IBM® SmartCloud® Virtual Storage Center provides efficient virtualization and management of heterogeneous storage systems. It facilitates migration to an agile cloud architecture that can optimize storage availability and performance, while helping to reduce costs. IBM SmartCloud Virtual Storage Center (VSC) helps convert existing storage to IBM Smarter Storage, providing more room for data growth and simplified storage administration. This IBM Redbooks® publication gives an overview of the concepts of software-defined environment (SDE) and software-defined storage (SDS), and how they work together with VSC. It explores the architecture, components, and interfaces, providing details of VSC and how to use it. It also includes practical scenarios and use cases, helpful for client VSC business environments, with a focus on the following topics: Introductory concepts VSC components and available integrations Storage management component of VSC Storage virtualization component of VSC Application aware data protection component of VSC VSC storage provisioning VSC storage optimization This book is primarily for storage administrators, users who are responsible for maintaining IT and business infrastructures, and anyone who wants to learn more about IBM SmartCloud Virtual Storage Center.

IBM® Tivoli® Storage Productivity Center V5.2 is a feature-rich storage management software suite. The integrated suite provides detailed monitoring, reporting, and management within a single console. In addition, implementing the IBM SmartCloud® Virtual Storage Center (VSC) license with Tivoli Storage Productivity Center addresses new workloads that require massive scale and rapid pace, and accelerates business insight, by adding advanced analytics functions such as storage optimization, provisioning, and transformation. This IBM Redbooks® publication is intended for storage administrators and users who are installing and using the features and functions in IBM Tivoli Storage Productivity Center V5.2. The information in this Redbooks publication can be used to plan for, install, and customize the components of Tivoli Storage Productivity Center in your storage infrastructure. Note: This IBM Redbooks publication is written and based on Tivoli Storage Productivity Center V5.2.2. Sections in this book that pertain to advanced analytics, including cloud configuration, provisioning, transforming volumes, and storage optimization all require the IBM SmartCloud Virtual Storage Center license to be installed.

Organizations are looking for ways to get more out of their already strained IT infrastructure as they face new technological and economic pressures. They are also trying to satisfy a broad set of users (internal and external to the enterprise) who demand improvements in their quality of service (QoS), regardless of increases in the number of users and applications. Cloud computing offers attractive opportunities to reduce costs, accelerate development, and increase the flexibility of the IT infrastructure, applications, and services. Infrastructure as a service (IaaS) is the typical starting point for most organizations when moving to a cloud computing environment. IaaS can be used for the delivery of resources such as compute, storage, and network services through a self-service portal. With IaaS, IT services are delivered as a subscription service, eliminating up-front costs and driving down ongoing support costs. IBM® has defined the Cloud Computing Reference Architecture (CCRA) based on years of experience of working with customers who have implemented cloud-computing solutions. The IBM CCRA is a blueprint or guide for architecting cloud-computing implementations. This IBM RedguideTM publication highlights the Cloud Enabled Data Center adoption pattern and describes how you can use it to define an IaaS solution. This guide is intended for chief technology officers, data center architects, IT architects, and application architects who want to understand the cloud-computing infrastructure necessary to support their applications and services by using an IaaS solution. It explains the technical and business benefits of a Cloud Enabled Data Center solution. It introduces a Cloud Enabled Data Center maturity model where each maturity level corresponds to an increase in the degree of automation and the cloud-computing capabilities that are available. In addition, this guide describes the architectural framework provided by the IBM CCRA and explains details about the Cloud Enabled Data Center adoption pattern.

IBM® Spectrum Virtualize Software Version 7.8 provides software-defined storage capabilities across various platforms, including IBM SAN Volume Controller, IBM Storwize® V7000, Storwize V7000 (Unified), Storwize V5000, Storwize V3700, and Storwize V3500. These offerings help clients reduce the complexities and cost of managing their storage in the following ways: Centralizing management of storage volumes to enable administrators to manage storage volumes from a single point Improving utilization of storage capacity with virtual volumes to enable businesses to tap into previously unused disk capacity Avoiding downtime for backups, maintenance, and upgrades Performing data migration without disruption to applications Enabling all storage devices to be organized into storage pools from which virtual volumes, whether standard, compressed, or thin-provisioned, are created with the characteristics that you want Delivering automation of storage management with SmartCloud Virtual Storage Center, IBM Tivoli® Storage Productivity Center (as applicable by platform), and IBM Tivoli Storage FlashCopy® Manager (as applicable by platform) Increasing the performance efficiency of storage pools with IBM Easy Tier® Restoring data access quickly with near and remote copy capabilities across Fibre Channel (FC), Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE), and IP networks In this IBM Redbooks® publication, which is aimed at storage administrators and technical professionals, we describe the IBM HyperSwap® capability in IBM SpectrumTM Virtualize Software V7.8. HyperSwap delivers high availability (HA) and disaster recovery (DR) in one solution and reuses capital investments to achieve a range of recovery and management options that are transparent to host operations. This book describes how you can use HyperSwap with VMware to create an environment that can withstand robust workloads.

You have installed and performed the basic customization of IBM® Tivoli® Storage Productivity Center. You have collected performance data and generated reports. Now it's time to learn the best ways to use the software to manage your storage infrastructure. This IBM Redbooks® publication shows the best way to set up the software, based on your storage environment, and then how to use it to manage your infrastructure. It includes experiences from IBM clients and staff and covers the following topics: Architectural design techniques (sizing your environment, single versus multiple installations, physical versus virtual servers, deployment in a large, existing storage infrastructure) Database and server considerations (database backup and restoration methods and scripts, using IBM Data Studio Client for database administration, database placement and relocation, repository sizing and tuning, moving and migrating the server) Alerting, monitoring and reporting (monitoring thresholds and alerts, performance management and analysis of reports, real-time performance monitoring for IBM SAN Volume Controller) Security considerations (Tivoli Storage Productivity Center internal user IDs, user authentication configuration methods, how and why to set up and change passwords, configuring, querying, and testing LDAP and Microsoft Active Directory) Heath checks (server heath and logs, health and recoverability of IBM DB2® databases, using the Database Maintenance tool) Data management techniques (how to spot unusual growth incidents, scripted actions for Tivoli Storage manager and hierarchical storage management) This book is for storage administrators who are responsible for the performance and growth of the IT storage infrastructure. This publication was updated in January 2017 to reflect the latest support information.

Dynamic organizations want to accelerate growth while reducing costs. To do so, they must speed the deployment of business applications and adapt quickly to any changes in priorities. Organizations today require an IT infrastructure to be easy, efficient, and versatile. The VersaStack solution by Cisco and IBM® can help you accelerate the deployment of your data centers. It reduces costs by more efficiently managing information and resources while maintaining your ability to adapt to business change. The VersaStack solution combines the innovation of Cisco UCS Integrated Infrastructure with the efficiency of the IBM Storwize® storage system. The Cisco UCS Integrated Infrastructure includes the Cisco Unified Computing System (Cisco UCS), Cisco Nexus and Cisco MDS switches, and Cisco UCS Director. The IBM Storwize V7000 enhances virtual environments with its Data Virtualization, IBM Real-time CompressionTM, and IBM Easy Tier® features. These features deliver extraordinary levels of performance and efficiency. The VersaStack solution is Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) ready. Your IT team can build, deploy, secure, and maintain applications through a more agile framework. Cisco Intercloud Fabric capabilities help enable the creation of open and highly secure solutions for the hybrid cloud. These solutions accelerate your IT transformation while delivering dramatic improvements in operational efficiency and simplicity. Cisco and IBM are global leaders in the IT industry. The VersaStack solution gives you the opportunity to take advantage of integrated infrastructure solutions that are targeted at enterprise applications, analytics, and cloud solutions. The VersaStack solution is backed by Cisco Validated Designs (CVD) to provide faster delivery of applications, greater IT efficiency, and less risk. This IBM Redbooks® publication is aimed at experienced storage administrators that are tasked with deploying a VersaStack solution with Microsoft Sequel (SQL), IBM SpectrumTM Protect, and IBM Spectrum ControlTM.

Dynamic organizations want to accelerate growth while reducing costs. To do so, they must speed the deployment of business applications and adapt quickly to any changes in priorities. Organizations require an IT infrastructure to be easy, efficient, and versatile. The VersaStack solution by Cisco and IBM® can help you accelerate the deployment of your datacenters. It reduces costs by more efficiently managing information and resources while maintaining your ability to adapt to business change. The VersaStack solution combines the innovation of Cisco Unified Computing System (Cisco UCS) Integrated Infrastructure with the efficiency of the IBM Storwize® storage system. The Cisco UCS Integrated Infrastructure includes the Cisco UCS, Cisco Nexus and Cisco MDS switches, and Cisco UCS Director. The IBM Storwize V7000 storage system enhances virtual environments with its Data Virtualization, IBM Real-time CompressionTM, and IBM Easy Tier® features. These features deliver extraordinary levels of performance and efficiency. The VersaStack solution is Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) ready. Your IT team can build, deploy, secure, and maintain applications through a more agile framework. Cisco Intercloud Fabric capabilities help enable the creation of open and highly secure solutions for the hybrid cloud. These solutions accelerate your IT transformation while delivering dramatic improvements in operational efficiency and simplicity. Cisco and IBM are global leaders in the IT industry. The VersaStack solution gives you the opportunity to take advantage of integrated infrastructure solutions that are targeted at enterprise applications, analytics, and cloud solutions. The VersaStack solution is backed by Cisco Validated Designs (CVDs) to provide faster delivery of applications, greater IT efficiency, and less risk. This IBM Redbooks® publication is aimed at experienced storage administrators that are tasked with deploying a VersaStack solution with IBM DB2® High Availability (DB2 HA), IBM SpectrumTM Protect, and IBM Spectrum ControlTM.