1. I don’t just want SAS drives, I also want SATA drives.  SATA drives are cheaper than SAS drives.
2. Nearline SAS drives are just SATA drives with some sort of converter on them.

So is this right?  Is this the actual situation?

First up, if your storage uses a SAS based controller with a SAS backplane, then normally you can plug SAS drives into that enclosure, or you can plug SATA drives into that enclosure.    This is great because when you plug SATA drives into a SAS backplane, you can actually send SCSI commands to the drive plus you can send native SATA commands t00 (which is  handy when you are writing software for RAID array drivers).

But (and this is a big but) what we do know is that equivalent (size and RPM) SAS drives perform better than SATA drives.  This is because:

• SAS is full-duplex, SATA is simplex.
• SAS uses the native SCSI command set which has more functionality (which leads to the next point).
• A SAS drive uses SCSI error checking and reporting which is much more robust than the SATA error reporting.  This allows your storage system to collect richer information from the drive if errors are occurring (such as a failing or marginal disk).
• SAS drives are dual ported which is vital in dual controller enclosures.

So given a choice (and a very small price differential), why choose SATA over SAS?  SAS is the clear winner.     What we should instead differentiate on is speed (7.2K RPM vs 10K RPM vs 15K RPM vs SSD) and size (2.5″ vs 3.5″ form factor).

Which leads us to Nearline SAS

It is a common belief, that if you buy a Nearline SAS  (or NL-SAS) drive it is really a SATA drive with a SAS connector (interposer) stuck on it.  But this is confusion from the past.

What led to the confusion?

Most midrange and enterprise storage controllers and enclosures up until recent years, used disks that had fibre channel interfaces on them.  We plugged those disks into fibre channel enclosures.  Examples include the DS4700 or the DS8100.  And yet these devices also offered SATA drives.  How did they do this?

They took a SATA drive and added a SATA to Fibre Channel converter card to the disk.   We call this extra piece of hardware an interposer or bridge card.  So people start assuming that this is common practice in every product.  In fact we are now seeing SAS drives being put into  fibre channel disk enclosures by using a SAS to fibre channel interposer.

There are in indeed older products that did take a SATA drive and add a SATA to SAS interposer to achieve a similar thing.   But that really is not necessary any more.  The reason?   The same hard drive can now be ordered from the factory as either a SAS drive or a SATA drive.

Lets look at an example.   If you head over to the Seagate website and look at one of their ranges of 3.5″ Enterprise Drives, you should hopefully make it to this URL:
http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/products/enterprise-hard-drives/constellation-es/constellation-es-1/

Seagate have a nice selector tool to let you see all their possible combinations. For instance you can order a  2 TB drive with a 6 Gbps SAS interface, which is a model ST32000444SS:

Or you can order a 2 TB drive with a 6 Gbps SATA interface, which is a model ST2000NM0011:

So what you get is very similar drive hardware (same spindles, heads, motors) but with different adapter hardware, built with the desired adapter at manufacture time. Meaning that if we install this drive into a SAS enclosure, there is no need to add an  interposer or bridge card to the drive after you bought it.

This leads to the next question:

OK.  So this is good, so Nearline SAS drives are MADE as SAS drives.  Does that mean a drive manufactured with a SAS adapter is a SAS drive or a Nearline SAS drive?

Now we are mixing up two different things.  SAS as a standard is a combination of a connection technology (the Serial Attached part) and a command set (the SCSI part). Actually SCSI as a standard also defines both connection methods and command sets.    So SAS is really talking about how we connect to the disk and what command set we use to control the disk.

Nearline on the other hand is a statement about the disks rotational speed and it’s mean time between failure (MBTF).   A Nearline-SAS drive is Nearline because:

• It rotates slower (7200 RPM)  than the higher specified Enterprise drives (that spin at 10 K or 15K RPM).   Because they are slower they can also hold way more data.
• It has a lower MBTF (1.2 million hours) than the higher specified Enterprise drives (which are normally specified at 1.6 million hours).

So we have now gone full circle.   A Nearline-SAS drive can use the same physical disk hardware as a SATA drive, but with a superior adapter that uses a superior command set, built onto the drive at manufacture time.

Still confused or want to read some more?  Check out these links:

http://storagebuddhist.wordpress.com/2011/07/01/nearline-sas-who-dares-wins/

http://www.seagate.com/docs/pdf/whitepaper/tp_sas_benefits_to_tier_2_storage.pdf

http://enterprise.media.seagate.com/2011/07/inside-it-storage/sas-mythbusters-data-highways-and-sas-vs-sata/

http://www.tomsitpro.com/articles/seagate-serial-attached-scsi-disk-drive-data-storage,2-119.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_attached_SCSI#Nearline_SAS

Maili is a beagle crossed with a fox terrier crossed with some sort of Rastafarian dog (don’t ask, we have no idea).

We like to keep her well groomed, so after a shave she looks more like this:

So it turns out Maili doesn’t like thunder storms:  she hides under the bed, she cowers, she becomes very clingy and won’t leave your side.  If you are sitting at a desk she will lie on your feet.

Recently this has gotten worse, so we took her to the vet, who prescribed Xanax, a drug that helps with anxiety.  We tried it once and it seemed to work, she was definitely calmer.

Last night in Melbourne we had a fairly violent thunder storm, so we immediately gave some Xanax to Maili to help calm her nerves.

The result was not what we expected (or had seen before):  Maili went nuts.

She ran around the garden barking crazy style, she tried to break into the kitchen cupboards and any bags left on the floor, she tore all the clothes off the clothes line and attacked an old bone she has ignored for months, growling and barking at it.    The thunder storm was no longer an issue for her!

This morning Maili has returned to normal (thankfully) but it certainly made for an eventful evening.   It was a great example of those potential side affects they list on the packet, but which you never quite think will happen.

Have a good weekend.

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 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:

1. Install the Veritas Storage Foundation package (if it is not already installed).
2. Restart the host.
3. Install the IBM XIV Host Attachment Kit (or run the portable version).
4. 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
.

1. It’s used to make installation very quick and easy (which it does very well!).
2. 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.

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.

Finally, the official announcement letters for version 11.1 and 10.2.4e of the XIV software (which enables all the new functions) are here and here.

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 to 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.  They just slide into the mounting kit on each Gen3 module, and are then brought on-line as a group.  No module replacements (or phasing in and out of modules) are necessary and no data needs to be redistributed at any point.  All of this will thus 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:

1. 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.
2. 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  (more correctly known as firmware version 11.1 as per here) 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.

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 4.6 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).

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?

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.

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