This IBM® RedpaperTM publication provides information about IBM Spectrum AccelerateTM on Cloud. IBM Spectrum Accelerate on Cloud supplies a smart storage solution using servers on SoftLayer® cloud. It enables you to consume storage as a service without the need to install or maintain any hardware or software components. IBM Spectrum Accelerate on Cloud enables users to replicate data in the cloud, as an affordable disaster recovery (DR) solution. The primary data can be either on IBM XIV® Storage System devices, or IBM Spectrum Accelerate, on or off premises. The initial deployment on SoftLayer is performed by engaging IBM Lab services. This paper first describes the tasks performed by IBM Lab services, explains the required customer preparation tasks, followed by typical use case scenarios.

This edition applies to IBM® Spectrum Accelerate V11.5.4. IBM Spectrum AccelerateTM, a member of IBM Spectrum StorageTM, is an agile, software-defined storage solution for enterprise and cloud that builds on the customer-proven and mature IBM XIV® storage software. The key characteristic of Spectrum Accelerate is that it can be easily deployed and run on purpose-built or existing hardware that is chosen by the customer. IBM Spectrum Accelerate enables rapid deployment of high-performance and scalable block data storage infrastructure over commodity hardware on-premises or off-premises. This IBM Redbooks® publication provides a broad understanding of IBM Spectrum Accelerate. The book introduces Spectrum Accelerate and describes planning and preparation that are essential for a successful deployment of the solution. The deployment is described through a step-by-step approach, by using a graphical user interface (GUI) based method or a simple command-line interface (CLI) based procedure. Chapters in this book describe the logical configuration of the system, host support and business continuity functions, and migration. Although it makes many references to the XIV storage software, the book also emphasizes where IBM Spectrum Accelerate differs from XIV. Finally, a substantial portion of the book is dedicated to maintenance and troubleshooting to provide detailed guidance for the customer support personnel.

This IBM® RedpaperTM publication takes you on a journey that surveys cloud computing to answer several fundamental questions about storage cloud technology. What are storage clouds? How can a storage cloud help solve your current and future data storage business requirements? What can IBM do to help you implement a storage cloud solution that addresses these needs? This paper shows how IBM storage clouds use the extensive cloud computing experience, services, proven technologies, and products of IBM to support a smart storage cloud solution designed for your storage optimization efforts. Clients face many common storage challenges and some have variations that make them unique. It describes various successful client storage cloud implementations and the options that are available to meet your current needs and position you to avoid storage issues in the future. IBM CloudTM Services (IBM Cloud Managed Services® and IBM SoftLayer®) are highlighted as well as the contributions of IBM to OpenStack cloud storage. This paper is intended for anyone who wants to learn about storage clouds and how IBM addresses data storage challenges with smart storage cloud solutions. It is suitable for IBM clients, storage solution integrators, and IBM specialist sales representatives.

Today, new business models in the marketplace coexist with traditional ones and their well-established IT architectures. They generate new business needs and new IT requirements that can only be satisfied by new service models and new technological approaches. These changes are reshaping traditional IT concepts. Cloud in its three main variants (Public, Hybrid, and Private) represents the major and most viable answer to those IT requirements, and software-defined infrastructure (SDI) is its major technological enabler. IBM® technology, with its rich and complete set of storage hardware and software products, supports SDI both in an open standard framework and in other vendors' environments. IBM services are able to deliver solutions to the customers with their extensive knowledge of the topic and the experiences gained in partnership with clients. This IBM RedpaperTM publication focuses on software-defined storage (SDS) and IBM Storage Systems product offerings for software-defined environments (SDEs). It also provides use case examples across various industries that cover different client needs, proposed solutions, and results. This paper can help you to understand current organizational capabilities and challenges, and to identify specific business objectives to be achieved by implementing an SDS solution in your enterprise.

The IBM® System Storage® Solutions Handbook helps you solve your current and future data storage business requirements. It helps you achieve enhanced storage efficiency by design to allow managed cost, capacity of growth, greater mobility, and stronger control over storage performance and management. It describes the most current IBM storage products, including the IBM SpectrumTM family, IBM FlashSystem®, disk, and tape, as well as virtualized solutions such IBM Storage Cloud. This IBM Redbooks® publication provides overviews and information about the most current IBM System Storage products. It shows how IBM delivers the right mix of products for nearly every aspect of business continuance and business efficiency. IBM storage products can help you store, safeguard, retrieve, and share your data. This book is intended as a reference for basic and comprehensive information about the IBM Storage products portfolio. It provides a starting point for establishing your own enterprise storage environment. This book describes the IBM Storage products as of March, 2016.

This IBM® Redbooks® publication provides information to help you with the sizing, configuration, and monitoring of hybrid cloud solutions using the transparent cloud tiering (TCT) functionality of IBM SpectrumTM Scale. IBM Spectrum ScaleTM is a scalable data, file, and object management solution that provides a global namespace for large data sets and several enterprise features. The IBM Spectrum Scale feature called transparent cloud tiering allows cloud object storage providers, such as IBM CloudTM Object Storage, IBM Cloud, and Amazon S3, to be used as a storage tier for IBM Spectrum Scale. Transparent cloud tiering can help cut storage capital and operating costs by moving data that does not require local performance to an on-premise or off-premise cloud object storage provider. Transparent cloud tiering reduces the complexity of cloud object storage by making data transfers transparent to the user or application. This capability can help you adapt to a hybrid cloud deployment model where active data remains directly accessible to your applications and inactive data is placed in the correct cloud (private or public) automatically through IBM Spectrum Scale policies. This publication is intended for IT architects, IT administrators, storage administrators, and those wanting to learn more about sizing, configuration, and monitoring of hybrid cloud solutions using IBM Spectrum Scale and transparent cloud tiering.

This IBM® Redbooks® publication describes the challenge that most data centers face when updating and modernizing their IT infrastructure. New business demands are driving new applications, joining, and creating in the digital world. A rich, meaningful digital experience is the key to effective engagement in today's integrated digital world. Companies are able to customize digital experiences for their employees with personalized, targeted content for fully connecting with customers, co-workers, and business partners in the most powerful and productive ways. To achieve this, a robust infrastructure is required. Speed of access to data is one of the most important factors. The development of the flash storage devices helped with the insatiable desire for data access speed, but even that is not enough for the most demanding uses. The needs of SAN switches, servers, and software defined infrastructure (SDI) technologies are all requiring more; therefore, the bigger picture needs to be wholly analyzed to build a balanced ecosystem. This publication can help you with planning for growth in your IT infrastructure. This publication explores the concept of modernization and considers important aspects of IT, such as SAN switches, storage systems, and software defined storage.