1. 1 © 2013 IBM Corporation
IBM System Storage and Networking
Flash Ahead:
IBM FlashSystem Overview
Dr John Brooker, Technical Specialist
IBM Flash Optimised Storage Solutions

2. © 2013 IBM Corporation2
Low Latency
Reasonable Cost
Non-volatile
Lowest Latency
Very Expensive
Highest Latency
Lowest Cost
Fair Latency
Highest Cost HDD
The Latency World
ns
ms
>ms
us
Volatile
Non-volatile
Hybrid Array
Server-Side Flash /
HW-Based Flash Array
SW-Based Flash Array
DRAM
FLASH
High-Performance Disk
(FC)
High-Capacity Disk (SAS)

3. © 2013 IBM Corporation3
Race to Zero Latency
Tape Drives
Hard Drive Disks
Solid State Disk
All Flash Storage
Seconds
5-15 milliseconds
~1 milliseconds
100 microseconds
With each new gen. of storage, comes performance gains in order of magnitude

4. © 2013 IBM Corporation4
IBM Flash Portfolio
• Shipped over 72 Petabytes of
Flash storage in 2012
• Broad array of products to fit a
wide variety of client needs
• Varying capacity and
performance to match client
workloads
• Several form factors to fit into
varying needs of datacenter real
estate
IBM FlashSystem
EXP30 Ultra SSD Drawer eXFlash IBM High IOPS Adapters
Storwize V7000
DS5000
DS8000
XIV
IBM Delivers Flash-Based Products in all Segments

5. 5 © 2013 IBM Corporation
IBM FlashSystem Family

6. © 2013 IBM Corporation6
FlashSystem Core Performance Concepts
• FlashSystem provide a hardware-only data path
− Custom FPGA-based data movement
decreases latency vs. software
• Lower latency on standard SAN interfaces vs.
competitors
• Comparable latency on SAN compared to DAS
(PCIe)
− All the benefits of shared storage with no
latency impact
• Distributed out-of-data-path CPU processing
RAID
Controllers
IO
Modules
Flash
Modules
12x

7. © 2013 IBM Corporation7
Flash Types
§ Flash type matters
§ P/E cycles vary (Program/Erase)
§ MLC/cMLC: Multilevel cell
– traditionally consumer-grade
§ eMLC: Enterprise-grade version MLC
– 10x improvement over MLC
§ SLC: Single-level cell
– 33x improvement over MLC
§ eMLC will handle most enterprise applications
workload requirements
§ Technology like and
two-dimensional RAID, wear leveling, and
over-provisioning by
improving endurance of both eMLC and SLC
Meets
IBM FlashSystem
requirements

8. © 2013 IBM Corporation8
IBM FlashSystem At a Glance
SLC Flash eMLC Flash
Model 710 720 810 820
Capacity 1-5 TB 5 or 10 TB 2-10 TB 10 or 20 TB
Latency (R/W) 100/60 µs 100/25 µs 110/60 µs 110/25 µs
IOPS 570K 525K 550K 525K
Bandwidth 5GB/s 5GB/s 5GB/s 5GB/s
Interfaces 4x 8Gb FC or 4x 40Gb IB 4x 8Gb FC or 4x 40Gb IB
Data Protection VSR™
2D Flash RAID™
(inc. VSR™)
VSR™
2D Flash RAID™
(inc. VSR™)
All units 1U form factor, less than 350 Watts

9. © 2013 IBM Corporation9
IBM FlashSystem 720 / FlashSystem 820
High performance, low latency, high reliability solution to turbocharge your business
Designed for running multitenant heterogeneous (mixed workload)
applications that require built-in high availability features…
• Transactional (OLTP) databases
• Analytical (OLAP) databases
• Virtualization & virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI)
• High performance computing (HPC)
• Cloud infrastructure, private and public
• SLC (720) or eMLC (820)
• 5,10, 20 TB w/ High Availability
(6,12, 24 TB non HA)
• Up to 525K IOPS
• Up to 5GB/s Bandwidth
• Variable Stripe RAID™ to protect
against chip failure
• Redundancy for power, data, and
management
• 2D Flash RAID eliminates single
point of failures
• Available integrated spare flash
card limiting down time
• Error Correcting Code
(ECC) at chip level
• 1U form factor- minimal footprint
for best of breed ROI
• Two dual-port 8 Gb Fibre
Channel controllers or dual-port
40Gb QDR InfiniBand controllers
• Hot swappable flash modules
• Low power 350 watts (720) / 300
watts (820)
• Low Latency 100/25 µs (720)
110/25 µs (820) Read/Write
• Purpose-built, highly parallel
design
• Maximize host CPU efficiency
and productivity
Extreme Performance Macro EfficiencyMicroLatency™ Enterprise Reliability

10. © 2013 IBM Corporation10
IBM FlashSystem 720 / FlashSystem 820 Architecture
Redundant Power
Supplies
Redundant Fans
12 Flash Modules
(10+1+1)
1U Chassis
N+1 batteries
Redundant
Management
Control
Processors
Redundant
RAID controllers
Two Dual-Ported 8 Gb/s FC or
40 Gb/s QDR IB Interfaces

11. © 2013 IBM Corporation11
IBM FlashSystem 710 / FlashSystem 810
Speed up critical applications and make decisions faster
• SLC (710) or eMLC (810)
• 1-5 TB or 2-10 TB
• Up to 570K (710) / 550K (810)
IOPS
• Up to 5GB/s Bandwidth
• Variable Stripe RAID™ to protect
against chip failure
• Redundant power supplies with
active failover protection against
single-source power issues
• Error Correcting Code (ECC) at
chip level
• Optional integrated spare flash
card
• 1U form factor- minimal footprint
for best of breed ROI
• Two dual-port 8 Gb Fibre
Channel controllers or dual-port
40Gb QDR InfiniBand controllers
• Flash modules hot-swappable with
spare flash card
• Low power 280 watts (710) / 350
watts (810)
Accelerate read-heavy enterprise storage area network (SAN)
applications…
• Data warehouses and online analytical processing (OLAP) databases
• Sequential data collection
• Large centralized databases
• Content delivery networks
• Rendering and video editing
• Modeling and simulation
• Low latency 100/60 µs (710) and
110/60 µs (810) Read/Write
• Purpose-built, highly parallel
design
• Maximize host CPU efficiency
and productivity
Extreme Performance Macro EfficiencyMicroLatency™ Enterprise Reliability

12. © 2013 IBM Corporation12
IBM FlashSystem 710 / FlashSystem 810 Architecture
Redundant Power
Supplies
Redundant Fans
4-21 Flash Modules
(including optional spare) 1U Chassis
N+1 batteries
Management
Control Processor
Two Dual-Ported 8 Gb/s FC or
40 Gb/s QDR IB Interfaces

13. © 2013 IBM Corporation13
Flash Module Architecture
Expansion
Board
(op$onal)
Flash
Controller
2
per
Board
2
or
4
per
Module
Flash
Chips
20
per
Flash
Controller
40
per
Board
40
or
80
per
Module
data XOR parity
Distributed across ALL Chips
Primary
Board
Gateway
Interface
&
Control
PPC
Dual
ports
to
backplane

14. © 2013 IBM Corporation14
Layers of Data Protection
IBMFlashSystem710
IBMFlashSystem810
IBMFlashSystem720
IBMFlashSystem820
Layer Protection
System-level RAID 5
managed by centralized RAID controllers
Module Failure
Module-level Variable Stripe RAID™
managed by each module across its chips
Sub-chip, chip or multi-
chip failure
Chip-level ECC
managed by each module using its chips
Bit and block errors
2D Flash
RAID

15. © 2013 IBM Corporation15
Variable Stripe RAID™ (VSR)
• Patented Variable Stripe RAID allows RAID stripe sizes to vary.
• If one die fails in a ten-chip stripe, only the failed die is bypassed, and then data
is restriped across the remaining nine chips. No system rebuild needed!
• VSR reduces maintenance intervals caused
by Flash failures
…
…
16
Planes
10 Chips
FAIL
Unique
Business
Benefit:
Fewer Flash
Module
Replacements
RAID
Group

16. © 2013 IBM Corporation16
Two-dimensional (2D) Flash RAID
• 2D Flash RAID: system-level RAID 5
protection layered on top of module-
level Variable Stripe RAID.
• Provides maximum data protection and
minimizes recovery times from flash
failures, without compromising system
performance or availability.
• Rebuilds only occur if entire flash
modules fail – Variable Stripe RAID
takes care of small flash failures.
• System-level RAID is implemented as
10+1 RAID 5 with 4K stripes, plus 1
module reserved as hot spare.
• System-level RAID is managed
through active-active backplane FPGA
controllers, not software.
RAID 5 across Flash Modules
(10 data + 1 parity + 1 hot spare)
External
Interfaces
(FC, IB)
RAID
Controllers
RAID 5 within
Flash Modules
(9 data + 1 parity)
IBM
2D Flash RAID
Unique Business
Benefit:
Maximize Data
Protection

17. © 2013 IBM Corporation17
IBM FlashSytem™ is a Highly Scalable Offering
Scale business performance
requirements with a 42U full
rack of IBM FlashSystem™.
Linearly scale 1PB worth of
capacity on top of a single
floor tile that delivers 22M
Extreme Performance IOPs
& IBM MicroLatency™ of 110
microseconds.
Transform the way that your
business performs with an IBM
FlashSystem™, the enterprise
class flash system that delivers
up to 525K of Extreme
Performance IOPs & backed by
IBM MicroLatency™

18. © 2013 IBM Corporation18
1 PB, 1 rack. What it means
• 1 Petabyte: 1 Floor Tile
• 100 microsecond latency
• 22 Million IOPS
• 210 GB/s
• 12.6 KW power
Less power than the
average 200TB array
22 Million IOPS Alternative
1 Rack

19. © 2013 IBM Corporation19
Oracle Acceleration with IBM FlashSystem™
Customer Challenge – Most Oracle applications are highly read-intensive.
As such, additional processing power alone does little or nothing to
improve performance. By placing all read data on low latency flash
storage, reads will be performed much faster, boosting Oracle
performance by up to 12x over conventional disk systems with no tuning
or changes to code or system architecture.
IBM FlashSystem shared flash storage systems will
• Decrease I/O wait time in mission critical Oracle workloads
• Deliver the lowest latency available on any SAN platform
• Accelerate commonly I/O-bound workloads, including
transactional, batch and complex analytics
Delivers Extreme Performance,
Macro Efficiency, and Enterprise
Reliability for

20. © 2013 IBM Corporation20
The Numbers Don’t Lie
on IBM Flash

21. © 2013 IBM Corporation21
Virtual Servers and VDI with IBM FlashSystem™
Customer Challenge - Virtualized servers and Virtual Desktop
Infrastructure (VDI) push conventional storage systems to their
performance limits. The result? Poor application response times and a
bad customer experience. Introducing an IBM FlashSystem into
virtualized environments will result in up to 16x faster response times for
the most common virtualized applications. Couple this performance to
the ‘log on’ or ‘boot’ storm and make system use productive again.
IBM FlashSystem shared flash storage systems will
• Eliminate I/O density and hot spot issues that are common to
highly virtualized environments
• Control and mitigate ‘log on’ or ‘boot’ storm performance issue
• Deliver storage consolidation without sacrificing performance,
thus driving a higher V:P ratios thus increasing server utilization
Delivers Extreme Performance,
Macro Efficiency, and Enterprise
Reliability for

22. © 2013 IBM Corporation22
SAP Acceleration with IBM FlashSystem™
Customer Challenge – The vast majority of the Worlds SAP
Databases consume less than 2TB of Storage. SAP is pushing
clients to accelerate performance by adopting the HANA in-memory
database architecture. This often leads to a significant re-
architecture of the entire SAP infrastructure, which drives high cost
and a risk of disruption in service delivery.
IBM FlashSystem shared flash storage systems will
• Eliminate I/O bottlenecks in mission critical SAP workloads
• Provide the lowest latency of any SAN-based storage solution
for time-sensitive workloads with IBM MicroLatency™
• Enable a small, cost-effective pool of flash storage to deliver
extreme performance improvements
• Support a phased approach to HANA adoption by delivering
consistently higher performance for SAP BW workloads with
no re-architecture required
Delivers Extreme Performance,
Macro Efficiency, and Enterprise
Reliability for
&