IBM Systems and Technology

Efficient storage solutions for

your dynamic infrastructure
The IBM System Storage N series is proven, adept and feature rich
2 Efficient storage solutions for your dynamic infrastructure
Highlights
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Store more data in less disk space using data deduplication
and thin provisioning
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Provide high availability to meet service level agreements
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Serve a range of needs, from small workgroups to enterprise
data centers
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Help achieve savings in power, cooling and data center real
estate costs
In today’s rapidly changing business climate, your enterprise
demands cost effective, flexible data storage solutions that can
handle the unpredictable and explosive growth of storage in your
heterogeneous environment. You need efficient data manage-
ment that can grow with you—and help your data work for
you. You need storage that’s flexible enough to adapt to and
protect your diverse business environment. That enables you to
effectively manage your resources. That’s simple to administer.
And that’s affordable.
Manage growth with robust
expandability
Successfully deployed in tens of thousands of business-critical
environments, IBM System Storage® N series is a proven
solution that can help you manage data in your enterprise
environment. With its expandable and flexible Data ONTAP
operating system, System Storage N series provides:
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More efficient use of your storage resources
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High system availability to meet internal/external service
level agreements
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Reduced storage management complexity and associated
storage IT costs
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A single, flexible platform that can simultaneously support
network attached storage (NAS), iSmall Computer System
Interface (iSCSI) and Fibre Channel storage area network
(SAN) deployment
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Integrated application manageability for SAP, Microsoft
Exchange, Microsoft SharePoint, Oracle and other
business-critical applications
Flexibly manage storage across the
enterprise
The innovative Data ONTAP architecture is designed to
serve a range of needs, from small workgroups to enterprise
data centers. By pooling storage resources with breakthrough
thin provisioning technology, it can store and serve applications,
consolidate data and support reliable data access throughout
the enterprise to deliver expandable performance and support a
flexible storage environment. Designed for use in heterogeneous
host environments, Data ONTAP provides both a foundation
for building your storage infrastructure and the ability to make
changes quickly for superior storage utilization.
Reduce costs and buy less storage
With System Storage N series you can store more data in less
disk space—because data deduplication and thin provisioning are
integrated into Data ONTAP. And you can keep your hardware
investment to a minimum, using built-in FlexVol technology
that ensures you can use your storage systems to maximum
efficiency. With the ability of System Storage N series to reduce
amounts of physical storage, you also can achieve significant
savings in power, cooling and data center real estate costs.
Protect your existing storage investment
By consolidating your existing third-party storage systems
behind one System Storage N series Gateway for SAN Storage
environments, you also can take advantage of efficiency
features as you repurpose your legacy storage platforms.
A network-based multiprotocol storage solution designed to
provide Internet Protocol (IP) and Fibre Channel Protocol
access to SAN-attached heterogeneous storage arrays, this
solution supports a broad range of storage arrays including
IBM TotalStorage Enterprise Storage Server, IBM XIV®
Storage System, IBM System Storage DS4000® series and
a range of third-party systems.

Ensure business continuance and
compliance
Disruption to information access is simply not an option in
today’s demanding business environments. Neither is non-
compliance with records retention regulations. So to ensure
continuance and compliance, System Storage N series offers
innovative, disaster-tolerant data protection and recovery
software technologies such as SnapLock, SnapVault and
SnapMirror. Corporate IT departments around the globe rely
on the proven SnapMirror disaster recovery solution to ensure
business continuance.
Manage your storage with ease and
efficiency
Using IBM Tivoli® Security Operations Manager and System
Manager software, you can centrally manage and configure
multiple System Storage N series systems throughout your
enterprise. Wizards make it easy, guiding you through the
most common management and configuration tasks.
Embrace a comprehensive, integrated
storage approach
System Storage N series and System Storage N series Gateways
are proven solutions for today’s data center storage needs. To
put these comprehensive, innovative infrastructure solutions
to work in your environment, IBM offers a broad portfolio
of technology services designed to improve alignment of IT
assets and resources with your current and future business goals.
End-to-end IBM services address optimization of storage and
server infrastructure as well as optimization for desktop and vir-
tualized infrastructures. With IBM assessment, planning, design,
implementation and management services, you can anticipate
benefits such as reduced IT complexity, controlled costs and
efficient storage, server and desktop environments.
IBM Systems and Technology 3
IBM Global Technology Services can give you valuable insights
into how you are utilizing existing storage assets, with recom-
mendations on how and where to institute best practices
across your enterprise. Combining IBM storage technologies
helps maximize the availability, value and protection of your
information by reducing business risks through secure, efficient
and optimized information infrastructure management.
Store your data more efficiently
Take full advantage of the storage efficiency features of the
System Storage N series to lower your storage costs—without
compromising performance or availability. With System Storage
N series Gateways, you can repurpose existing third-party stor-
age and fully utilize N series storage features. IBM lab testing
and customer feedback demonstrate significant capacity savings
from a range of System Storage N series features, including:
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SATA: High-capacity Serial Advanced Technology
Attachment (SATA) drives increase the amount of data you
can store; the flash cache adds increased performance.
RAID-DP: Get protection against double-disk failure without
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sacrificing performance or adding disk mirroring overhead.
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Snapshot: Instant, point-in-time data copies require minimal
storage space.
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Thin provisioning: A common pool of storage readily
available to all applications means disk space is used more
completely and efficiently.
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Deduplication: The identification, validation and removal of
redundant data blocks from volumes spreads capacity savings
across applications and protocols.
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Thin replication: Block-level, incremental data replication
greatly increases storage efficiency.
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Virtual cloning: On-demand, space-efficient virtual clones of
volumes and individual files deliver capacity savings when you
need it.
4 Efficient storage solutions for your dynamic infrastructure

System Storage N series includes key functions and software technologies

Software/function Capability Benefit

Storage Deduplication General-purpose function for removing redundant Reduces the amount of storage you need to
efficiency data objects purchase and maintain
FlexClone Software instantaneously creates file, logical unit Saves you time in testing and development and
number (LUN) and volume clones without requiring increases your storage capacity
additional storage
FlexVol Software creates flexibly sized LUNs and volumes Ensures that your storage systems are used at
across a large pool of disks and one or more RAID maximum efficiency and reduces your hardware
groups investment
Data compression Software encodes information Helps to store more data in less space, reducing
the amount of storage that must be purchased
and maintained. Reduces the time and bandwidth
required to replicate data during volume
SnapMirror transfers
System Operations Manager Software manages multiple IBM systems from a Simplifies your IBM deployment and allows you to
manageability single administrative console consolidate management of multiple IBM systems
Protection Manager Backup and replication management software for Automates data protection to support mistake-free
IBM disk-to-disk environments backup
System Manager Software provides setup, provisioning and Simplifies out-of-box setup and device manage-
configuration management of a Data ONTAP ment using an intuitive Microsoft Windows-based
storage system interface
System security Storage encryption Function prevents unauthorized access to data Provides support for self-encrypting disk (SED)
storage drives in System Storage N series disk shelf
storage and integration with license key managers,
including IBM Tivoli License Key Manager
Backup and Snapshot Software makes incremental, data-in-place, Enables you to create frequent, space-efficient
recovery point-in-time copies of a LUN or volume with backups with no disruption to data traffic
minimal performance impact
SnapRestore Software rapidly restores single files, directories or Instantaneously recovers files, databases and
entire LUNs and volumes from any Snapshot complete volumes from backup
backup
SnapVault Software exports Snapshot copies to another Provides cost-effective, long-term backups of
IBM system, providing an incremental block-level disk-based data
backup solution
SnapLock Software write protects structured application data Supports compliance with records retention
files within a volume to provide write-once-read- regulations
many (WORM) disk storage
SnapMirror Software enables automatic, incremental data Provides flexibility and efficiency when mirroring
replication between synchronous or asynchronous for data distribution and disaster recovery
systems
SyncMirror Software maintains two online copies of data with Protects system from hardware outages, including
RAID-DP protection on each side of the mirror triple disk failure
 IBM Systems and Technology 5

IBM System Storage N series efficiency features

Data warehouse Microsoft Exchange server Oracle server Virtual machines Application servers Files

CIFS CIFS
NFS NFS
iSCSI iSCSI
FCoE GbE FCoE
SAN SAN GbE

FC FC

D D D D P P D D D D P P
Free Space Free Space
Pool Pool
RAID-DP RAID-DP
App C App C
App B App B
App A App A

Thin provisioning SnapMirror Thin provisioning

Thin
Deduplication replication Deduplication
SATA Drives SATA Drives
with PAM with PAM
Vol Vol
File File

Virtual cloning Virtual cloning

Snapshot Snapshot

IBM System Storage N series unified storage system IBM System Storage N series unified storage system
SnapVault

IBM N series IBM N series

Gateways Gateways
Free Space
Pool

App C
App B
SAN App A
SAN
Snapshot Thin provisioning

Vol
File

Deduplication Virtual cloning

Third-party storage Third-party storage
For more information
To learn more about IBM System Storage N series, contact
your IBM representative or IBM Business Partner, or visit:
ibm.com/storage/nas
To learn more about IBM Global Technology Services, visit:
ibm.com/services
IBM Global Financing can help you acquire the IT solutions
that your business needs in the most cost-effective and strategic
way possible. We’ll partner with credit-qualified clients to
customize an IT financing solution to suit your business goals,
enable effective cash management, and improve your total cost
of ownership. For more information, visit: ibm.com/financing
© Copyright IBM Corporation 2012
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Produced in the United States of America
April 2012
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This document is current as of the initial date of publication and may be
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“AS IS” WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY, EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED, INCLUDING WITHOUT ANY WARRANTIES
OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR
PURPOSE AND ANY WARRANTY OR CONDITION OF
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Actual available storage capacity may be reported for both uncompressed
and compressed data and will vary and may be less than stated.
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