The Business of IT Storage Blog

How to spot an old IBMer

AussieStorBlog — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 04:53:00 GMT

Posted on March 30, 2012

If you work (or have worked) for IBM then you have probably met many old timers. IBMers who have been with the company for 25 years or more (or even 50!).

But how do you spot an old IBMer?

Is it by the cut of their suit? Not sure about that anymore.

An IBM General Systems Division marketing rep in New Jersey in 1978.

It's certainly not by their extensive beards.

Development of the 3800 printer, taken in the early 1970s by Ray Froess (http://www.froess.com/IBM/3800printer.htm)

Is it by the size of their laptop? I hope not!

IBM 5100 Portable Computer (1975)

No... you can spot them by their use of certain words and phrases.

Here are a few I can think of... you may know more. Try this out as a test on someone who you think is an old IBMer and see how they go:

1) While showing a powerpoint presentation they keep saying they are showing foils (despite having not seen an overhead projector in over 10 years).

2) They refer to disk storage as DASD (pronounced Dazz-Dee).

3) They still call a Sales Rep a Marketing Rep (check out Buck Roger's book The IBM Way to see why).

4) They refer to their inbox as their reader (see question 5).

5) They refer to the IBM corporate personnel database as callup (it has been a Web based application called BluePages for around 15 years).

6) If you say I will PROFS you (or I will send you a PROFS mail), they don't blink an eye-lid (PROFs was IBM's Mainframe based mail system, replaced by OfficeVision which was replaced by Lotus Notes in the 1990s).

7) If you say you F4ed or PF4ed an email... they know what you mean (it meant that you deleted it in PROFS/OfficeVision).

8) They reveal they are a veteran of IBM Typewriters by regaling you with their knowledge of Selectric Rotate Tapes.

9) They can name the dimensions of a punched card.

10) You look around the office and they are the only one still wearing a tie.

Go and test it out today. See if you can find someone who can score 100%.

And have a great weekend...

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About Anthony Vandewerdt

I work for IBM Australia as a Storage Solutions Specialist. My goal is to share my knowledge and experience of using IBM Storage solutions and learn more along the way. You can also find me on IBM developerWorks. Please understand that the postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions. Seriously, this means I am not a spokesperson for IBM, just a noisy IBMer. Constructive and useful comments are very very welcome. My definition of spam may be different to yours. View all posts by Anthony Vandewerdt →

The IT number of the Beast - doubled!

AussieStorBlog — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 21:28:00 GMT

Experimental jet-powered locomotive test bed

Last year I blogged about 497 being the IT number of the beast.

Why 497?

Because if a product uses a 32 bit counter to record uptime, and that counter records a tick every 10 msec, then that 32-bit counter will overflow after approximately 497.1 days. This is because a 32 bit counter equates to 2^32, which equals 4,294,967,296 ticks. If a tick is counted every 10 msec, we create 8,640,000 ticks per day (100*60*60*24). So after 497.102696 days, the counter will overflow. What happens next depends on good programming: normally the counter just starts again, but worst case a function might stop working or the product might even reboot.

Fortunately we are seeing less and less of these issues but just occasionally one still slips out. Recently IBM released details of a 994 day reboot bug in the ESM code of some of their older disk enclosures (EXP100, EXP700 and EXP710). Details about this bug can be found here. What I find interesting is the number of days it takes to occur, since 994 is actually 497 times two. This suggests that this product records a tick every 20 msec. This meant we got past 497 days without an issue but hit a problem after exactly double that number. So if you still have these older storage enclosures, you will need to reboot the ESMs (after checking the alert).

I googled 497 to see what images that number brings up and was amazed to find the M-497 jet powered train. More details on this rather interesting attempt at speeding up the commute home can be found here and here. It adds a whole new meaning to keeping behind the yellow line.

Installing the IBM XIV VASA Provider for VMware

AussieStorBlog — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 21:33:00 GMT

If you have combined vSphere 5.0 with XIV, then you may want to try out the new IBM Storage Provider for VMware VASA (vSphere Storage APIs for Storage Awareness). You can download the installation instructions, the release notes and the current version of the IBM VASA provider from here. Clearly because VASA is introduced in vSphere 5.0 your VMware vCenter also needs to be on version 5.0.

Now IBM have had a vCenter plugin for a very long time (which I have written about here, here and here) and while you still need that plugin if you want to do storage volume creation and mapping from within vCenter (as opposed to using the XIV GUI), the VASA provider makes storage awareness more native to vCenter. This is a very important step. It means instead of using vendor added icons and tabs (like the IBM Storage icon and the IBM Storage tab that are added by the IBM Storage Management Console for vCenter), you just use the default vCenter tabs.

Right now version 1.1.1 of the IBM VASA provider delivers information about storage topology, capabilities, and state, as well as events and alerts to VMware. This means you will see new additional information in three tabs: Storage Views, Alarms and Events.

After installing and setting up the VASA provider, in vCenter select your VMware cluster, go to the Storage Views tab and select the view Show all SCSI Volumes (LUNs) there are four columns with more information. The Committed, Thin Provisioned information, Storage Array and Identifier on Array (indicated with red arrows) comes straight from the XIV (hit the Update button at upper right if you are not seeing anything yet). This is really useful information as it lets you correlate the SCSI ID of a LUN to an actual volume on a source array. Here is a cut-down view of that extra information:

If you want a larger screen capture you can find one here.

The Task & Events and Alarms tabs will also now contain events reported by the VASA provider such as thin provisioning threshold alerts (although if you have just installed the provider you may see nothing new, as nothing has occurred yet to provoke an alert or event).

As usual I have some handy tips on the steps you will need to take to get VASA going:

First up you will need to identify a virtual machine to run the provider on (or just create a new one). I chose to deploy a new instance of Windows 2008 from a template. Because the VASA provider communicates to vCenter via an Apache Tomcat server listening on port 8443, that port needs to be free and unblocked. This also means you should not run the VASA provider in the same instance of Windows as the vCenter server (see below for more information as to why).
Download the IBM Storage Provider for VMware VASA as per the link above (use version 1.1.1, see the user comments in this post for details about a bug in version 1.1.0).
Install the provider in the Windows VM you created in step 1. The tasks are detailed in the Installation Instructions, but it is a simple follow-your-nose application installation. As per most XIV software packages, it will install a runtime environment (xPYV which is Python) as part of the install.
Now we need to define the credentials that VMware vCenter will use to authenticate to the IBM VASA Storage Provider. These should be unique (and are not an XIV userid and password - this is only between vCenter and the provider software). In my example I use xivvasa and pa55w0rd. The truststore password is used to encrypt the username and password details (so that they are not stored in plain text). Open a Windows command prompt (make sure to right select and open it as an Administrator) and enter the following commands:
```
 cd "C:\Program Files (x86)\IBM\IBM Storage Provider for VMware VASA\bin" 
vasa_util register -u xivvasa -p pa55w0rd -t changeit
```
Don't close the command prompt, because we now need to define the XIV to the IBM VASA provider.
You need the IP address of your XIV and a valid user and password on the XIV that can be used to logon to the XIV. So in this example my XIV is using 10.1.60.100 and I am using the default admin username and password (which I know does not set a good example). This is the command you need to run:
```
vasa_util add -i 10.1.60.100 -u admin -p adminadmin 
```
If this command fails, reporting your firmware is invalid, you are probably using the original 1.1.0 version of the VASA provider. Go back to the IBM Fix Central website and make sure you have the latest version (at least version 1.1.1). If it reports the firmware cannot be read, make sure you are running the Command Prompt as an Administrator.
Once you successfully added the XIV to the provider, you need to restart the Apache webserver. Do this by starting the services.msc panel and looking for the Apache Tomcat IBMVASA service as pictured below. Stop it and then start it. Once you have done that you can logoff from the VASA VM.
Now connect to your vSphere Client (which needs to be on at least version 5.0.0) and from the Home panel, open the Storage Providers panel.Then select the option to Add a new provider. The URL needs to include the correct port number (by default 8443), so it will look something like this (where the provider is running on 10.1.60.193). Note also that the VASA provider version number is in the URL, so if you upgrade the provider you will need to change the URL (currently v1.1.1):
```
https://10.1.60.193:8443/ibm-vasa-provider-v1.1.1/services/vasaService
```
The Login and password should match the user id and password you defined in step 4 (remember it is not logging into the XIV, it is logging into the VASA provider).
If you get a message saying your user id and password are wrong, you probably forgot to stop and start Apache in step 6 above. If you succeed you should see a new provider listed. Highlight the provider and select sync to update the last sync time.

Your setup tasks are now all completed. Now go and explore the panels I detailed above to see what new information you have available to your vCenter server.

Why a separate server for the VASA provider?

The IBM VASA provider uses Apache Tomcat, which by default listens on port 8443. However since vCenter already has a service listening on port 8443, it means we have a clash. I googled and found the Dell and Netapp VASA providers also listen on port 8443 and they also recommend separate servers. I noted Fujitsu's provider used a different port but still requires a separate server. So it seems if you have multiple vendors you will either have to spin up a separate server for each vendors provider, or start playing with changing the port number. The installation instructions for the IBM VASA Provider explain how to change the default port number if you are truly keen.

Using XIV with Symantec Dynamic Multi-Pathing

AussieStorBlog — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 16:46:00 GMT

I got a question about Veritas DMP and XIV, so I thought I would write a quick post with some details on the subject.

A fundamental requirement for a host attached to a fibre channel SAN, is the use of multi-pathing software. One alternative to achieve this (that IBM support for most operating systems attaching to XIV) is Symantec Dynamic Multi Pathing (DMP). A nice way to find out whether this is the case for your particular operating system is to head to the SSIC, choose Enterprise Disk → XIV Storage System → Your product version and then Export the Selected Product Version to get a spreadsheet of every supported environment. Now under the multi-path heading of each page you will see what choices are supported.

Two key benefits of purchasing Veritas DMP are that:

It works with heterogeneous storage and server platforms (so you could have EMC and IBM attached to the same server at the same time).
You can centrally manage all storage paths from one central management GUI.

Then the question becomes, if I choose to go down the DMP route, do we still need the XIV Host Attachment Kit (HAK)?

The answer is a definite yes!

Veritas DMP and Solaris

If you’re using DMP with Solaris, when you run XIV HAK wizard, it will scan for existing dynamic multi-pathing solutions. Valid solutions for the Solaris operating system are Solaris Multiplexed I/O (MPxIO) or Veritas Dynamic-Multipathing (VxDMP). If VxDMP is already installed and configured on the host, it is preferred over MPxIO.

Veritas DMP and Windows

For a Windows host the important point is that Veritas Storage Foundation Dynamic Multipathing (DMP) does not rely on the native multipath I/O (MPIO) capabilities of the Windows Server operating system. Instead, it provides its own custom multipath I/O solution. Because these two solutions cannot co‐exist on the same host, perform the following procedure if you intend to use the Veritas solution:

Install the Veritas Storage Foundation package (if it is not already installed).
Restart the host.
Install the IBM XIV Host Attachment Kit (or run the portable version).
The HAK will perform whatever system changes it detects are necessary while still allowing DMP to perform the multipathing. This may require a reboot (to install Windows hot fixes).

If the version of the Veritas Storage Foundation that you are using does not support the IBM XIV Storage System, install the Device Driver Installation Package 1 (DDI‐1) for Veritas Storage Foundation 5.1. This update supports the IBM XIV Storage System.

As I said, the HAK will ensure that the required hot fixes are present. These hot fixes are fairly important. To understand what tasks the HAK will want to perform WITHOUT performing them, use the portable HAK and run:

xiv_fc_admin -i

This will tell you what tasks will be undertaken when you run the command without the -i parameter. I detailed this behaviour here.

One benefit of the HAK is the wonderful xiv_devlist command. Even if you are using DMP, the xiv_devlist command will still work, although you may need to specify veritas as per this example:

xiv_devlist -m veritas

Need more documentation?

This is all documented in the XIV Host Attachment Users Guide which you can find here

You lost, stole, gave away or sold your Storwize V7000 USB key?

AussieStorBlog — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 17:30:00 GMT

I love USB keys, I love free ones, conferences give away ones and ones shaped like Lego blocks. The exciting thing (for me) is that if you buy a Storwize V7000, you also get a USB key: A key which has two fundamental purposes:

It’s used to make installation very quick and easy (which it does very well!).
It’s used to reset the superuser password (in case you forget what it is) or to set the service IP addresses (in case you didn’t set them like I suggested you do ).

This is all well and good but what happens when you lose it, borrow it or accidentally throw it out? (oops) If you are searching for it, yours may well have looked like this:

So what to do? The answer is: It’s OK, there is nothing magic about this key. In fact the key contains just one piece of software, which you can get from here. Just download the initialization tool and copy it onto your own USB key. The original key also had an Autorun file, but you don’t need that (actually I object to auto-running USB keys anyway).

BUT… and there is always a but… I cannot guarantee that EVERY USB key you try will work. Why not? Because some USB keys are formatted strangely or insist on running unique applications before they will work. There is some good, simple advice on the InfoCenter that you can find here. The main trick is to use a USB key that is formatted with the FAT32, EXT2, or EXT3 file system on its first partition and does not need to auto-run any applications before working.

XIV Release 3.1 materials – including a really cool video

AussieStorBlog — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 16:24:00 GMT

If you interested in the current state of play with XIV, there are a huge number of new resources that have been created or updated as part of the XIV 3.1 update, so I thought I would give you a list. If you are a customer then please scan down to see if there is anything here that interests you. If you an IBMer or IBM Business Partner (or IBM competitor!), this is all mandatory reading. Either way, check out the new YouTube video, it is very cool.

New! XIV – VMware solution brief

New! XIV – Asynchronous mirroring white paper (link should be live very soon)

Updated! XIV – Performance white paper (updated with SSD information) (link should be added very soon)

XIV Cloud white paper

XIV Hyper-V white paper

IDC analyst report: XIV as Tier 1

ITG analyst report: TCO comparison: XIV and EMC VMAX/VMAXe

XIV-related case studies

A hot off-the-press walk-thru demo, of the XIV GUI

As promised here is the new video on YouTube that shows the new XIV iPhone App!

I just checked the Apple App Store and cannot see the application yet (only the iPad version). I will update you the moment the iPhone version becomes available for download (and yes it will have a demo mode).

For more XIV related materials (white papers, demos, videos, case studies…), I invite you to pop over to the XIV area of the ibm web site: ibm.com/storage/disk/xiv. You’ll find links to materials throughout, such as the SPC report and ISV white papers; click on the Resources tab for a consolidated list of the most recent materials.

XIV Release 3.1 – SSD Read Cache is go!

AussieStorBlog — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 16:13:00 GMT

In July last year I blogged about a brief history of XIV.

In that post I detailed how the XIV began as the Nextra, was then released as the IBM XIV and then updated to the XIV Gen3. So this means last year we saw release 3.0 of the XIV.

At the risk of getting over excited, some of the achievements of the IBM XIV have been truly remarkable:

There are 59 Clients with more than 1 PB each of usable XIV capacity
There are 16 Clients with more than 2 PB each of usable XIV capacity

I am sure some competitors will find larger numbers to try and drown out this achievement, but the point is this: These are FANTASTIC numbers. It shows that despite all the FUD, the XIV is a success for IBM and a success for IBM’s customers.

So at the time of the Gen3 release, IBM made no secret of the fact that they planned to add the option of SSD as a read cache layer. In fact each and every Gen3 shipped so far has the mounting and attachment hardware needed to support those SSDs.

Now with release 3.1 IBM turns that promise into a reality.

So… to answer some possible questions:

How can I get some of this SSD goodness?

Order the feature! For existing machines, IBM will need to update the firmware of your XIV Gen3 (non-disruptively) to add SSD support. There will also be an updated version of the XIV GUI. Once those are in place, an IBM Service Representative will add an SSD to each interface module. All of this will be completed without interruption to your operations.

How much read cache will I get?

Each XIV Gen3 Module already has 24 GB of server RAM. Since an XIV can vary from 6 to 15 modules (based on capacity), that gives you between 144 GB and 360 GB of server RAM to provide read and write cache. If you add the SSD option you will get a 400 GB SSD per module. This means we get between 2.4 TB to 6 TB of additional read cache (depending on module count). The SSDs are not used as write cache.

What administration will I need to perform?

How about none? This is XIV: it’s all about making it simple. It’s no surprise that practically every IBM Storage device now uses the XIV GUI. These guys wrote the book on making things easy to use.

But seriously, no administration? Well… there are two things you may want to do:

Check how many SSD based read hits you are getting (versus memory based read hits). It’s always nice to see just how effective these SSDs are proving themselves to be.
Turn SSD read caching off or on at a per volume level (by default it is on for all volumes). I don’t anticipate many clients will need or want to do this, but the option is there and it is very easy to do.

Won’t these SSDs wear out or slow down over time?

These are the two great fears of SSD… and XIV development has combined their art with some great work from IBM Research to make sure this is not an issue. The way data is written out to the SSD is handled in a very sophisticated manner. The end result will be consistent and predictable performance with a very long operational life. I will give you more details about exactly how this is done in a future post.

What happens if one of these SSD fails?

Nothing bad.

Because the SSD is not used as write cache, no data can be lost. Data in memory cache is de-staged by that module to both SAS disk and asynchronously to SSD (although not all data will necessarily go to SSD). So there are no bottlenecks and there is no risk. The other modules will keep using their SSDs and IBM will replace the failed SSD non-disruptively.

What sort of performance improvement will I see?

Depending on application and data patterns you should see your IOPS more than double. A three times improvement is quite possible. Response times could drop by more than two thirds. In many ways these are obvious results.

IBM intend to demonstrate using industry standard benchmarks what the performance of an XIV Gen3 with SSD will be. I can tell you these numbers are going to be very impressive. Watch this space.

Is that it? Any thing else in this release?

Release 3.1 also adds:

The ability to mirror between Generation 2 and Gen3 XIVs.
All the base support for IPv6 is now in place (although there are still some certification tests to complete)
Improvements to system thresholds (such as maximum pool size)
GUI enhancements (mainly to add panels for the SSD cache)
A new iPhone app (in addition to the existing iPad app)

It’s like Christmas in February.

Report generation tools for XIV

AussieStorBlog — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 00:14:00 GMT

I have previously blogged about two XIV report generation tools that you can download and start using. This is just a short update to let you know there are updated versions of both tools, plus a new one that has just been added. These tools are all on my files section at the IBM developerWorks site (where you can also find my Visios).

To sum up what these tools do:

XIV Capacity Report

This Script creates an XLS or CSV file that contains 4 very useful tabs: Systems, Pools, Hosts, Volumes. You can use this to report on your storage, find un-mapped or un-mirrored volumes, check your consumption, etc. Clients, Business Partners and Cloud providers love this nice and simple tool.

It is currently up to version 4.5 and you can find it here.

XIV Performance Report

This Script creates an XLS or CSV file that gives the same information as the XIV Top utility but for a range of days (so we are looking at historic versus current performance). You could for example see what were the most busy volumes for the past 3 days or for the previous week. You can easily spot if host HBAs are not being used or if XIV interface traffic is not being balanced.

It is currently up to version 7.2 and you can find it here.

XIV Usage Report – NEW!

This Script creates an Excel file that shows you the current and historic usage of your volumes and pools. It also gives a trend prediction that will help estimate when your pools or volumes will be full of data. This is great for trend and growth analysis.

It is currently on version 1.0 and you can find it here.

______________________________________________________________

So get downloading! Although if you don’t have an XIV, these tools will not be of much use to you.

More details on how to setup and use these tools can be found here.

On a side note, I have found some downloads from the developerWorks site fail if you are using the Chrome browser. If you are having issues, switch to Firefox (just for that task).

Semmelweis could see the problem

AussieStorBlog — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 23:03:00 GMT

Ignaz Semmelweis

I listened to another great podcast from the Freakonomics team recently in which they recounted the story of Doctor Ignaz Semmelweis, which inspired me to make a connection to something I see in my day to day job.

Doctor Semmelweis worked at the Vienna General Hospital in the 1840s, delivering babies, teaching students and performing autopsies. Now while working there he realized there was something going horribly wrong at the hospital: up to 1 in 6 of the women whose babies were delivered by the male doctors were dying either during or after childbirth. This rate was far higher than the death rate for women whose babies were delivered by midwives and much higher even than the death rate for women who gave birth on the street!

Semmelweis studied this issue very closely and concluded (quite rightly) that the issue was invisible cadaverous particles on the hands of the doctors. The doctors were going straight from performing autopsies to delivering babies… and transmitting all sorts of foul material to the birthing mothers, killing some of them in the process.

His solution was simple: He made the doctors wash their hands.

The result? The rate of women dying after giving birth at that hospital went from a peak of 15% to less than 2%.

So you would like to think that this story ends with Semmelweis declared a hero and hospital hygiene achieving new heights. Sadly it instead ends with Semmelweis being mostly ignored, going mad and dying from injuries sustained from a beating he received in a mental asylum. His discoveries only really began getting wider recognition after work by greats such as Louis Pasteur and Joseph Lister.

So what on earth does this have to do with Fibre Channel attached storage?

Well the answer is invisible dirt particles and their role in causing hard to explain issues (work with me here your honour, I will make my point).

Fibre optic cable relies on the exposed fibre being absolutely clean. The center of the image below is the light coming from a light source being used with a fibre microscope. While that lit spot looks large, it is actually only 62.5 microns (which is tiny).

62.5 micron

If you are using single mode (9 micron) fibre (commonly used with long wave adapters) that lit spot is even smaller:

9 micron

So what does a dirty fibre look like? How about this:

Contaminated error generating cable

What about a badly cleaned one?

Badly cleaned cable

Now these images are scary. Even worse, the contamination is invisible to the naked eye. It is almost impossible to see dirt on your fibres (and staring at the end of a cable is not recommended anyway, regardless of what is at the other end). So this leads to some obvious questions:

How can I keep my cables from getting dirty?

Quite simply don’t expose them to dirt. Always leave dust covers in place on the cable ends and in the SFPs until they need to be used. Don’t drag unprotected cables under the floor or leave them hanging in the racks. Don’t re-use cables without cleaning them. In fact I recommend cleaning new cables before you start using them. Finally your dust covers need to be protected from dust too. Store dust covers in a sealed bag so that if you re-use them, they have not become contaminated.

How can I clean my cables?

Cleaning kits are something every site should have onsite and always available (like hand sanitizer for Doctors!). Google fibre optic cleaning kit for lots of products. I have used Cletops devices but there are plenty of other choices on the market.

Can I create images like the ones above?

You sure can. Google fibre microscopes for lots of products that can do the job for less than $500. There are plenty of choices on the market. Even if you are not willing to make the expense yourself, make sure your cable provider has one available. If they are testing your cables with a flash light, get another provider.

Can my SAN switch tell me I have dirty cables?

The two most common commands I use are porterrshow and statsclear (on Brocade switches). If you see any values in the highlighted six columns of evil, you may have bad SFPs, damaged cabling or dirty cables. Just be careful it is not ancient history. Clear the stats (with statsclear) and wait a decent interval before checking again with porterrshow.

I could talk in even more detail about monitoring at the switch, but I think that is a whole other blog post.

Feel free to share your horror stories. Who knows, maybe dirty cables are causing your current horror story?

New SVC Storage Performance Council SPC-1 benchmark breaks 500,000 IOPS barrier

AussieStorBlog — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 16:25:00 GMT

The IBM SVC has has been setting records in SPC-1 (OLTP-like) benchmarks for many years. However recently HP stole the crown with a 3Par benchmark of 450,212.66 IOPS.

But in breaking news, the SVC is back on top with the very first SPC benchmark that exceeded 500,000 IOPS (520,043.99 to be precise!). You can see the executive summary here.

This benchmark used eight of the current SVC engines (model CG8s) with Storwize V7000 as the backend disk. It shows the awesome power of SVC, its ability to scale and to handle very large configurations with very large throughput requirements. It also shows the power of IBM pSeries which was used to drive these IOPS.

The full disclosure report is here.

IBM Storage Fix information as of January 29, 2012

AussieStorBlog — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 16:18:00 GMT

My good friend Rob Jackard from the ATS Group has compiled this list of updates to the IBM Support site. It is a very comprehensive list of updates, flashes, tips and warnings and it is well worth spending a few minutes scanning the list to see if any apply to your environment. There is even a warning about a 497 day bug.

Ideally none of these tips should be news to you if you are getting regular emails using IBM My Notifications so please sign up (or maybe check that your notification list has the correct products) and then read on.

AIX

(2012.01.13) IBM Techdoc- AIX disk queue depth tuning for performance.
http://www-03.ibm.com/support/techdocs/atsmastr.nsf/WebIndex/TD105745

DS3000 / DS4000 / DS5000

(2012.01.26) IBM RETAIN tip# H204840- 200GB SSD & 400GB SSD have 3 Gbps SAS interface speed. NOTE: DS3524 and DCS3700 subsystems and EXP2524, DCS3700, and EXP3524 expansion enclosures may have incorrectly identified these drives as having 6 Gbps SAS interfaces…but actually are 3 Gbps SAS interface. https://www-947.ibm.com/support/entry/myportal/docdisplay?lndocid=MIGR-5089183

(2012.01.25) IBM RETAIN tip# H203671- Split LUN ownership causes false disk errors. http://www-947.ibm.com/support/entry/portal/docdisplay?lndocid=MIGR-5088618 (2012.01.20) IBM RETAIN tip# H197694- Loop connectivity issues cause drives to be bypassed. http://www-947.ibm.com/support/entry/portal/docdisplay?lndocid=MIGR-5086015

(2012.01.17) IBM RETAIN tip# H204814- Controllers reboot after ESM replacement. http://www-947.ibm.com/support/entry/portal/docdisplay?brand=5000008

(2012.01.05) IBM RETAIN tip# H202353- Incorrect power supply illuminated by prepare for removal. http://www-947.ibm.com/support/entry/portal/docdisplay?lndocid=MIGR-5087149

(2011.12.22) IBM RETAIN tip# H194697- SATA drive hangs or is not ready after power cycle. http://www-947.ibm.com/support/entry/portal/docdisplay?lndocid=MIGR-5087149

(2011.12.20) IBM DS4000/DS5000 Hard Disk Drive and ESM (EXP100/395/420/520/710/810/5000/5060/DCS370080E) Firmware Update Pack Version 1.76.
http://www.ibm.com/support/fixcentral/quickorder?product=ibm/Storage_Disk/DS5300&fixids=Disk-HDDESM-Dec-2011-version-1.76

(2012.12.12) IBM RETAIN tip# H202998- Fibre Channel Arbitrated Loop (FCAL) hard drive failures.
http://www-947.ibm.com/support/entry/portal/docdisplay?lndocid=MIGR-5087767

(2011.11.28) IBM RETAIN tip# H204312- SSD drive attachment requires premium feature key (DS3512, DS3524).
http://www-947.ibm.com/support/entry/portal/docdisplay?lndocid=MIGR-5089051

(2011.11.11) IBM System Storage DS3000, DS4000, DS5000- Command Line Interface and Script Commands Programming Guide.
http://www-947.ibm.com/support/entry/portal/docdisplay?lndocid=MIGR-5076792

(2011.11.07) IBM RETAIN tip# H201983- DS3000, DS4000, DS5000- Recommended drive firmware upgrade.
http://www-947.ibm.com/support/entry/portal/docdisplay?lndocid=MIGR-5086967

(2011.11.07) IBM RETAIN tip# H203671- DS4000, DS5000- Split LUN ownership causes false disk errors.
NOTE: The 7.60.40.00 firmware for the DS Storage Controller is affected. Will be corrected in a future release of 7.60.xx.xx firmware (target date is scheduled 4^th quarter 2011.)
http://www-947.ibm.com/support/entry/portal/docdisplay?lndocid=MIGR-5088618

DS8000 / DS6000

(2012.01.26) IBM Techdoc- IBM DS8800 Data Consolidation Features.
http://www-03.ibm.com/support/techdocs/atsmastr.nsf/WebIndex/WP102065

(2012.01.13) DS8800 Code Bundle Information.
https://www-304.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=ssg1S1003740

(2012.01.20) Data Loss / Data Error Scenario During Hung DDM Command Error Recovery.
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=ssg1S1003993

(2012.01.14) Potential DS8700/DS8800 Loss of Access and Job Abends on Release 6.2 due to repeating device recovery with the PTFs for OA34661 installed on z/OS releases 1.11 through 1.12. Also base z/OS 1.13 clients are exposed.
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=ssg1S1003953

(2011.12.14) Potential DS8700/DS8800 Loss of Access and Job Abends due to repeating device warmstarts with IMS/WADS workloads V10 or V11 while running Release 6.1 or higher.
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=ssg1S1003928

(2011.11.22) IBM System Storage DS8000 IBM Database Protection User’s Guide.
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=ssg1S7003786

(2011.11.17) IBM System Storage DS8000 Host Systems Attachment Guide.
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=ssg1S7001161

(2011.11.17) IBM System Storage DS Command-Line Interface User’s Guide for DS8000 series.
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=ssg1S7002620

(2011.11.07) DS8700/DS8800 users running with 8Gb host adapters on Release 6.1 exposed to potential loss of access condition.
NOTE: The firmware fix is available in R6.1 for DS8700- Bundle 76.0.130.0 or higher (76.10.139.0 is recommended), and for DS8800- Bundle 86.10.151.0 or higher.
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=ssg1S1003931

(2011.11.04) IBM System Storage DS8700 and DS8800 Introduction and Planning Guide.
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=ssg1S7001073

(2011.11.01) DS8700 / DS8800 internal error recovery can result in loss of access when 2145 SVC is attached.
NOTE-1: Firmware fixed for DS8700 [Bundle 75.15.59.0 or higher, recommended 75.15.84.0].
NOTE-2: Firmware fixed for DS8800 [Bundle 86.0.173.0 or higher, recommended 86.10.139.0].
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=ssg1S1003743

N series

(2012.01.13) N6210 / N6240 / N6270 NVMEM Battery Critical Low Will Initiate 24-Hr. System Shutdown Sequence.
NOTE: Workaround is available. A system firmware fix for this problem is planned Feb. 2012.
https://www-304.ibm.com/support/entdocview.wss?uid=ssg1S1003985

(2011.12.07) Service Image 30801834 (BIOS 3.0, BMC 1.3, and Diagnostics 5.6.1) for N3300 / N3600 Publication Matrix.
https://www-304.ibm.com/support/entdocview.wss?uid=ssg1S7003746

(2011.12.05) EXN3500 (2857-006) Storage Expansion Unit Publication Matrix.
https://www-304.ibm.com/support/entdocview.wss?uid=ssg1S7003521

(2011.12.05) Data ONTAP 8.1 7-Mode RC2 Publication Matrix.
https://www-304.ibm.com/support/entdocview.wss?uid=ssg1S7003783

(2011.10.21) Time Zone and Daylight Saving Time (DST) changes for Data ONTAP.
https://www-304.ibm.com/support/entdocview.wss?uid=ssg1S1003463

SAN

(2012.01.23) Cisco MDS 91×4 / 9222i Reboots itself after 497 days.
NOTE: An MDS 9124 switch, MDS 9134 switch, MDS 9222i switch, Cisco Fabric Switch for IBM BladeCenter, or Cisco Fabric Switch for HP c-Class BladeSystem, may reboot with reason Unknown or Watchdog Timeout when the switch has been up for 497 days. This issue is fixed in SAN-OS release 3.3(2), NX-OS release 4.1(1b) and above.
https://tools.cisco.com/Support/BugToolKit/search/getBugDetails.do?method=fetchBugDetails&bugId=CSCsu80534

(2011.12.07) IBM TotalStorage SAN32M-2 Installation and Service Manual.
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=ssg1S7001260

(2011.11.19) IBM SAN b-type Firmware Version 7.x Release Notes.
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=ssg1S1003855

(2011.10.24) Cisco MDS- identifying Supervisor2 and Supervisor2A modules.
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=ssg1S1003920

SONAS

(2012.01.01) IBM Techdoc- Using IBM SONAS with IBM DB2 on AIX hosts.
http://www-03.ibm.com/support/techdocs/atsmastr.nsf/WebIndex/WP102053

(2011.12.19) Intel has reported PAGE FAULT OR CORRUPTED DATA USING 64-BIT APP IN 64-BIT NOS (Fix is now available).
NOTE: This fix is now available and will be updated as part of the R1.2 update.
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=ssg1S1003746

SVC / Storwize V7000

(2012.01.27) SAN Volume Controller and Storwize V7000 Software Upgrade Test Utility V7.3.
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=ssg1S4000585

(2012.01.27) IBM Storwize V7000 & Storwize V7000 Unified- Supported Drive Types and Firmware Levels.
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=ssg1S1003842

(2012.01.25) Storwize V7000 Unified- The connectivity diagram in the GUI may incorrectly report the ethernet connection as down.
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=ssg1S1003987

(2012.01.25) Storwize V7000 Unified- GUI fails to run DMP 1225, 1226 and 2600.
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=ssg1S1003994

(2012.01.24) SVC / Storwize V7000 / Storwize V7000 Unified- Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service.
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=ssg1S4000833

(2012.01.18) Potential Performance Impacts When Using Mirrored and Non-Mirrored Volumes in the Same Storage Pool.
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=ssg1S1003992

(2012.01.13) IBM Techdoc- SVC / Storwize V7000 Performance Monitor (svcmon).
http://www-03.ibm.com/support/techdocs/atsmastr.nsf/WebIndex/PRS3177

(2012.01.11) Performance Problem When Using Easy Tier With Thin Provisioned Volumes.
NOTE: A workaround is available and this Flash will be updated as further guidance on this issue becomes available.
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=ssg1S1003982

(2012.01.11) Concurrent Compatibility and Code Cross Reference for Storwize V7000 Unified.
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=ssg1S1003918

(2012.01.06) Error Codes 1400 and 1401 Will No Longer Automatically Raise a PMR.
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=ssg1S1003979

(2012.01.06) IBM Storwize V7000 and Storwize V7000 Unified Initialization Tool.
http://www-933.ibm.com/support/fixcentral/swg/selectFix?product=ibm/Storage_Disk/IBM+Storwize+V7000+(2076)&fixids=StorageDisk-2076-InitTool&source=myna&myns=s028&mynp=OCST3FR7&mync=E&function=fixId&parent=ibm/Storage_Disk

(2012.01.06) IBM Storwize V7000 Unified Code V1.3.0.1.
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=ssg1S4000987

(2012.01.06) Software Upgrade Test Utility for Storwize V7000 Unified.
NOTE: IBM2073 upgradetest install file V1.1.
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=ssg1S4000986

(2012.01.06) IBM Storwize V7000 Unified V1.3.0 Supported Interoperability.
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=ssg1S1003911

(2012.01.06) IBM Storwize V7000 Unified V1.3.0 Configuration Limits and Restrictions.
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=ssg1S1003906

(2011.12.22) Supported Interoperability List for IBM Storwize V7000 Unified 1.3.0.
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=ssg1S1003911

(2011.12.16) Drive Firmware Upgrades May Result in Temporary Loss of Host Access to Volumes on SAN Volume Controller (SVC) and Storwize V7000.
NOTE: Customers are strongly recommended not to perform any drive upgrades.
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=ssg1S1003961

(2011.12.05) Understanding System Health Status on IBM Storwize V7000 Unified.
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=ssg1S1003948

(2011.12.05) Tivoli Storage Manager (TSM) Backup/Restore Tasks not Displayed in the Running Tasks Status Bar.
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=ssg1S1003950

(2011.11.30) IBM SVC / Storwize V7000 / Storwize V7000 Unified- Obtaining Service.
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=ssg1S1003141

(2011.11.30) IBM Storwize V7000- CIFS Planning Guidance.
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=ssg1S1003944

(2011.11.30) IBM Storwize V7000 Unified- Support Information.
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=ssg1S1003936

(2011.11.28) Storwize V7000 Code V6.3.0.0.
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=ssg1S4000991

(2011.11.28) SAN Volume Controller Code V6.3.0.0.
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=ssg1S4000992

(2011.11.28) IBM Storwize V7000- 20111103 Drive Microcode Package.
http://www.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=ssg1S4000993

(2011.11.18) Installable Information Center for IBM SVC V6.3.0.
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=ssg1S4000988

(2011.11.18) Installable Information Center for IBM Storwize V7000 V6.3.0.
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=ssg1S4000989

(2011.11.18) Installable Information Center for IBM Storwize V7000 Unified V1.3.0.
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=ssg1S4000990

(2011.11.17) Problem Determination Guide for IBM Storwize V7000 Unified V1.3.0.
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=ssg1S7003729

(2011.11.13) Storwize V7000- Solid State Drives May Overheat if Deployed in a Partially-Populated Drive Enclosure.
NOTE: This issue was fixed by APAR IC78538 in the V6.2.0.4 PTF release.
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=ssg1S1003927

(2011.11.13) Storwize V7000- Performance Degradation and Loss of GUI/CLI Access Due to Excessive Numbers of Socket Connections.
NOTE: This issue exists in all V6.1.0.x and V6.2.0.0-V6.2.0.3 releases. This issue was fixed in the V6.2.0.4 PTF release.
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=ssg1S1003930

(2011.11.13) Storwize V7000- All Nodes May Reboot Simultaneously When
Using FlashCopy Consistency Groups with V6.2.0.3.
NOTE: This issue is fixed by APAR IC78658 I the V6.2.0.4 PTF release.
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=ssg1S1003929

(2011.11.10) SAN Volume Controller Code V6.2.0.4.
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=ssg1S4000985

(2011.11.07) Storwize V7000 Code V6.2.0.4.
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=ssg1S4000984

(2011.11.02) V6.3.0 Model 2145-CG8 Hardware Installation Guide for IBM System Storage SAN Volume Controller.
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=ssg1S7003710

(2011.11.02) V6.3.0 Hardware Maintenance Guide for IBM System Storage SAN Volume Controller.
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=ssg1S7003711

(2011.11.02) V6.3.0 Troubleshooting Guide for IBM System Storage SAN Volume Controller.
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=ssg1S7003712

(2011.11.02) V6.3.0 Software Installation and Configuration Guide for IBM System Storage SAN Volume Controller.
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=ssg1S7003713

(2011.11.02) CIM Agent Developer’s Guide for IBM Storwize V7000 V6.3.0 and IBM Storwize V7000 Unified V1.3.0.
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=ssg1S7003715

(2011.11.01) V6.3.0 Command-Line Interface Guide for IBM System Storage SAN Volume Controller and Storwize V7000.
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=ssg1S7003714

(2011.11.01) V6.3.0 Quick Installation Guide for IBM Storwize V7000.
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=ssg1S7003717

(2011.11.01) V6.3.0 Troubleshooting, Recovery, and Maintenance Guide for IBM Storwize V7000.
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=ssg1S7003718

(2011.10.26) Intra-Cluster Global Mirror Not Supported With V6.1.0.x and V6.2.0.x SAN Volume Controller and Storwize V7000 Code.
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=ssg1S1003725

(2011.10.05) Loss of CLI/GUI Access on SAN Volume Controller or Storwize V7000 V6.2.0.x When Volume Properties of a Stopped FlashCopy Target Mapping are Modified.
https://www-304.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=ssg1S1003910

SSPC / TPC / TPC-R:

(2012.01.26) IBM Techdoc- IBM TPC Reporter for Disk.
http://www-03.ibm.com/support/techdocs/atsmastr.nsf/WebIndex/PRS2618

(2012.01.19) Configuring Java Web Start Shortcut for Windows 7 with Multiple Java Versions.
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21578482

(2012.01.16) Limitations and known issues for TPC and TPC-R for Version 4.2.2 FP1 (4.2.2.95).
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21509231

(2011.12.19) Tivoli Storage Productivity Center 4.2.2 Fix Pack 1 (V4.2.2.95) (December 2011).
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg24031709

(2011.12.19) Tivoli Storage Productivity Center 4.2 Repository Whitepaper.
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg27023818

(2011.12.16) IBM Tivoli Storage Productivity Center v4.2.2.1 Views documentation.
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg27023813

(2011.12.16) Readme for Tivoli Storage Productivity Center and Tivoli Storage Productivity Center for Replication Version 4.2.2.
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21509235

(2011.12.16) Limitations and known issues for Tivoli Storage Productivity Center and Tivoli Storage Productivity Center for Replication for Version 4.2.2.1.
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21509231

(2011.11.17) Tivoli Storage Productivity Center V4.2.1 Interim Fix 1 (November 2011).
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg24031346

(2011.11.16) IC78867 – Resolve Missing TIP Links After TPC Upgrade.
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21571886

(2011.10.31) Tivoli Storage Productivity Center V4.2.2 GA (October 2011).
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg24031195

XIV:

(2012.01.16) IBM Techdoc- Best practices guide for SAP applications on an IBM XIV Storage System.
http://www-03.ibm.com/support/techdocs/atsmastr.nsf/WebIndex/WP101452

(2012.01.02) IBM XIV Host Attachment Kit for AIX v1.7.1.
http://www-933.ibm.com/support/fixcentral/swg/selectFix?product=ibm/Storage_Disk/XIV+Storage+System+(2810,+2812)&fixids=IBM_XIV_Host_Attachment_Kit_for_AIX_v1.7.1

(2111.12.14) XIV Support for VMware’s vSphere 5 xcopy.
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=ssg1S1003946

(2011.11.21) IBM XIV XCLI (only) v3.0.1 for AIX.
http://www-933.ibm.com/support/fixcentral/swg/selectFix?product=ibm/Storage_Disk/XIV+Storage+System+(2810,+2812)&fixids=IBM_XIV_XCLI_v3.0.1_for_aix&source=myna&myns=s028&mynp=OCSTJTAG&mync=E&function=fixId&parent=ibm/Storage_Disk

(2011.11.21) IBM XIV Management Tools (XIVGUI, XIVTop, XCLI) v3.0.1 for AIX.
http://www-933.ibm.com/support/fixcentral/swg/selectFix?product=ibm/Storage_Disk/XIV+Storage+System+(2810,+2812)&fixids=IBM_XIV_Management_Tools_v3.0.1_for_aix&source=myna&myns=s028&mynp=OCSTJTAG&mync=E&function=fixId&parent=ibm/Storage_Disk

(2011.11.21) IBM XIV Management Tools (XIVGUI, XIVTop, XCLI) v3.0.1 for Windows.
http://www-933.ibm.com/support/fixcentral/swg/selectFix?product=ibm/Storage_Disk/XIV+Storage+System+(2810,+2812)&fixids=IBM_XIV_Management_Tools_v3.0.1_for_windows&source=myna&myns=s028&mynp=OCSTJTAG&mync=E&function=fixId&parent=ibm/Storage_Disk

(2011.11.17) Potential loss of access to XIV Storage Systems with microcode versions 10.2.4.c (and below) and 11.0.1 (and below), that may also cause data issues.
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=ssg1S1003924

(2011.11.11) IBM Storage Provider for VMware VASA, Version 1.1.0.
http://www-933.ibm.com/support/fixcentral/swg/selectFix?product=ibm/Storage_Disk/XIV+Storage+System+(2810,+2812)&fixids=IBM_Storage_Provider_for_VMware_VASA_v1.1.0&source=myna&myns=s028&mynp=OCSTJTAG&mync=E&function=fixId&parent=ibm/Storage_Disk

(2011.11.07) IBM Redbook- IBM XIV Storage System: Architecture, Implementation, and Usage.
http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/abstracts/SG247659.html

(2011.11.02) IBM XIV Storage System Product Overview.
https://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=ssg1S7003533

(2011.11.02) IBM XIV Storage System Planning Guide.
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=ssg1S7003187

(2011.11.01) XIV Off-line Initialization rare scenario that might cause XIV machine to be in unhealthy state.
NOTE: This issue is fixed in 10.2.4.c microcode.
https://www-304.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=ssg1S1003882

Storwize V7000 and SVC Release 6.3.0.1 is available for download

AussieStorBlog — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 15:20:00 GMT

The first update for Storwize V7000 and SVC release 6.3 is now available. You will find it here for Storwize V7000 and here for SVC (note both links will require you to login to Fix Central with your IBM ID). As usual the new release contains a combination of new features and fixes. The new features are:

  New features in SVC 6.3.0.1

*  Support for multi-session iSCSI host attachment
*  Language Support for Brazilian Portuguese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Spanish,

Turkish, Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese

There are also several fixes (with some variation between SVC and Storwize V7000, mainly around the platform hardware). The release notes (which you can find at the links above) detail them all. Two fixes I have been looking forward to are:

IC80253 Unable to log into the GUI if password contains special characters.
This meant that a password with a comma in it could not be used in the GUI (you got a backspace instead). Passwords with commas could be used in the CLI. This bug was picked up by one of my clients when trying out LDAP and is now fixed in 6.3.0.1.

IC80501 Performance statistics collection fails to record read and write response times for internal drives.
This issue meant that SVC internal SSD drives always showed 0 ms response times in TPC.

Note that the Drive firmware does not need to be updated with this release. The new upgrade test tool (version 7.3) will not ask you to update them. I will let you know when that situation changes.

About Anthony Vandewerdt

I work for IBM Australia as a Storage Solutions Specialist. My goal is to share my knowledge and experience of using IBM Storage solutions and learn more along the way. You can also find me on IBM developerWorks. Please understand that the postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions. Constructive and useful comments are very very welcome.

View all posts by Anthony Vandewerdt →

Wikipedia and Lady Gaga leave me speechless

AussieStorBlog — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 23:35:00 GMT

Having survived Wikipedia’s 24 hour protest against SOPA and PIPA, a lot of people have suddenly discovered just how much they have come to rely on Wikipedia as an information source. Not that this is a bad thing, after all I love Wikipedia, I truly do. I think it is one of the greatest achievements of the world-wide web and represents a marvelous opportunity for each of us to preserve a record of our world and all the things in it.

I would use Wikipedia every day (often many times per day), as part of my job, for blogging and for general interest. But I grow increasingly saddened by the lack of tech company history (especially SAN) in Wikipedia. Truly great IT companies and truly great IT products have come and gone and are often not really represented. For instance:

When you search for McData you end up on the Brocade page. Where is the corporate history of McData? Do the McData 6064 and 6140 deserve nothing but passing mention? Ex McData employees where are you?
When you search for Engenio you end up on the NetApp page. Where is the corporate history of Engenio?
There are no pages for Inrange, CNT, Nishan, DDN. I could keep going, the list of missing companies is very long.
The first laser printer ever released by Xerox, the 9700, does not have its own page. This was a major milestone in the development of office technology.
The first IBM CMOS mainframe the one that ended IBM’s love affair with water cooling, the IBM 9672, does not have its own page. This product started a major change in the mainframe market.
I could keep listing other significant products that need far more details than they currently have.

Now of course there had been a huge amount of work already done, so please don’t think I am denigrating the work of Wikipedia’s many contributors. But more needs to be done, and the good news is that a central tenet of Wikipedia is just fix it. So anyone can contribute, either by creating an article, or editing an existing article, or by participating in the talk pages that exist for each article (and those can also be VERY interesting).

If you are keen enough to create an article, you need to:

Ensure your article is notable (watch out for quick deletion!).
Ensure your article maintains a neutral point of view (it should not be advertising).
Ensure your article is properly referenced and cited. This last requirement is the biggest challenge. Many large corporations simply don’t leave enough artifacts to make this easy. But artifacts are there, you just need to look. Google is not always your friend. You may need to do some genuine research.

Sounds exciting? Get started!
Need help? There is plenty out there. I can also recommend two very good books (both of which I have read): The Wikipedia Revolution and Teach Yourself Wikipedia in 10 minutes.

Don’t want to write? Here is something else you could do:
If you have any photos that you took yourself of IT gear or computer rooms, upload them to Wikipedia Commons. If you don’t know how to or feel uncomfortable doing so yourself, let me know, I can help. Provided the photos are your own work, are not scans of other people’s images and you are happy to share them, then we can preserve them and use them freely in Wikipedia articles. Almost every IT related article would benefit from photos of equipment.
I particularly want images of IBM printers and copiers, do you have any?

But why does Wikipedia and Lady Gaga leave me speechless? As a benchmark, look at the article on the Lady Gaga song, Speechless. If the Gaga’s fans can find the enthusiasm to create such a long article (21 KB) on just a single song, surely some budding IT historians can tip the balance on some of our great contributors to SAN.

It is time to get writing….

The many articles on Lady Gaga in Wikipedia leave me speechless (in a good way).

About Anthony Vandewerdt

I work for IBM Australia as a Storage Solutions Specialist. My goal is to share my knowledge and experience of using IBM Storage solutions and learn more along the way. You can also find me on IBM developerWorks. Please understand that the postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions. Constructive and useful comments are very very welcome.

View all posts by Anthony Vandewerdt →

XIV Host Attachment Kit 1.7.1 is now available

AussieStorBlog — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 22:31:00 GMT

One of the many tools in your XIV toolkit is the Host Attachment Kit or HAK. Two of my favorite commands provided by the HAK are xiv_attach and xiv_fc_admin which we use to configure our hosts. Of course users want to be exactly sure what changes these commands might make and while the current output gives some good information, some of our users wanted more. So the good news is that the XIV Host Attachment Kit version 1.7.1 is now available and the Windows and Linux versions now have a new extra verbose mode which you can access with the -i parameter as shown:

xiv_attach -i
xiv_fc_admin -i

By using -i with the commands you will see in even more detail what changes are needed to configure your host to attach to an XIV, but without any changes actually being performed (which is a very cool thing). If you still need more information on the output you can use Appendix A of the updated XIV Host Attachment Kit Users Guide, which you can get from here. The guide has some very useful information on best practices and VMware setup and is really mandatory reading for people using XIV.

To be clear the new verbose parameter only works with HAK version 1.7.1, which you can download from here. Other notable changes in version 1.7.1 are over 40 bug fixes and over 20 improvements, including support for RHEL 5.7, 6.1, and 6.2 (but please check the SSIC to confirm support).

As I previously blogged, the XIV Host Attachment Kit now comes in a portable version. This means you can run the HAK commands without having to first install any software or make any changes on your server. When you download the HAK you get both the portable and full installer versions.

In other news the XIV Host Software team now have their own blog! Check it out here and add it to your RSS list.

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About Anthony Vandewerdt

I work for IBM Australia as a Storage Solutions Specialist. My goal is to share my knowledge and experience of using IBM Storage solutions and learn more along the way. You can also find me on IBM developerWorks. Please understand that the postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions. Constructive and useful comments are very very welcome.

View all posts by Anthony Vandewerdt →

Storwize V7000 Disk Choices

AussieStorBlog — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 22:11:00 GMT

With the announcement of 900GB 10K RPM drives for the Storwize V7000, the range of possible drives you can order is now even more outstanding.

In the 2.5″ form factor IBM has the following 10K RPM drives:

Feature 3203 300GB 2.5 inch. 10k SAS HDD
Feature 3204 450GB 2.5 inch. 10k SAS HDD
Feature 3206 600GB 2.5 inch. 10k SAS HDD
Feature 3509 900GB 2.5 inch. 10k SAS HDD  <-- NEW!

In the 2.5″ form factor IBM also has the following 15K RPM drives:

Feature 3251 146GB 2.5 inch. 15k SAS HDD
Feature 3253 300GB 2.5-inch. 15K SAS HDD

In the 2.5″ form factor IBM also has the following Solid State Drives:

Feature 3512 200GB 2.5-inch. SAS E-MLC SSD
Feature 3504 300GB 2.5 inch. SAS E-MLC SSD
Feature 3514 400GB 2.5-inch. SAS E-MLC SSD

In the 2.5″ form factor IBM also has the following 7.2K RPM nearline-SAS drive:

Feature 3271 1 TB 2.5-inch 7.2k Nearline-SAS HDD

In the 3.5″ form factor IBM also has the following 7.2K RPM nearline-SAS drives:

Feature 3302 2TB 3.5 inch. 7.2k Nearline-SAS HDD
Feature 3303 3TB 3.5 inch. 7.2k Nearline-SAS HDD

The big question of course is which drive type to choose? The answer is that ideally you should possess three pieces of information:

How much usable space do you need in GB or TiB? Don’t confuse binary and decimal!
What is your typical I/O profile. For instance 70% reads 30% writes, 32KB block size.
What are your IOPS and response time requirements?

Armed with this information, get your IBM Sales Rep or Business Partner to model your requirements using Capacity Magic and Disk Magic. These modelling tools will tell you how much usable capacity a particular configuration will give you and what performance you can expect to get from it (given a particular I/O profile). If you don’t know your I/O profile or IOPS requirements, you can still see performance modeling using industry standard benchmarks.

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