructured data. Object Storage is growing more popular for the following reasons:
- It is designed for exabyte scale.
- It is easy to manage and yet meets the growing demands of enterprises for a broad set of applications and workloads.
- It allows users to balance storage cost, location, and compliance control requirements across data sets and essential applications.
IBM® Cloud Object Storage (IBM COS) system provides ... [more]

LDAP Authentication for IBM DS8000 Systems: Updated for DS8000 Release 9.1
Storage Solutions

Redpaper, published 8 Mar 2021

The IBM® DS8000® series includes the option to replace the locally based user ID and password authentication with a centralized directory-based approach. This IBM Redpaper publication helps DS8000 storage administrators understand the concepts and benefits of a centralized directory. It provides the information that is required for implementing a DS8000 authentication mechanism that is based on the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP). Starting with DS8000 Release 9.1 code, a simpler, native LDAP authentication method is supported along with the former implementation that relies on ... [more]

Enhanced Cyber Resilience Solution by Threat Detection using IBM Cloud Object Storage System and IBM QRadar SIEM
Storage Solutions

Blueprint, published 2 Mar 2021, last updated 4 Mar 2021

This Solution Redpaper™ publication explains how the features of IBM Cloud® Object Storage System reduces the effect of incidents on business data when combined with log analysis, deep inspection, and detection of threats that IBM QRadar SIEM provides. This paper also demonstrates how to integrate IBM Cloud Object Storage's access logs with IBM QRadar SIEM. An administrator can monitor, inspect, detect, and derive insights for identifying potential threats to the data that is stored on IBM Cloud Object Storage. Also, IBM QRadar SIEM can proactively trigger cyber resiliency workflow in IBM ... [more]

IBM Spectrum Scale and IBM Elastic Storage System Network Guide
Storage Software

Redpaper, published 17 Feb 2021

  (based on 1 review)

High-speed I/O workloads are moving away from the SAN to Ethernet and IBM® Spectrum Scale is pushing the network limits. The IBM Spectrum® Scale team discovered that many infrastructure Ethernet networks that were used for years to support various applications are not designed to provide a high-performance data path concurrently to many clients from many servers. IBM Spectrum Scale is not the first product to use Ethernet for storage access. Technologies, such as Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE), scale out NAS, and IP connected storage (iSCSI and others) use Ethernet though IBM Spectrum ... [more]

Implementing the IBM SAN Volume Controller with IBM Spectrum Virtualize V8.3.1
Flash storage

Redbooks, published 1 Feb 2021

  (based on 1 review)

This IBM® Redbooks® publication is a detailed technical guide to the IBM System Storage™ SAN Volume Controller, which is powered by IBM Spectrum® Virtualize V8.3.1. IBM SAN Volume Controller is a virtualization appliance solution that maps virtualized volumes that are visible to hosts and applications to physical volumes on storage devices. Each server within the storage area network (SAN) has its own set of virtual storage addresses that are mapped to physical addresses. If the physical addresses change, the server continues running by using the same virtual addresses that it had before. ... [more]

Privileged Access Management for Secure Storage Administration: IBM Spectrum Scale with IBM Security Verify Privilege Vault
Storage Solutions

Redpaper, published 8 Jan 2021

There is a growing insider security risk to organizations. Human error, privilege misuse, and cyberespionage are considered the top insider threats. One of the most dangerous internal security threats is the privileged user with access to critical data, which is the “crown jewels” of the organization. This data is on storage, so storage administration has critical privilege access that can cause major security breaches and jeopardize the safety of sensitive assets. Organizations must maintain tight control over whom they grant privileged identity status to for storage administration. Extra ... [more]

IBM DS8000 and IBM Z Synergy (DS8000 Release 9.1 and IBM z/OS 2.4)
Storage Solutions

Redpaper, published 5 Jan 2021, last updated 6 Jan 2021

IBM® Z has a close and unique relationship to its storage. Over the years, improvements to the Z processors and storage software, the disk storage systems, and their communication architecture consistently reinforced this synergy. This IBM Redpaper publication summarizes and highlights the various aspects, advanced functions, and technologies that are often pioneered by IBM, and that make the IBM Z® and the IBM DS8000 products an ideal combination. This paper is intended for users who have some familiarity with IBM Z and the IBM DS8000® series and want a condensed but comprehensive overview ... [more]

IBM Storage for Red Hat OpenShift Blueprint
Storage Solutions

Blueprint, published 18 Dec 2020

This IBM® Blueprint is intended to facilitate the deployment of IBM Storage for Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform by using detailed hardware specifications to build a system. It describes the associated parameters for configuring persistent storage within a Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform environment. To complete the tasks, you must understand Red Hat OpenShift, IBM Storage, the IBM block storage Container Storage Interface (CSI) driver, and the IBM Spectrum Scale CSI driver. The information in this document is distributed on an “as is” basis without any warranty that is either ... [more]

IBM System Storage SAN Volume Controller, IBM Storwize V7000, and IBM FlashSystem 7200 Best Practices and Performance Guidelines
Software Defined Storage

Redbooks, published 11 Feb 2020, last updated 7 Dec 2020

  (based on 1 review)

This IBM® Redbooks® publication captures several of the preferred practices and describes the performance gains that can be achieved by implementing the IBM System Storage® SAN Volume Controller and IBM Storwize® V7000 powered by IBM Spectrum Virtualize™ V8.2.1. These practices are based on field experience. This book highlights configuration guidelines and preferred practices for the storage area network (SAN) topology, clustered system, back-end storage, storage pools and managed disks, volumes, remote copy services, and hosts. Then it provides performance guidelines for SAN Volume ... [more]