Just over a week ago we announced the latest version of the Virtualize software for FlashSystem and SVC. 8.7.0 brings a raft of major and minor enhancements and the instantiation of our scalable storage platform using Flash Grid.

Whats New in 8.7.0 ?

• Flash Grid – scale out up to 8 FlashSystem or SVC systems to be managed as one, including non disruptive workload mobility between members of the grid.
• New topology designs for Policy-based High Availability (PB-HA) including fully active active pathing models and non-uniform host configurations. Minor additions with further OS support and clustering using SCSI-PR.
• Up to two RDMA based ethernet parternships between systems.
• Pauseless Volume Group Snapshot (VGS) triggering. Default grain size changes for VGS and the ability to convert ThinClones into full Clones
• Reclaim of unmapped space in Standard Pools (using VDM under the covers)
• Auto FCM firmware update of candidate drives
• Auto download of Security Patches from Fix Central
• Some minor tweaks :
  • VMware discovers volumes as “Flash” without manual changes at ESXi
  • Volume Groups support multi-tenancy (ownership group assignments)
  • Improved vVol scalability and VASA service RAS
  • Full performance stats available via REST-API

What is Flash Grid?

A Flash Grid is a scalable storage platform comprising of multiple FlashSystem or SVC systems that enables operational simplicity through federated management, AI-powered data placement recommendations and flexible deployment options.

Single Management Interface

8.7.0 allows you to manage your grid, initially from a single system chosen as the master – in the future (by year end) any member of the grid will have visibility and manageability over all the members of the grid. IBM Storage Insights today provides an overview of your grid with grouping of your systems and the ability to non-disruptively move workloads (Storage Partitions) between systems in the grid. The end goal is to provide a seamless integration and interaction between the on-premise and cloud based management portals.

Efficient Resource Utilisation

Since 8.6.1, Virtualize has enabled the creation and management of Storage Partitions. A partition contains all the host-facing logical configuration objects in one easy to manage entity. Initially introduced to manage PB-HA, in 8.6.3 we added the ability to migrate a Storage Partition between two distinct systems non-disruptively. In 8.7.0 and the 2Q24 release of Storage Insights, Insights itself can be used to initiate a partition migration.

By enabling both front-end and back-end migration of data, and the logical host facing objects, we can seamlessly migrate data and the logical configuration used to access the data between systems :

Linear Scalabiliy

Initially, a Flash Grid can contain up to 8 Virtualize based systems, with plans to provide much larger Grids in the not too distant future. By creating a Flash Grid you instantly enable scalability of not only performance but also logical objects. For example with 8 systems you can now configure 8x the single system limits – i.e. up to 256K host mappable volumes, 512K Snapshots etc etc

In addition, Policy-based Replication and High Availaibility, as well as Partition Migrations can be configured between any of the members of the Grid. With future enhancements based around AIops, Storage Insights has the data it needs to make recommendations based on workload characteistics, performance and eventually letting you set SLAs for workloads to ensure a given application always meets its needs from anywhere in the Grid.

Exiting times, with Storage Partitions and Flash Grid, IBM is yet again at the forefront of defining how Storage can be managed and how data can be accessed, just as we did over 20 years ago when we first introduced SVC.