IBM XIV storage system concepts and implementation technique

Meeting the changing needs of space requirements in a data storage system is an

obstacle that has provendifficult for many companies to negotiate over the years.For
example, more and more medical facilities have sitched to completely electronic
medical records.!uch changes place a huge burden in ay of storage on an existing
netor" infrastructure. #ther times,these problems have come from self$inflicted origins.
More often than not, this is a result of inadequate planning before implementing a ne
system. If it has come time to upgrade again or if your business is inthe mar"et to
implement a ne server solution, IBM has an ideal solution for almost any business
modelin their IBM XIV.%hen planning for a ne server or provisioning any ne
hardare, there are a several things to "eep inmind. !calability should alays come into
question. & system that is both scalable in itself and its abilityto further netor" ith
other units is important to accommodate groth. 'he IBM XIV has the capabilityto
automatically redistribute the file storage distribution as soon as ne hardare is
installed. 'heupgrades can be done hot as ell so there is little, if any, dontime. &lso
minimi(ing dontime is the)active$active *+,- redundancy . coupled ith the system/s
ability to perform hot hardare saps andthe system/s active redistribution of data, it
can rebuild a 0 'B hard drive in approximately 12 minutes.'he unit itself can support
from 34 up to ,52 hard drives but more impressively is that the IBM XIV 6en0 allos for
!!7 drive caching across all volumes. 'he system gains a boost from the ability to have
8226B per each module for a total of 9 'B of cache space.'he IBM XIV is designed to
accommodate groth. 'he system is designed to be part of a large gridarchitecture, so
even highly straining tas"s may be accomplished. 'he IBM XIV and 6en 0 model
bothma"e use of fiber optic channel$to$control unit controllers. 'his allos for a highly
dispersed grid, if theneed should arise. More importantly is that such technology can
transfer information at the data lin" levelas high as 5 6B per second.!uch a system
allos for the provisioning of much thinner clients in the or"space. 'he IBM XIV
isgeared toards not only storing information but also accommodates application
virtuali(ation through theuse of VMare. :emote access to resources is made easy by
incorporating the v;loud so no one isrestricted by office alls. ;omplementing the
remote access features en<oyed by the end users issomething for the I' staff . an
i=hone app is available, alloing for real$time monitoring from anyhere.IBM also
provides an informative and relatively simple 6>I for the management of the system
hichallos reduces the amount of time it ta"es the I' staff to ma"e any manual
ad<ustments