Enhanced I/O options for Power Systems

Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) or Fibre Channel over Converged Enhanced Ethernet (FCoCEE) is an emerging standard in the computer industry which is gaining a lot of momentum. It offers several important potential benefits.

• It can save PCI slots by allowing one PCI adapter to replace two adapters (one Ethernet + one Fibre Channel adapter). The FCoE adapter is therefore also called a Converged Network Adapter (CNA).
• The adapter savings benefit might then grow to saving I/O drawers if enough PCI adapter slots are saved.
• It can save rack space by using just one FCoE switch instead of separate switches from both Ethernet and Fibre Channel.
• In addition, if an I/O drawer is avoided can save additional rack space.
• It can simplify wiring by using Ethernet cabling instead of Ethernet plus Fibre Channel cabling
• It can offer additional flexibility over time by being able to more easily adjust its usage with the same hardware to changing client requirements
• Given a converged wiring and switching structure, it can offer operational savings since fewer unique networks have to be managed.

The feature #5708 10Gb FCoE PCIe Dual Port Adapter is announced for POWER6 520, 550, 560, 570, 575 and 595. The NIC (Network Interface Card) traffic functionality is supported by AIX, IBM i, Linux and VIOS. The Fibre Channel capability is supported by AIX, Linux and VIOS. NPIV functionality for the FC interface is not announced but there is a statement of direction for this NPIV and for IBM i support in 2010. FCoE capability is similarly announced for the Power Bladecenter using the #8275 10GbE FCoCEE expansion card.

#5708 has two 10 Gb ports. A port can run just NIC traffic, just FC traffic or a mixture of NIC and FC traffic. This gives the FCoE adapater great flexibility and very nice performance characteristics in a single PCIe adapter.

FCoE can be implemented along with existing FC and Ethernet infrastructures allowing a controlled, smooth transition. The cabling from a FCoE adapter in the server typically attaches to a FCoE switch and then a connection is made to device or another switch (FCoE, Ethernet or FC). The FCoE adapter in the server can attach directly to an Ethernet switch instead of a FCoE switch, but in this case FC usage is not supported. Note that most of today's FC attached tape drives/libraries or FC attached disk storage systems do not also have a FCoE interface today. Until the storage device offers a FCoE interface, the cabling will be Ethernet from the FCoE adapter in the server to a FCoE switch and then will be FC from the FCoE switch to either the device or to existing FC switches.

Both the #5708 PCIe adapter and the #8275 10GbE FCoCEE expansion card can use the two FCoE switches announced by IBM in July 2009, the IBM Converged Switch B32 (5758-B32) and the Cisco Nexus 5000 for IBM System Storage (3722-S51).

Solid State Drives (SSD) could already provide amazing levels of I/O performance compared to typical spinning disk drives. The overall performance of SSD plus their controller has been further enhanced with the addition of skip-ops support. Though application dependent, skip-read-write can provide up to a 40% boost in overall throughput for a controller and a set of SSD.

In addition, SSD configuration flexibility is improved by adding support for SSD in the 12X-attached PCIe I/O drawers (#5802 and #5803) announced in April 2009. In these I/O drawers small form factor SSD (#1890 and #1909) are controlled by a pair of PCIe 380MB Cache Adapters (#5903).

Three Small Form Factor (SFF) SAS disk drives in 139, 146, and 300GB capacities boosts the SFF server storage capacity on IBM Power 520, 550, 560, 570, 575, and 595 servers. The 139 GB (#1888) is a 15k rpm drive supported by IBM i. The 146 GB (#1886) is a 15k rpm drive and the 300 GB drive (#1885) is a 10k rpm drive supported by AIX and Linux. The new hot-swappable SAS drives are available on the POWER6 processor-based family of servers in the SFF drive bays. These drives double the previously available capacities of SFF drives available on Power.

A diskless 19-inch PCIe 12X I/O drawer (#5877) provides a better match for clients using a complete SAN storage strategy and implementing virtualization products such as virtual partition migration. The new drawer joins the recently announced 19-inch I/O drawer(#5802) on the Power 520, 550, 560, and 570. Like the #5802 I/O drawer, the new drawer has 10 PCIe slots but the #5877 has zero disk bays, offering a lower purchase price and lower maintenance price compared to the feature 5802 drawer with its 18 disk bays. Other than no disk bays, configuration considerations are basically the same between the two 19-inch 12X-attached, PCIe I/O drawers. This fulfills the statement of direction, issued in April 2009, when the #5802 was announced.

This enhancement makes the energy/space efficient SFF disk drives in the #5802/5803 12X-attached I/O drawers much more attractive to IBM i clients. i clients using internal disk drives generally find controllers with write cache to be very beneficial to performance. Prior to this announcement i cleints needed to use PCI-X adapters with cache for disk drives in I/O drawers. Expanding PCIe options also means that a larger portion of newer technology PCIe I/O drawers can be used versus earlier technology PCI-X I/O drawers.

IBM i 6.1 with 6.1.1 machine code or later supports the PCIe 380 MB Cache SAS RAID Adapter (#5903), fulfilling another statement of direction announced April 2009. A pair of #5903 adapters are always configured together to provide redundancy of both controller and write cache (dual adapter support). This feature is supported on POWER6 processor-based servers. The #5903 was already supported by AIX and Linux.

The most powerful disk drive and solid state drive (SSD) controller available today from IBM Power Systems is the PCI-X DDR 1.5GB Cache SAS RAID Adapter. Its functionality is enhanced in October by providing dual controller support for AIX, IBM i and Linux. Prior to this announcement, pairs of this adapter could be used to provide the highest level of adapter redundancy, but then each adapter's disk drives or SSD had to also be mirrored. There were thus two sets of drives, each handled by their own adapter. With this enhancement, clients can choose to have one set of disk drives controlled jointly by the two controllers thus expanding the available protection options with two controllers to include RAID5 and RAID6. For some environments, this will be a lower cost configuration using a smaller number of drives.

AIX 5.3 or later, IBM i 6.1 with 6.1.1 machine code or later, and Linux RHEL4.8 or SLES10 or laterr is required. The PCI-X DDR 1.5GB Cache SAS RAID Adapter uses feature codes #5904 (no blind swap cassette), #5906 (with blind swap cassette Gen-2), and #5908(blind swap cassette type Gen-3. Paired controllers may reside in different I/O drawers for increased availability. For IBM i, the paired adapters must be used in a single-system configuration and the non-paired indicator is not used.

This entry tape alternative can lower total cost, improve performance, and improve reliability. This AIX option uses a USB attached docking station and uses ruggedized disk drives in a cartridge to provide a great alternative to DAT72, DAT160, VXA-2, VXA-320, and 8mm tape single drives and tape cartridges. The cost of the docking station is extremely affordable. The Removable Disk Drive cartridges has a higher price than tape cartridges, but can be used many, many more times. And when combined with its ruggedness, no need for cleaning tapes, reduced air movement needed, and other operational savings; the overall cost can be very attractive.

Clients wishing to do data logging will be especially interested. Data logging applications want to log each transaction not only into their data base, but for resiliency of the data and a short recovery point; they also want to write out the transaction immediately to tape to enhance its portability in case of a problem. But this short, frequent start/stop workload is very hard on the tape drive and the tape cartridge media causing shorter media life and increasing the repair actions on the drive over time. But this workload can be a great fit for the removable disk drive.

This isn't a device for everyone as larger capacity / faster tape drives or tape drives with auto loaders or in tape libraries remain strong requirements for many larger clients. The USB Removable Disk Drive is positioned as an entry tape drive alternative.

The USB docking station is available on the Power 520/550 as an internal USB docking station (#1103) and located in the half-high media bay in the system unit. A functionally equivalent external USB docking station (#1104) is available for Power 520/550/560/570. These docking stations support rugged removable disk cartridges in 160 GB capacity (#1106) and 500 GB capacity (#1107).