1. IBM System Storage
Flash Ahead:
IBM Flash System Selling Point
Steven Gerald C.T – Channel Account Manager
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© 2013 IBM Corporation

2. The Goals (What if you could…)
• Radically accelerate your most critical applications and stop getting crushed
at peak usage?
• Do it quickly with the lowest risk?
• Co-exist with, and return performance and value to your existing disk array?
• Derive business value from your big data in real or near real time
(Meaningful, timely analytics)?
• Not have to risk critical production stability on early stage products and
companies?
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© 2013 IBM Corporation

3. Why Flash?
• Why Flash System ?
Hint: latency, simplicity and reliability
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© 2013 IBM Corporation

4. A Tipping Point in Systems
1 second =
1 million microseconds
IBM FlashSystem
100 microseconds
…consistent latency
1U up to 20TB
< 1 millisecond
PCIe SSD
Form Factor
SSD
Tape
HDD
~1 milliseconds
5-15 milliseconds
Seconds
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© 2013 IBM Corporation

5. Where FlashSystem Makes Sense – Wherever Time Matters!
Where to use the World’s fastest storage…
Business Benefits
 Radically accelerate your most critical applications – Do
more, do it faster!
OLTP Databases (DB2/Oracle)
Financial, gaming, real-time billing, trading, real-time
monitoring, query acceleration
 Derive business value from your big data in near real time
Analytical applications (OLAP)
Business intelligence, batch processing, ERP, reporting,
massive data feeds
Financial Benefits
 Flash maximizes CPU efficiency, greatly reducing application and
database licensing costs by reducing the need for more cores
Virtual Infrastructures
VDI, consolidated virtual infrastructures, user profiles
 Return your existing disk arrays to peak performance and increase
their value by off loading critical high performance apps to Flash
 Huge reduction in space/power/HVAC over disk
HPC/Computational Applications
Simulation, modeling, rendering, FS metadata, scratch
space, video on demand, thread efficiency
Cloud-Scale Infrastructures
On-demand computing, content distribution, web, caching,
metadata, GPFS, active file management
Flash is 10x faster than internal SSD’s
MICROseconds, not MILLIseconds. Huge reduction in
latency.
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Version 1.0
FlashSystems – Best of Breed
 19 generations of the World’s fastest technology
 Over 33 years of quality craftsmanship
 Patented Variable Stripe RAID
 Hardware only data path – extreme performance
IBM Confidential
© 2013 IBM Corporation

6. Flash System Family
Offer FlashSystem
External, shared, Flash arrays!
FlashSystem 710 / 810
FlashSystem 720 / 820
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© 2013 IBM Corporation

7. Table
IBM Flash System By Number
Form Factor
Size
Model
Adopted Technology
Capacity
RAID Support
IOPS Performance
Read
Write
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Rack
1U
820
eMLC
10 TB , 20 TB
0,5
Rack
1U
720
SLC
5 TB , 10 TB
0,5
Rack
1U
810
eMLC
10.3 TB
0
Rack
1U
710
SLC
5.2 TB
0
525K
280K
525K
400K
550K
400K
570K
400K
© 2013 IBM Corporation

8. IBM FlashSystem 720 / FlashSystem 820 Architecture
Two Dual-Ported 8 Gb/s FC or
40 Gb/s QDR IB Interfaces
Redundant
Management
Control
Processors
Redundant Power
Supplies
N+1 batteries
Redundant
RAID controllers
1U Chassis
12 Flash Modules
(10+1+1)
Redundant Fans
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© 2013 IBM Corporation

9. Flash Storage Vs SSD
SSD is NOT Flash Storage
 Flash inside a Disk Enclosure
 Technology designed for Disk, not Flash
 Data protection outside SSD
 Data Path handled by OS/Controllers outside SSD
 Performance is reduced and marginal
Common in hybrid arrays
Focus is to maintain functionality and consolidation
Focus on Tiering and Data Movement
SSD competes with all other disks’ for resources
When performance matters (which is ALWAYS), SSD is not the best
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© 2013 IBM Corporation

10. Flash System Selling Point
• Speed, speed, speed
• Simplicity
• Complementary
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© 2013 IBM Corporation

11. Questions?
Steven Gerald C.T
steven.christian@bluepowertechnology.com
Channel Account Manager
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© 2013 IBM Corporation