Seller Preview Webinar: IBM FlashSystem A9000 & A9000R Introduction and Positioning

Question & Answer follow-up

Confidential: IBM Internal Only

Note: Individual webinar questions have been combined in many instances into broader questions. These
questions, among others, will compose the formal internal Q&A that will be available closer to the
announce date. Please refer to that documentation beginning in April 2016.

When is the announce and GA date? How can we get information before then for our clients?

Announce and GA are planned for April 27. If you would like to brief customers before then, please get
approval from your sales leader and if pricing is needed submit a Letter 112 request through e-Bids. The
link to instructions on how to do this is on the homepage of Flash Essentials.

Are FlashSystem A9000 and FlashSystem A9000R block storage only?

IBM FlashSystem A9000 and IBM FlashSystem A9000R are block storage only. For file/object
opportunities, FlashSystem 900 with Spectrum Scale or V7000 Unified is recommended. FlashSystem
can be used in the same environment as Cleversafe but should not be used as storage for Cleversafe.

Why did we name them FlashSystem A9000 and FlashSystem A9000R?

A stands for Accelerate, as these offerings' software capabilities are built with / are based on Spectrum
Accelerate software. The "R" in IBM FlashSystem A9000R stands for "rack".

What are the capacity options?

There will be three effective capacity offerings on FlashSystem A9000, and FlashSystem A9000R can
scale up linearly to nearly two petabytes of effective capacity. FlashSystem A9000 and A9000R flash-
optimized data reduction is global and always on. Capabilities include pattern removal, data
deduplication, and inline compression. The effective capacity on the datasheet represents the typical
amount of data able to be written to the array and does not include additional savings from thin
provisioning and space efficient snapshots. Some workloads benefit from compression (e.g. databases)
and others benefit more from deduplication (e.g. virtual servers and virtual desktop images). If a
customer needs comprehensive storage services but doesn't anticipate getting value from data
reduction, FlashSystem V9000 is likely the the better choice for them. The usable capacity is driven by
the number of Flash storage enclosures used and the size of the flash modules. All FlashSystem A9000
and A9000R ship with 12 flash modules per storage enclosure.

How is the new compression algorithm different from RtC?

FlashSystem A9000 and FlashSystem A9000R compression improvements over existing RtC
implementations include: i) new flash-optimized RACE algorithms, ii) dedupe first, only compress unique
data, iii) massively increased hardware infrastructure (CPU/cache) to handle the strain of data
reduction, including dual layer cache, distributed across all three grid controllers in A9000 and up to
twelve grid controllers in A9000R. FlashSystem A9000 and FlashSystem A9000R (with full-time data
reduction enabled) will have better performance than FlashSystem V9000 when compression is enabled.
If a customer needs comprehensive storage services but doesn't anticipate getting value from data
reduction, FlashSystem V9000 is likely the the better choice for them.

1 | Webinar Q&A February 22, 2016

Seller Preview Webinar: IBM FlashSystem A9000 & A9000R Introduction and Positioning
Question & Answer follow-up
Confidential: IBM Internal Only

Are data reduction capabilities available?

Yes, both IBM FlashSystem A9000 and IBM FlashSystem A9000R have pattern removal, deduplication,
compression, all of which are always enabled. In addition to these capabilities, both offerings have space
efficient snapshots and thin provisioning. Pattern removal, deduplication, and compression are
software-based capabilities, occurring in that order to incoming I/O. The compression process also
includes a hardware accelerator for improved performance. Deduplication and compression are both
global and inline.

Is the deduplication code coming from ProtecTIER?

The dedupe feature is not from ProtecTIER. The data reduction capability is signifcantly different than
Storwize, so much so it would be incorrect to call it revamped from Storwize.

Is encryption supported?

Yes, encryption for these two models will be supported. There is no additional license required to enable
encryption, but SKLM is required. We may be able to approve other RPQs for supporting other key
managers, like Safenet or Thales Key Manager.

Is there a new Comprestimator?

We are planning to have a tool that helps us estimate the likely total data reduction. Comprestimator,
on its own, will not be the right tool to estimate A9000 compression effectiveness.

More info on Gartner interviews:

Submit any nominations of great / happy customers to Steven Rael. They will want to have a variety of
customers across the products line as well as across industries. So definitely include SVC / 900 customer
recommendations as well.

Is there a new GUI?

The new management interface will be it's own management platform for FlashSystem A9000 and
FlashSystem A9000R, with plans to be adopted to other offerings (e.g., XIV) later in the year. More
details on that will be announced when finalized. This interface has earned more than 15 patents and
has been through four different user studies to refine its capabilities. There is no "sandbox"
environment for the interface at this time for sellers to use, but please reach out to Susan Sullivan
(ssulliv@us.ibm.com) if you would like a demo before GA. The new GUI includes live and historical
performance data (up to a year of data).

Can you convert an FlashSystem A9000 to an FlashSystem A9000R?

No. But, you will be able to use Hyper-Scale Mobility to dynamically (not automatically) move data
across multiple FlashSystem A9000 systems with no interruptions.

What latency should we expect?

Compression and deduplication are global and always on, average latency is 500 microseconds.
2 | Webinar Q&A February 22, 2016
Seller Preview Webinar: IBM FlashSystem A9000 & A9000R Introduction and Positioning
Question & Answer follow-up
Confidential: IBM Internal Only

How will licensing FlashSystem A9000 behind FlashSystem V9000 work?

Licensing for virtualizing A9000 behind V9000 will be announced with the A9000. A9000 will be treated
as an internal enclosure, not as externally virtualized TBs.

Why would a client purchase a FlashSystem V9000 over a FlashSystem A9000?

While we are excited about the arrival of the FlashSystem A9000 in late Q2, we remain confident that
the FlashSystem V9000 is appropriate for your customer environments. The FlashSystem V9000 with its
strong virtualization capabilities is designed for the hybrid data center. Its selectable compression is
great for database workloads or cases where you just don't want to slow down for data reduction. The
FlashSystem V9000 has a lower entry cost and more capacity points. The FlashSystem V9000 can either
scale up or scale out giving customers a choice when they decide how to grow. The FlashSystem V9000
with Easy Tier enables lower cost storage deployments and automatic determination of what data
belongs on what storage. The FlashSystem V9000 is the right choice when a customer is not interested
in data reduction. Please refer to additional positioning collateral and deep dives as it is published.

What's the price?

This information will be available as we get closer to GA. We anticipate the price per effective capacity
to be better than the price per effective capacity on the FlashSystem V9000 for workloads that benefit
from a full suite of data reduction tools.

What level of RAID protection is provided?

These offerings take advantage of the 2D RAID that is a critical part of the FlashCore technology. 2D
RAID is a multi-dimensional approach to RAID: we have RAID across the MicroLatency modules and we
have Variable Stripe RAID within the modules. This is a key differentiator for our FlashCore technology,
which is used in FlashSystem A9000 and FlashSystem A9000R. Read more about our data protection in
this white paper.

Will replication be supported?

1. No replication between FlashSystem A9000R and FlashSystem V9000 unless the V9000 is virtualizing
the A9000.

2. Three site replication (with consistency groups) is on the roadmap but no definite date to announce
yet.

3. By the end of 2Q expect support for asynch replication from A9000/A9000R to XIV Gen 3.

4. FlashSystem A9000 and A9000R will support synch and asynch replication.

How reliable is it?

The storage enclosure in the FlashSystem A9000 will have the same reliability profile of the storage
enclosure in the FlashSystem V9000 or FlashSystem 900.

3 | Webinar Q&A February 22, 2016

Seller Preview Webinar: IBM FlashSystem A9000 & A9000R Introduction and Positioning
Question & Answer follow-up
Confidential: IBM Internal Only

How does FlashSystem A9000R scale?

The grid architecture of IBM FlashSystem A9000 and IBM FlashSystem A9000R refers to the ability of the
systems to use all resources available. One fully scaled out FlashSystem A9000R will support up to 6
flash enclosures, 12 grid controllers, and nearly 2 PB of capacity. Hyper-Scale Manager will allow you to
then manage multiple fully scaled out racks from one single pane of glass.

Will the SISS get paid for FlashSystem A9000 & A9000R? Will the SDSS get paid for FlashSystem A9000
& A9000R as well?

Absolutely!

Are both the A9000 and A9000R SSR Installed?

Yes.

Is space reclamation supported?

A9000 is fully thin provisioned and supports space reclamation / thin reclamation / UNMAP.

Will XIV get deduplication and share the same GUI?

All of these ideas are being discussed, but there are no commitments as it relates to adding dedupe to
the XIV or Spectrum Accelerate. Implementing dedupe has a significant impact on the equipment
required. A customer cannot build an A9000 with Spectrum Accelerate software.

How does the license transferability work?

Spectrum Suite licenses and Spectrum Accelerate licenses can be applied to the software costs of
FlashSystem A9000 and FlashSystem A9000R.

Will V9000 get deduplication?

Deduplication is being considered on the Storwize/SVC/V9000 roadmap for 2017.

Do FlashSystem A9000 or FlashSystem A9000R virtualize other systems?

IBM FlashSystem A9000 and FlashSystem A9000R will not virtualize other volumes the way that
FlashSystem V9000 does. IBM Hyper-Scale Manager, which is included in FlashSystem A9000 and
A9000R offerings, will allow customers to manage multiple FlashSystem A9000 or FlashSystem A9000R
solutions from a single pane of glass. The capacity will not be combined into one pool, but will stay as
separate units.

Will there be support for virtualizing A9000 behind SVC at launch?

SVC/V9000 will support virtualizing A9000.

4 | Webinar Q&A February 22, 2016

Seller Preview Webinar: IBM FlashSystem A9000 & A9000R Introduction and Positioning
Question & Answer follow-up
Confidential: IBM Internal Only

Will there be support for virtualizing A9000 behind SVC at launch? Does it make sense to have
XIV/A9000 under SVC to simplify data movement and tiering?

Yes, there is an option to virtualize XIV and A9000 behind SVC. Many customers already virtualize XIV.
Tiering is a strong use case for SVC.

Does it make sense to use A9000 as a big flash pool to serve Flash technology to multiple SVC clusters
at customer site instead of using one FS900 per SVC cluster?

The decision between the FS900 and the A9000 should depend more on the customer's performance
expectations in balance with their cost/capacity expectations. The more the customer favors
performance the more you should lean on the FS900, the more they want the lowest cost/flash capacity
then lean toward the A9000. It is not unreasonable to have both for different workloads. Use the FS900
for the database accelerator where dedupe is not effective but the A9000 for the virtualized data that
really benefits from deduplication.

Is FlashSystem V9000 getting replaced?

No the V9000 will not be replaced by the A9000. The FlashSystem A9000 and A9000R are an addition to
the FlashSystem family.

Is there an MSP license model?

Not yet. We are looking into new pricing models for the MSP customers.

Are there plans to build in the ability for FlashSystem A9000 to recognize if volumes are poor
candidates for compression (images) or dedupe (database)?

We are planning to have a tool that will estimate deduplication and compression ratios on volumes. Aso,
once volumes are loaded into the system, the CLI and GUI will provide data reduction ratio estimates.
Selective data reduction is being discussed.

5 | Webinar Q&A February 22, 2016