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IBM: Storage Bytes

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DQI Bureau
New Update

AUC Berkeley study threw up an interesting insight–12

exabytes (a billion gigabytes) of information was generated in 300,000 years of

man’s existence, but the next 12 exabytes will be added in the ensuing 2.3

years. Computing is approaching its next crunch–of storage space.

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The buzz in the storage industry is not about hardware

though. It is more about the ability to manage and administer what is stored.

Storage management technology, along with processes and services, is all set to

define the shape this industry is about to take. Says, Carolyn DiCenzo of

Gartner, "SANs, intelligent storage appliances and new data replication

techniques will transform the way storage back-up and recovery is accomplished

over the next three years."

SAN NAS
  • General-purpose storage with block I/O optimization



    Capabilities of file serving and data sharing
  • Offloads LAN/WAN network back-up/archive workload
  • Massive scalability
  • Superior performance



    Especially with large amounts of data transfer
  • Large suite of storage management tools
  • Task-specific storage



    NFS/CIFS file serving appliance with file I/O optimization


    Back-up/archive appliance (IBM 3466)
  • Easy to add storage



    Plug-and-play


    Connects directly to existing LAN/WAN network
  • NAS file servers share files across 30-plus platforms
  • Lessens need for skilled IT resources

IBM with its mainframe prowess has long been a pioneer and

innovator in many a storage technology. But this has not given the company

supremacy in terms of either market-share or mind-share hitherto vested with

storage-specific vendors like EMC Corporation and Veritas. Robert E Mahoney,

V-P, worldwide storage networking, IBM, says, "Of the 2,886 patents that

IBM filed last year, 436 are in the area of storage. EMC has only 76 of

them."

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Big Blue is rebounding with a new-found fervor to stake its

claim in the storage market. The company has rallied its forces in this area and

substantial investments in research, marketing, partner support, and

infrastructure have been planned. In May 2001, for instance, IBM showcased its

entire spectrum of storage technologies under a new program called IBM

TotalStorage.

StoreNets

IBM’s storage networking initiative includes the industry’s

first open NAS appliance–IBM NAS 300GM which allows local area network-based

clients and servers to easily interoperate with existing storage area networks

leveraging the features and performance of a SAN with the ease and convenience

of a NAS product. Essentially, the 300G converges Ethernet/IP networks and SANs.

The 300G is a highly-tuned file server that resides between the LAN and the SAN.

From the client-server side on the LAN, these products appear as a NAS device,

serving multi-protocol files, yet its storage resides on the SAN.

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Another appliance, IP Storage 200i is based on iSCSI–IBM’s

technology to connect storage resources on networks using TCP/IP. This comes as

an attractive alternative to expensive fiber channel SAN environments for

departments, workgroups, mid-market customers and service providers. iSCSI

enables customers to gain the advantages of pooled storage including the ability

to select client and server systems tied directly to storage resources using IP

protocol. To create this industry standard, IBM’s research teams at Almaden,

California and Haifa, Israel explored ways to adapt SCSI commands used by

hardware devices so that they would run atop Ethernet and TCP/IP protocols. More

recently, IBM teamed up with Cisco Systems to refine and extend the original

idea. The outcome of that collaboration–which has been submitted to the IETF

storage standards body–is called iSCSI.

Disks and tapes

The center-piece of IBM’s storage networking is its

Enterprise Storage Server (ESS), code-named Shark. It is a second-generation

Seascape disk storage system for networked computing environments. Target

installations are those where both mainframe and open systems connectivity is

required and where significant scalability and high availability are key

decision factors. Shark helps protect and manage distributed data with same

level of performance as in mainframe environment wherein data from various

servers can be stored on to a single disk server. It reduces data redundancy and

increases administrative productivity through centralized management. Shark can

process 31,000 I/Os per second and achieves 185 Mbps bandwidth and allows

leading high-speed interfaces like fiber channel, UltraSCSI, ESCON and FICON. It

can scale from 420 GB to 11 TB without disrupting operations or having to be

taken offline.

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Storage Industry Trends

  Today  Tomorrow
Architecture Direct-attached Networked
Storage Location Decentralized Centralized
Utilization Poor–40%-60% High:70%-90%
Management Tools Many, complex Few (Integrated), simple
Management In-house Mix of in-house and external
Connection Technology Mostly SCSI, Mostly Ethernet

(File/SCSI),
  some fiber channel some fiber channel

IBM has leadership in the tape storage market and has

developed jointly with H-P and Seagate, a Linear Tape Open (LTO) product family

called Ultrium. LTO is a relatively new tape standard, which offers 2.5 times

more capacity and performance than its predecessor standard DLT. The IBM Ultrium

family comprises Ultrium drives with capacity up to 100 GB, Ultrium Tape

Autoloader, Ultrium Scalable Tape Library, and Ultrascalable Tape Library which

can handle capacity up to 248 TB uncompressed. The other high-end tape storage

solutions are the Magstar Virtual Tape Server and Magstar 3590 Tape subsystem.

Managing the store

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As enterprises try to manage their storage resources with

proportionally fewer administrators, the worldwide storage management software

market is forecast to grow from $5.3 billion in 2000 to $16.7 billion in 2005,

according to Gartner. Storage hardware vendors look to storage software vendors

to gain competitive advantage and are increasing their software portfolios. IBM’s

acquisition of Tivoli Software a few years ago has put the former at an

advantageous position. IBM/Tivoli’s storage management products are Tivoli

Storage Manager (TSM), Tivoli Storage Network Manager (TSNM), and SANergy. TSM

already has a large footprint in the market with over one million computers

worldwide using the product. TSM provides a business view of storage management

and allows policy-based storage, which means that storage is decided and done

keeping the business criticality in mind. This philosophy is therefore different

from the usual back-up and restore routine. A SAN is just another complex

network resource and needs to be managed. TSNM is the network manager of SAN. It

simplifies configuration management tasks with automatic discovery and topology

mapping. SANergy is a performance tool that shares storage and data resources,

speeds up transaction processing, and scales up to meet demand.

Total storage

Earlier this year, IBM announced solutions aimed at

accelerating the acceptance of SAN. Part of the enhanced TotalStorage offerings

are the pre-configured MSS/LTO solution for mid-markets and programs worldwide

for business partners. The mid-market solution for resellers feature IBM Modular

Storage Server (MSS), Ultrium LTO tape automation, IBM StorWatch resource

management software, copy middlewares, SAN Data Gateway , and SAN Switches- all

pre-tested and rack-mounted and delivered as a single piece.

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IBM has announced a 50:50 resources program at its IBM

TotalStorage Solution Centers where IBM will partner with resellers to bring

more technical assistance at the centers to help drive the acceptance of SANs

into the marketplace. The storage market is expected to be about $45 billion in

2003, according to Low Yik Choon, GM, storage, IBM Asean and Asia.

According to Choon, "Forrester Research has reveqaled

that 75% of new hardware spending would be on storage and 80% of the storage

spending would be on NAS and SAN". That is, storage is really getting

center-stage and is going to be a hotly contested market for the next couple of

years. And IBM is revving up its engines to claim a sizeable share.

Easwaradas Satyan in Bali

Islands, Indonesia

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