Re: What is the difference between Flash storage and a Flash Storage system like the V9000/V7000

Diego,

Thanks for that link.

My current average service time with high workloads, on a P7-8205-E6C
with dual 5913, 775gb SFF-2 SSD is .15ms to .18ms, no wait time, occasional
spike to 2.0 ms.
Increases to 2.0 ms during nightly save writing to LTO7 via 5735 8
Gigabit PCI Express Dual Port Fibre Channel Adapter.

Paul

-----Original Message-----
From: MIDRANGE-L [mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of
Diego Kesselman
Sent: Wednesday, March 28, 2018 9:30 AM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Subject: Re: What is the difference between Flash storage and a Flash
Storage system like the V9000/V7000

IBM Power Systems HDD and SSD options offer enhanced performance at a
lower cost and deliver server enhancements


https://www-01.ibm.com/common/ssi/cgi-bin/ssialias?infotype=an&subtype=ca&appname=gpateam&supplier=897&letternum=ENUS117-086

BTW: V9000 is as fast as internal SSDs, but I've seen high workloads on
enterprise systems wih no performane impact and no changes on service time
(always 0.3x ms, even on backup window)

I'll discard V5x unless you need storage on a budget. You'll feel
degradation from your enterprise SSDs

El 28 mar. 2018 07:18, "Steinmetz, Paul" <PSteinmetz@xxxxxxxxxx> escribió:

Diego,

I'm currently using internal Enterprise SSD - 775gb SFF-2 SSD for IBM I
ESOH.
I've talked to some performance folks, and most agreed you can't beat
internal SSD with a top controller.


< On the other side there's a "mainstream" 931GB SSD with same price per
GB as an HHD, and 18% faster than a normal SSD.
What do mean by this?


Paul


-----Original Message-----
From: MIDRANGE-L [mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of
Diego Kesselman
Sent: Wednesday, March 28, 2018 9:11 AM
To: midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: What is the difference between Flash storage and a Flash
Storage system like the V9000/V7000

Paul,

if you have the budget get the V9000, it's like internal SSDs and even
better, because you can create as many virtual FC connections as you want.

On the other side there's a "mainstream" 931GB SSD with same price per GB
as an HHD, and 18% faster than a normal SSD.

Have you asked for your FLiP report so you can check the improvement with
V9000?


El 28/03/18 a las 07:00, Steinmetz, Paul escribió:

I have a conf call / webx with BP and IBM this afternoon.
Topics

P9 config
P9 Storage options - Flash vs SSD, Internal vs External, etc VIOS
maybe HA/DR maybe

I was reading up on the differences between the V9000, V7000, V5030
Flash

storage systems.

The V9000 has modules.
The V7000/V5030 has SSD.

Is this correct?

Paul

-----Original Message-----
From: MIDRANGE-L [mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of

Rob Berendt

Sent: Wednesday, March 28, 2018 8:42 AM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Subject: Re: What is the difference between Flash storage and a Flash

Storage system like the V9000/V7000

Thanks for those comments.

On an end note:
<snip>
They are always in call back mode and it takes forever to get past the

initial idiot on the phone to someone who can fix the problem.

</snip>

Once again a major reason why I always open a ticket via the website.
That, and I don't have to listen to the initial idiot asking me about
my

p Series. And whether I am running AIX or IBM i and instead of choosing
one I reply with yes. Trust me, they so cannot handle that.

Or the dreaded routing to entitlement until they pull their heads out
of

<?the sand?>

Rob Berendt
--
IBM Certified System Administrator - IBM i 6.1 Group Dekko Dept 1600
Mail

to: 2505 Dekko Drive

Garrett, IN 46738
Ship to: Dock 108
6928N 400E
Kendallville, IN 46755
http://www.dekko.com





From: Jim Oberholtzer <midrangel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion <midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: 03/28/2018 08:33 AM
Subject: Re: What is the difference between Flash storage and a
Flash Storage system like the V9000/V7000
Sent by: "MIDRANGE-L" <midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx>



Paul:

I get the reluctance to adopt VIOS. I was in your shoes not long ago.
I put it up in the Agile technology stack to learn it since my
customers are deploying it, and I'm convinced that for any system with
more than two partitions that dual VIOS and SAN are a requirement for
any upgrade. VIOS booting from SAN works just as well as internal
storage and in some ways is easier to manage.

There is a learning curve, no doubt, and learning to apply firmware
updates to individual cards manually is the hardest part to get over
(IBM i does that for you with the hardware group PTF) and some of the
command syntax is confusing at first unto you figure out the whole
name/value pair combinations thing, but once your past that, it's
easier to maintain the whole system.

It does come at a system administration cost. It's two more OS
instances to keep updated, firmware on a switch, and the SAN to
administer, but those obstacles can be over come by some patience in
learning, or hire it out to those of us that do it constantly. In
your case I see no problem learning what you need in short order.

Replicating between to SANs with PowerHA is just to easy, and you
don't have to use iASP if you don't want to. It just takes a bit
longer to fail over in that case. Flash copy makes full saves every
night possible too, with little or no disruption to the users.

The the list of advantages outweigh the one single biggest downside to
VIOS. IBM support for VIOS is awful. They are always in call back
mode and it takes forever to get past the initial idiot on the phone
to someone who can fix the problem.

Jim Oberholtzer
Agile Technology Architects

On Mar 27, 2018, at 8:12 PM, Steinmetz, Paul <PSteinmetz@xxxxxxxxxx>

wrote:

Evan,

1) Does the V9000 do de-dup?
2) Besides Production and R&D LPARs, I have two small sandbox lpars,

used as needed for testing system changes, restores, CUM applies,
OS/uprades, create DSLO images, etc.

I've been avoiding the VIOS route for decades, didn't think we really

needed it.

Maybe it's time to re-evalulate, with some of the new additional

positives VIOS brings to the table.

Paul


-----Original Message-----
From: MIDRANGE-L [mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf
Of

Evan Harris

Sent: Tuesday, March 27, 2018 8:57 PM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Subject: Re: What is the difference between Flash storage and a Flash

Storage system like the V9000/V7000

Hi Paul

re 3) Compression is using less space to store the data (removing

duplicates etc) like zipping each sector (poor description but
hopefully you get what I mean), What you are describing is de-duping
which is different.

re 4) *Maybe* you could do that, but even if you could, why would you

unless you only have one or two LPARs ? From memory, you have a bunch
of guests so just be done with it and go the VIOS route. You will get
far more value out of having the storage exposed at the LPAR layer and
being able to mess with the LUNs directly for flash copy etc.

On Wed, Mar 28, 2018 at 1:43 PM, Steinmetz, Paul
<PSteinmetz@xxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

Paul,

1) From the V9000 data sheet, it contains flash modules, AE3: 6, 8,
10

or

12 3.6 TB modules; or 8, 10 or 12 8.5 TB modules; or 8, 10 or

12

18 TB modules.
2) From what I'm reading this could configured with VIOS or without
VIOS, is this correct?
3) From the data sheet, the V9000 does data compression. Does this
also mean each block of data is only written once. If the same block
appears, does not write it again?
4) Possible configuration - attach a V9000, or smaller, to a
Production LPAR, then host storage (NWS) to a client R&D LPAR, not
sure if this is valid?

Paul


-----Original Message-----
From: MIDRANGE-L [mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf
Of Musselman, Paul
Sent: Tuesday, March 27, 2018 6:49 PM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Subject: RE: What is the difference between Flash storage and a
Flash Storage system like the V9000/V7000

We've been using the V7000 and the V9000 for the past 5 years. The
V9000 is all solid-state (Flash) memory. It's faster than SSD,
which is faster than Disk. It's the fastest storage, not counting
Flash

Storage.

Flash Storage (if I understand it correctly) is memory attached to
the iSeries main processor. It's like going into WRKSHRPOOL and
seeing

"Main

Storage Size (M) . : 4 000 000.00" That's going to make the Address
Translator -very- happy-- all that memory that we've been telling
it that it has available-- well, 4 TB of it are really there! No
need to swap all that data back to mass storage (ie the V9000), it
can live in

main memory.

Whuff!

We've been using SAN storage for 5 years or so now--

We started with a V7000, populated with all the disks in the world.
The disk space is lumped into a single mass of storage. It can be
sliced and diced into more usable chunks, and allocated to any
computer that can access the SAN.

The disk in the V7000 we had was RAID-10. That's mirrored raid 5--
so it's very hard to have a failure that results in loss of data.

From the iSeries point of view, there are virtual 'disks,' but
these have no relationship to real disks. The data is
doubly-dereferenced-- the iSeries RAIDed 'disks' are mapped over a
chunk of the V7000's
RAID-10 storage, so you have no idea which disk(s) are actually
storing

your data!

Hopefully, all of them are-- random access!

We later added a Texas Memory Systems 'flash appliance' to the mix.
This is like a whole bunch of thumb drives all plugged into a single

backplane.

Once again, it's RAIDed (don't remember the number) so it's hard to
lose data. We had an early system; it hadn't been IBM-ized. So one
time when we lost a memory card it required a power off to replace it.
But this is still 'remote' storage.

Then came end-of-lease, and we moved to a V9000 using flash memory.
Even more like lots of thumb drives in-a-box. The memory itself is
a 2-rack-unit tall box, surrounded top and bottom by 2-rack-unit IO
boxes (don't ask me the real name-- they each have 2 channels of
access to the memory in between). In 6 rack units we have 30 or
more Terabytes of storage. Just as the V7000 with disk sliced and
diced the storage into usable chunks, so does the V9000.

Advantages-- about the fastest storage you can get (not counting a
model 9 with Terabytes of system memory-- but that's not storage.
That's live memory!). When we added that TMS Flash appliance to the
V7000, it was just plugged in, and there it was. Migrating to the
V9000 we let the V7000 talk to it, and copied the data from one to
the other. The only interruption was to bring down the CPU so our
business partner could migrate the load source to the V9000. We
woke up the *new* iSeries, et voila! We were running on a faster
machine, with no save/restore to tape, no reloading; it was like a
slightly more

complicated IPL. That's the nicest part about it.

Paul E Musselman
PaulMmn@xxxxxxxxxxxxx

-----Original Message-----
From: MIDRANGE-L [mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf
Of Steinmetz, Paul
Sent: Tuesday, March 27, 2018 5:57 PM
To: 'Midrange Systems Technical Discussion'
<midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: What is the difference between Flash storage and a Flash
Storage system like the V9000/V7000

What is the difference between Flash storage and a Flash Storage
System like the V9000/V7000

I found this Redbook, (a bit dated 2013) REDP-5020
https://www.scc.com/wp-
content/uploads/2015/11/Flash-or-SSD-Why-and-When-to-Use-FlashSystem
.p
df


Thank You
_____
Paul Steinmetz
IBM i Systems Administrator

Pencor Services, Inc.
462 Delaware Ave
Palmerton Pa 18071

610-826-9117 work
610-826-9188 fax
610-349-0913 cell
610-377-6012 home

psteinmetz@xxxxxxxxxx<mailto:psteinmetz@xxxxxxxxxx>
http://www.pencor.com/

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