IBM System Storage SAN Volume Controller

Highlights

• Designed to combine storage capacity from multiple disk systems into a reservoir of capacity that can be managed more efficiently
• Designed to help increase storage utilisation by providing host applications with more flexible access to capacity
• Designed to help improve storage administrator productivity by automating provisioning and enabling management of heterogeneous storage systems using a simple common interface
• Designed to support improved application availability by practically eliminating storage-related causes of application downtime
• Designed to enable a tiered storage environment in which the cost of storage can be better matched to the value of data
• Designed to support advanced copy services from higher- to lower-cost devices and across storage systems from multiple vendors
• Designed to reduce costs and improve flexibility with SCSI over IP (iSCSI) host attachment
• Designed to enable greater flexibility in storage acquisitions
• Designed to deliver ultra-high performance for critical workloads with innovative and tightly integrated support for solid-state devices.

Building a simpler, more flexible and responsive IT infrastructure

In IT today, the only constant is change. Achieving best business results from a complex enterprise-class IT infrastructure means more than simply deploying new solutions; it means redefining IT as a versatile instrument of business strategy, which can change in parallel with changing demands.

Easy to Implement

SVC software is delivered pre-installed on SVC Storage Engines so it is quickly ready for implementation once the engines are attached to your storage area network (SAN). SVC Storage Engines are based on proven IBM System x server technology and are always deployed in redundant pairs, which are designed to deliver very high availability.

SVC is designed to take control of existing storage, retaining all your existing information. This ability helps speed and simplify implementation while helping to minimise the need for additional storage. Once SVC is implemented, you can make changes to the configuration quickly and easily as needed.

iSCSI server attachment

SVC supports attachment to servers using iSCSI protocols over Internet Protocol (IP) networks, which can help reduce costs and simplify server configuration. iSCSI attachment avoids the cost of fibre channel (FC) host bus adapters (HBAs) in servers and reduces the need for FC switch ports. This new capability may be particularly attractive for IBM BladeCenter server configurations.

Complement Server Virtualisation

As described above, storage virtualisation with SVC complements server virtualisation with technologies such as VMware vSphere.

Server virtualisation helps speed provisioning of new server images because provisioning becomes a software operation rather than requiring hardware changes. Similarly, provisioning with SVC is achieved with software and with thin provisioning and is designed to become an almost entirely automated function. Without SVC, server provisioning could be slowed by the need to provision storage.

Functions such as VMotion support application mobility between physical servers. Similarly, SVC is designed to support nondisruptive data migration between storage systems. In addition, SVC helps make storage potentially available to all attached servers, greatly increasingly the flexibility for using VMotion. Without SVC, use of VMotion could be limited by storage being dedicated to specific servers.

Because SVC appears to servers as a single type of storage, virtual server provisioning is also simplified because only a single driver type is needed in server images, which also simplifies administration of those server images. Similarly, SVC eases replacing storage or moving data from one storage type to another because these changes do not require changes to server images. Without SVC changes of storage type could require disruptive changes to server images.

Server virtualisation helps increase flexibility and reduce cost for disaster recovery by enabling the use of different physical configurations at production and recovery sites. Common virtual server configurations are used on these different physical infrastructures. Similarly, SVC supports the use of different physical storage configurations at production and recovery sites yet helps create the same virtual configuration at each site. Without SVC, production and recovery site physical storage configurations would need to be similar, potentially increasing costs.

The SVC Space-Efficient FlashCopy function can be used to help reduce storage requirements when cloning boot drives for multiple virtual servers. When using this function, additional storage is used only for differences among servers instead of needing storage for each boot drive.

Many customers run mixed environments with a variety of virtualised and non-virtualised servers and expect to do so for years to come. SVC provides an external storage virtualisation function that operates in a consistent manner and provides consistent services for all attached servers, regardless of whether or not those servers are virtualised. In contrast, server-based storage virtualisation techniques differ from server to server and so make mixed environments more complex rather than less.

Reduce storage used for copies

The SVC Space-Efficient FlashCopy function is designed to dramatically reduce storage requirements when copying data by using additional physical storage only for the differences between source and target and not for the entire target virtual disk capacity.

This capability can be used to help reduce storage requirements for test environments that are copied from production data. For example, SAP users often maintain multiple copies of production data for testing. Using the Space-Efficient FlashCopy function to maintain these test environments can help significantly reduce the amount of physical storage required.

Simplified Provisioning

In the past, users often dedicated storage to individual servers as a way of simplifying configurations. Unfortunately, this approach is also very inflexible and can make provisioning more complex and may limit your ability to use functions such as VMotion. SVC virtually consolidates your storage so that all of your managed storage is potentially available to any attached server, which offers great flexibility but also helps to improve storage utilisation by reducing 'trapped' unused capacity.

SVC provides a consistent interface for provisioning storage, even if you have a mix of storage types, which helps improve administrator productivity.

The SVC Space-Efficient Virtual Disks function provides a thin provisioning capability for all supported storage. Thin provisioning can help improve storage utilisation but it also helps simplify provisioning by enabling administrators to define virtual disks sized to meet future requirements while SVC dynamically and automatically provisions physical disk space as needed.

The SVC Virtual Disk Mirroring function may be used to migrate data to new space-efficient virtual disks. This function has been enhanced to remove space that is all zeroes (typically unused or formatted space) when creating a new virtual disk copy, helping reduce physical disk space required.

Improve energy efficiency

Many data centres today are focusing on reducing their energy usage to reduce costs and out of concern for the environment. SVC can be a key tool to help you improve the energy efficiency of your data centre. It does so in three significant ways:

1. SVC is designed to migrate data from older to newer disk systems without disruption to applications, which helps make it easier and quicker for you to implement more energy efficient storage

2. SVC is designed to simplify implementation of a tiered storage infrastructure and improve performance of lower tier storage, which helps optimise the mix of storage you deploy and may enable greater use of lower tier storage

3. SVC can help increase the utilisation of storage and reduce requirements for additional storage in the future, which can help reduce the total amount of storage required and so helps reduce energy use. The Space-Efficient Virtual Disks and Space-Efficient FlashCopy functions are designed to extend this benefit even further.

Technology designed for a dynamic infrastructure

IBM offers a rich, diverse and integrated array of virtualisation solutions, spanning from x86 systems to System z mainframes to storage virtualisation with SVC and beyond. Furthermore, IBM can work effectively with you to develop key business strategies and processes to capitalise on those solutions' benefits - all while guided by established best practices.

With IBM's help, businesses today can leverage the many engaging opportunities virtualisation technologies present in enhancing every aspect of how IT works in the overall organisation.