By Michael Zwolski
The wait is finally over for customers who’ve wanted a new DS888x offering for their size environment. IBM announced the new DS8882 August 21, and it really is the solution customers have been waiting for.
It’s small: 16U high, designed for placement in a standard 19” rack footprint.
It’s fast: built with IBM POWER 8 processors, and ALL FLASH.
It’s scalable: supporting from six to over a hundred TB of high performance flash.
The DS8882 is enabled with the full suite of DS8000 advanced function software: Easy Tier, Flash Copy, Global Mirror, Metro Mirror, z Synergy Services (zHPF, SuperPAV’s), and Transparent Cloud Tiering. So the DS8882 is fully able to interact with all its larger siblings (the DS8884, DS8886, and DS8888) as a peer.
For those new to this space, IBM’s DS8000 product family has been the market standard for multi-site HA and DR for many years. The current product line, the DS888x, follows a long line of successful technologies (DS8870, DS8800, DS8700, DS8300, and DS8100) and builds on those with a full line of all flash offerings.
The addition of the DS8882 means flash capability from six TB to hundreds of TB is now available in various models that all participate as true peers in a multi-site HA and/or DR solution. A common code base is used across the entire line.
The DS8882 will be available in two options.
The first option will share a rack with the new IBM z/14 Single Frame server (mainframe), enabling infrastructure savings for intermediate and remote locations. Mainframe processing and storage can now be put into a single rack footprint for many customers.
The second option will be placed into a customer-supplied rack. Please note that this won’t apply to just any old rack that you bought at a garage sale or discount store, but to quality racks built with the strength and integrity to ensure a stable environment for the DS8882. IBM will provide guidance on rack requirements and supported options. Quality rack products should pose no issues.
If you’re thinking that this is a mainframe-focused product, you’re wrong.
The DS8882 in a customer rack is targeted toward Intel systems, as well as IBM POWER and System i servers. The DS8000’s multi-site support and low RPO/RTO capabilities are already well documented in the open systems arena. In addition to their extensive use in the mainframe arena, the customer rack support extends the DS8882 in open environments at a lower price point than previously possible with a DS8000 solution.
One nice feature delivered of the DS8882 is prepackaged hardware and software support, which can be purchased up front for a term of one to four years. It’s an all-inclusive packaging that customers have warmly welcomed since the introduction of the DS8880 family, and can continue to with the DS8882. That adds up to big savings for existing customers moving to this technology.
In a sentence: the price point to enter the realm of true enterprise class storage performance, reliability, availability, and recoverability just got lower with the DS8882. That’s the DS8882 value statement in the marketplace.
About the author
Michael Zwolski is a z Systems and Storage Solution Advisor with LRS IT Solutions. With more than 30 years of experience supporting Fortune 100 IBM customers in the areas of mainframe and enterprise storage, Michael is skilled at interfacing between technical and business resources. His deep knowledge of IBM storage solutions including DS8000, XIV, A9000, SVC, Storwize, TS7000 and others make him a valuable asset on storage projects.