This IBM® Redbooks® Product Guide is an overview of the main characteristics, features, and technology that are used in IBM FlashSystem® A9000R Model 415 and Model 425, with IBM FlashSystem A9000R Software V12.3.2. Software version 12.3.2, with Hyper-Scale Manager version 5.6 or later, introduces support for VLAN tagging and port trunking.. IBM FlashSystem A9000R is a grid-scale, all-flash storage platform designed for industry leaders with rapidly growing cloud storage and mixed workload environments to help drive your business into the cognitive era. FlashSystem A9000R provides consistent, extreme performance for dynamic data at scale, integrating the microsecond latency and high availability of IBM FlashCore® technology. The rack-based offering comes integrated with the world class software features that are built with IBM SpectrumTM Accelerate. For example, comprehensive data reduction, including inline pattern removal, data deduplication, and compression, helps lower total cost of ownership (TCO) while the grid architecture and IBM Hyper-Scale framework simplify and automate storage administration. The A9000R features always on data reduction and now offers intelligent capacity management for deduplication. Ready for the cloud and well-suited for large deployments, FlashSystem A9000R delivers predictable high performance and ultra-low latency, even under heavy workloads with full data reduction enabled. As a result, the grid-scale architecture maintains this performance by automatically self-optimizing workloads across all storage resources without manual intervention.

Version 12.3.2 This IBM® Redbooks publication presents the architecture, design, concepts, and technology that are used in IBM FlashSystem® A9000 and IBM FlashSystem A9000R. FlashSystem A9000 and FlashSystem A9000R deliver the microsecond latency and high availability of IBM FlashCore® technology with grid architecture, simple scalability, and industry-leading IBM software that is designed to drive your business into the cognitive era. The Hyper-Scale Manager highly intuitive user interface simplifies management. Comprehensive data reduction capabilities, including inline deduplication and a powerful compression engine, help lower total cost of ownership. With software version 12.3.1 and Hyper-Scale Manager version 5.5.1 (or later) the system can compute reclaimable and attributed capacity information, without performance impact. Software version 12.3.2, with Hyper-Scale Manager version 5.6 or later, introduces support for VLAN tagging and port trunking. From a functional standpoint, FlashSystem A9000 and FlashSystem A9000R take advantage of most of the software-defined storage features that are offered by the IBM SpectrumTM Accelerate software, including multi-tenancy and business continuity functions. FlashSystem A9000 and FlashSystem A9000R supports HyperSwap and Multi-site High Availabilty / Disaster Recovery (HA/DR) configurations. This publication is intended for those individuals who need to plan, install, tailor, and configure FlashSystem A9000 and FlashSystem A9000R. For detailed information about configuration, management, host attachment, and replication functions and their usage, see the following publications: IBM Spectrum Accelerate Family Storage Configuration and Usage for IBM FlashSystem A9000, IBM FlashSystem A9000R, and IBM XIV Gen3, SG24-8376 IBM FlashSystem A9000 and A9000R Business Continuity Solutions, REDP-5401 IBM HyperSwap and Multi-site HA/DR solution for IBM FlashSystem A9000 and A9000R, REDP-5434 IBM Spectrum Accelerate Family: Host Attachment and Interoperability, SG24-8368.

This IBM® RedpaperTM publication is a brief overview of synergistic aspects between various VMware offerings and the IBM SpectrumTM Accelerate family, including IBM XIV® and IBM FlashSystem® A9000 and IBM FlashSystem A9000R servers. After reviewing different integration concepts and explaining general implementation aspects for attaching the IBM Spectrum AccelerateTM family to VMware ESXi deployments, the paper focuses on components that are enabled by IBM Spectrum Connect v3.4. This paper is intended for planning to use or implementing the IBM Spectrum Accelerate family of storage systems in a VMware environment.

With the ever-growing landscape of national, state, and local regulations, industry requirements, and increased security threats, ensuring the protection of an organization's information is a key part of operating a successful business. Encrypting data-at-rest is a key element when addressing these concerns. Most storage products offer encryption at an additional cost. The IBM® Spectrum Accelerate family, which includes IBM XIV® Storage System, IBM FlashSystem® A9000, IBM FlashSystem A9000R system(s), and IBM SpectrumTM Accelerate Software provides data-at-rest encryption at no charge. Clients can take advantage of encryption and still benefit from the lower total cost of ownership (TCO) that the IBM Spectrum AccelerateTM family offers. For IBM FlashSystem A9000 and A9000R, clients now have a choice between an external key manager-based implementation or a local key based encryption implementation. The local key solution offers a simplified deployment of data-at-rest encryption. This IBM RedpaperTM publication explains the architecture and design of the XIV and IBM FlashSystem A9000 and A9000R encryption solutions. Details are provided for configuring and implementing both solutions.

This edition applies to FlashSystem A9000 and A9000R, Model 415 and 425, with system software Version 12.3 IBM® FlashSystem A9000 and IBM FlashSystem® A9000R provide copy functions suited for various data protection scenarios that enable you to enhance your business continuance, disaster recovery, data migration, and backup solutions. These functions allow point-in-time copies, known as snapshots, and also include remote copy capabilities in either synchronous or asynchronous mode. Furthermore, support for IBM Hyper-Scale Mobility enables a seamless migration of IBM FlashSystem A9000 or A9000R volumes to another with no interference to the host. Starting with software level V12.1, the IBM HyperSwap® feature delivers always-on, high availability (HA) storage service for storage volumes in a production environment. Starting with version 12.2, asynchronous replication between the IBM XIV® Gen3 and FlashSystem A9000 or A9000R is supported. Starting with Version 12.2.1, Hyper-Scale Mobility is enabled between XIV Gen3 and FlashSystem A9000 or A9000R. Version 12.3 offers Multi-site replication solution that entails both High Availability (HA) and Disaster Recovery (DR)function by combining HyperSwap and Asynchronous replication to a third site. This IBM RedpaperTM publication is intended for anyone who needs a detailed and practical understanding of the IBM FlashSystem A9000 and IBM FlashSystem A9000R replication and business continuity functions.

Updated on May 1st, 2017 You can enable user authentication for IBM® FlashSystem A9000 and FlashSystem A9000R for use with Microsoft Windows Active Directory (AD). AD is Microsoft Windows implementation of the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP). The benefits of an LDAP-based centralized user management can be substantial when you consider the size and complexity of the overall IT environment. Maintaining local user credential repositories is straightforward and convenient when you work with only a few users and a few storage systems. However, as the number of users and interconnected systems grows, the complexity of user account management rapidly increases, and managing this environment is time-consuming. This IBM RedpaperTM publication explores various benefits of this approach. Although the benefits from using AD are significant, you must also evaluate the substantial planning effort and added complexity of deploying an LDAP infrastructure if it is not already in place.

This IBM® RedpaperTM publication provides an overview of containers and their framework. Container technology enables prepackaged and pre-configured software with the elements that are needed to run in any environment. Because they are meant to be portable, containers normally restrict applications from storing data on external storage. To overcome this limitation, IBM has developed a solution to provide persistent storage for containers on IBM storage systems, known as the IBM Storage Enabler for Containers. The Enabler tightly integrates with IBM SpectrumTM Connect (formerly IBM Spectrum ControlTM Base Edition). IBM Storage Enabler for Containers v1.0 extends IBM Spectrum Connect to Kubernetes orchestrated container environments. The paper focuses on containers implementation, management, and control by using IBM Spectrum Connect and IBM Storage Enabler for Containers plug-in, with IBM FlashSystem® A9000 or A9000R.