Updated for R8.51 This IBM® Redbooks® publication describes the concepts, architecture, and implementation of the IBM DS8880 family. The book provides reference information to assist readers who need to plan for, install, and configure the DS8880 systems. The IBM DS8000® family is a high-performance, high-capacity, highly secure, and resilient series of disk storage systems. The DS8880 family is the latest and most advanced of the DS8000 offerings to date. The high availability, multiplatform support, including IBM Z, and simplified management tools help provide a cost-effective path to an on-demand and cloud-based infrastructures. The IBM DS8880 family now offers business-critical, all-flash, and hybrid data systems that span a wide range of price points: DS8882F: Rack Mounted storage system DS8884: Business Class DS8886: Enterprise Class DS8888: Analytics Class The DS8884 and DS8886 are available as either hybrid models, or can be configured as all-flash. Each model represents the most recent in this series of high-performance, high-capacity, flexible, and resilient storage systems. These systems are intended to address the needs of the most demanding clients. Two powerful IBM POWER8® processor-based servers manage the cache to streamline disk I/O, maximizing performance and throughput. These capabilities are further enhanced with the availability of the second generation of high-performance flash enclosures (HPFEs Gen-2) and newer flash drives. Like its predecessors, the DS8880 supports advanced disaster recovery (DR) solutions, business continuity solutions, and thin provisioning. All disk drives in the DS8880 storage system include the Full Disk Encryption (FDE) feature. The DS8880 can automatically optimize the use of each storage tier, particularly flash drives, by using the IBM Easy Tier® feature. Release 8.5 introduces the Safeguarded Copy feature. The DS8882F Rack Mounted is decribed in a separate publication, Introducing the IBM DS8882F Rack Mounted Storage System, REDP-5505.

This IBM® RedpaperTM publication reviews the architecture and operations of the IBM DS8000® Global Mirror function. The document looks at different aspects of the solution in terms of performance, infrastructure requirements, data integrity, business continuity, and impact on production. Hints and tips are provided on how to best configure the overall Global Mirror environment, in terms of connectivity, storage configuration, and specific parameters tuning. The guidelines that are provided are in general related to performance, which ultimately ensures a better recovery point objective (RPO). Therefore, we encourage you to follow those guidelines.

This IBM® Redbooks® publication helps you plan, install, configure, and manage Copy Services on the IBM DS8000® operating in an IBM Z® or Open Systems environment. This book helps you design and implement a new Copy Services installation or migrate from an existing installation. It includes hints and tips to maximize the effectiveness of your installation, and information about tools and products to automate Copy Services functions. It is intended for anyone who needs a detailed and practical understanding of the DS8000 Copy Services. This edition is an update for the DS8900 Release 9.1. Note that the Safeguarded Copy feature is covered in IBM DS8000 Safeguarded Copy, REDP-5506.

This IBM Redbooks® Product Guide gives an overview of the features and functions that are available with the IBM DS8880 models running microcode Release 8.51 (DS8000 License Machine Code 8.8.51.xx.xx). The IBM DS8880 architecture relies on powerful IBM POWER8® processor-based servers that manage the cache to streamline disk input/output (I/O), maximizing performance and throughput. These capabilities are further enhanced with the availability of the second generation of high-performance flash enclosures (HPFE Gen-2). The IBM DS8888, DS8886, and DS8884 models excel at supporting the IBM Z Enterprise server and IBM Power server environments, offering many synergy features.

This IBM® Redbooks® publication provides guidance about how to configure, monitor, and manage your IBM DS8880 storage systems to achieve optimum performance, and it also covers the IBM DS8870 storage system. It describes the DS8880 performance features and characteristics, including hardware-related performance features, synergy items for certain operating systems, and other functions, such as IBM Easy Tier® and the DS8000® I/O Priority Manager. The book also describes specific performance considerations that apply to particular host environments, including database applications. This book also outlines the various tools that are available for monitoring and measuring I/O performance for different server environments, and it describes how to monitor the performance of the entire DS8000 storage system. This book is intended for individuals who want to maximize the performance of their DS8880 and DS8870 storage systems and investigate the planning and monitoring tools that are available. The IBM DS8880 storage system features, as described in this book, are available for the DS8880 model family with R8.0 release bundles (Licensed Machine Code (LMC) level 7.8.0).

The IBM® DS8000® series includes the option to replace the locally based user ID and password authentication with a centralized directory-based approach. This IBM Redpaper publication helps DS8000 storage administrators understand the concepts and benefits of a centralized directory. It provides the information that is required for implementing a DS8000 authentication mechanism that is based on the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP). Starting with DS8000 Release 9.1 code, a simpler, native LDAP authentication method is supported along with the former implementation that relies on IBM Copy Services Manager (CSM) acting as a proxy between the DS8000 and external LDAP servers. Note that examples and operations shown in this Redpaper refer to the DS8000 R9.1 SP1, code release bundle 89.11.33.0.