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What is IBM System Storage DS8900F?
IBM System Storage DS8900F is a line of storage appliances.
Categories & Use Cases
Who Buys & Uses IBM System Storage DS8900F
DS8000 Family - the most resilient storage for the most critical applications
Pros
- The IBM DS8000 family is the leading, most-trusted platform for IBM mainframe
- The IBM DS8000 family is the leading, most-trusted platform for IBM i.
- The IBM DS8000 family has time-proven hardware and software contributing to unparalleled availability.
Cons
- The DS8000 family still lacks deduplication and compression algorithms.
- For best results on replication enablement, optional Copy Services Manager is suggested.
Return on Investment
- The DS8000 helps my customers meet their overall business objectives by providing a bulletproof platform for the most critical enterprise environments
DS8000 value
Pros
- Remote Copy -- The DS8k has decades of excellent code built to handle the most demanding environments for mainframe or open systems and can be combined with automation solutions like GDPS or Copy Services Manager
- Reliability and Availability -- This is the platform that gets used for the most demanding environments, even when FICON attachment isn't required
- Continued enhancement -- IBM continues to put resources into the DS8k and the platform has advanced with the technology from z and power
- Mainframe synergy -- Poughkeepsie communicates and works very closely with the DS8k developers
Cons
- Data Reduction -- DS8k doesn't do any. If you're running a mainframe with pervasive encryption turned on, that's not an issue but it could be for many distributed environments
- FlashCopy -- based on Copy on Write. It works well, but it would be nice to see it move to something like Redirect on Write
- Expense -- What can I say? It is more expensive than most people in an open systems environment are willing to pay when compared with offerings that don't have FICON
Return on Investment
- I've worked with a focus on DR for a long time, and the DR options in the DS8k have been impressive the entire time
- zSynergy features have helped my customers make more effective use of their environment
- The fact that it can use both FICON and FCP has provided flexibility for those customers I have who really do need both at that level of availability
Alternatives Considered
EMC Symmetrix VMAX
DS8882F - CKD Storage in a Manageable Footprint
Pros
- Copy Services
- Disaster Recovery
- High throughput
Cons
- I have seen the GUI say that the storage facility is inaccessible, even when getting a clean health check from IBM. Typically rebooting the HMC fixes this.
- When decommissioning a box, you cannot delete arrays until ranks are done formatting. This adds a lot of time to the decomm process
- IO ports do not have a topology by default
Return on Investment
- The DS8882 allows us to run CKD mainframe workloads in a data center that cannot fit a new rack for a larger DS8886
- Allows training of new employees on mainframe storage concepts for implementation at other clients
- Runs jobs to process SMF data to provide our clients with performance analysis
Alternatives Considered
IBM FlashSystem
IBM System Storage DS8000 User Review
Pros
- It's very good at mirroring the data between our 2 sites (Production and DR).
- Its high availability means that we've never had an outage the entire time we've been using it.
- Management is easy through the HMC.
Cons
- Since the DS8000 can use SMS to now archive HSM data directly to the TS7700, maybe add an interface to the tape system?
Return on Investment
- Our ROI would be that the hardware is very redundant and we rarely ever need to place a service call.
New Storage for USAA
Pros
- Hopefully it won't have the internal problems like EMC that caused a major data issue last year.
- I'm too new to have a good comparison of how this storage works.
Cons
- Unknown.
Return on Investment
- I do not know the cost. If it prevents future system wide outages, it will be a great ROI for our company.
Alternatives Considered
Dell EMC ECS (formerly Atmos)
Other Software Used
BMC MainView, IBM Db2 Analytics Accelerator
