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Latest Post
Deployment Models for Policy-based High Availability (PBHA) – Part 3a
A little later than planned, work keeps getting in the way, but here is Part3a – Availability Characteristics In Part1 we… [Read More]
Previous Posts
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Storage Virtualize 8.6.0 Available
Over the last month it was great to catch up with some many customers, partners and IBMers as we hopped around Europe for the early summer User Group season. Even better was the weather, especially as its turning cold and damp here back in New Zealand! The User Groups were taking the chance to also celebrate 20 years since we first released SVC, the grandfather of all Storwize and FlashSystem products. We definitely ate too much cake – see my Linked In for examples! Meanwhile, on Friday, 8.6.0.0 was made available for download on FixCentral. 8.6.0 will be the next… [Read More]
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Spectrum Virtualize – Policy Based Replication – Guest post by Chris Bulmer
BW: Its been a while since I had a guest post and who better to complete the series of articles discussing the latest Policy Based Replication functionality the replication development lead himself, Chris Bulmer. [BW: Where I have added some commentary it is in this blue italic text.] Policy-based replication IBM SAN Volume Controller, and later IBM Storwize and IBM FlashSystem products, have had replication capabilities since the first release, way back in the early 2000s and many of the concepts (and code) haven’t changed dramatically since then. With a shift in the industry to highly scalable, automation-friendly and self-managing… [Read More]
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IBM Spectrum Virtualize – Policy Based Snapshots, Immutability – aka FlashCopy 2.0
Last month I discussed the switch of the management interfaces to start implementing new features using a Policy Based Management philosophy. That post discussed the simple Provisioning Policies that can be created, here we are going to talk about FlashCopy 2.0 – or at least a new way to manage a subset of the FlashCopy capabilities with the new Volume Group Snapshot capabilities introduced earlier this year in 8.5.1 and enhanced in 8.5.2 to provide Snapshots with Immutability as a new way to implement Safeguarded Copy for Cyber Resilience. FlashCopy Considerations First off, Snapshots make use of FlashCopy. That is,… [Read More]
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Spectrum Virtualize – Policy based management
It’s been far too long since I posted on here. I do have a good excuse in that almost all of my “spare time” has been consumed by what started as a hobby and kind of spiraled into a boutique synthesiser brand… (for those interested see Ge0sync Synth) … anyway… I can make all the excuses under the sun, at the end of the day we need to make the time for the important things. Never is this more true than today with our IT and Storage management processes and procedures. With all businesses under extreme pressure as the world… [Read More]
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Would your business survive a Cyber attack? Introducing IBM Cyber Vault with the new FlashSystem 7300, FlashSystem 9500 and SVC SV3
You are prepared. You have the monitoring. You have the protection. You feel safe. But if the worst happens and your data is held ransom after a latent ransomware trojan is triggered, how long would you take to recover? You figure its OK, you have HA and/or DR… but those are now held ransom too… You have the backups, lets recover from backup… But how long would it take you to recover the data? The industry average is 23 days… yes 23 days! Would you still have customers after 23 days of no access to your services, and you cannot… [Read More]
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Spectrum Virtualize 8.4.x – 2021 in review – 8.4.1, 8.4.2 and 8.4.3
2021 saw the first full year of the new LTS/CD delivery mechanisms for software functionality updates within Spectrum Virtualize. With 8.4.0 initially being released this time last year, the LTS version is now classed as a recommended level and I discussed its contents, and some things to consider regarding pre-reqs, end of support etc in my previous post. For 2021, the whole storage family got some new icons, Spectrum Virtualize is signified by the icon above. 1Q2021 – 8.4.0.1 We don’t normally add functional content to a PTF release, but with the release of the award winning, unique 1U, IBM… [Read More]
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Re-introducing Spectrum Virtualize 8.4
Some of you may have noticed that we haven’t really posted about the new features and functions that have been introduced over the last year in Spectrum Virtualize. I figured that i the same way that we have now modified our release strategy (check out the details on LTS and CD releases) but it would actually make sense to almost delay our updates till a time that most people are going to be thinking about upgrading the code! On announce days, there are lots of posts and discussion of the new features available, but when it comes to end users… [Read More]
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IBM Storage with Smarts – Storage Digital Platform
Earlier this year IBM introduced the FlashSystem 5200, a new form factor for FlashSystem, being only 1U in height, but with all the smarts, ease of use and performance you’d expect from a system utilising Spectrum Virtualize and FlashCore Modules (FCM). The reviews and experiences have been exceptional, and just this week IBM has launched the the SDP which makes buying and owning a FlashSystem even easier. To see for yourself, check out the SDP landing page here. [Read More]
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Clustering Combinations – Spectrum Virtualize Platforms
Supported Clustering Hardware Configurations Please note, this is aimed to provide guidance and is correct at the time of publishing. Update – 21st July 2021 – as a result of this post, my friends in support thought this a worthy topic and have created an official support document that will be kept up to date. You can find that here : https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/node/6469491 While its true that we publish a lot of interop data regarding the supported code levels and mixtures you can have when in replication partnerships, I’ve had a few questions recently regarding what the rules are about clustering… [Read More]
Barry Whyte and Andrew Martin : IBM Storage 