Storwize V7000 Unified overview
The IBM® Storwize® V7000 Unified system is a virtualizing RAID storage system that supports both block protocols and file protocols. This unified system includes the IBM Storwize V7000 File Module and the Storwize V7000 storage system.
Storwize V7000 Unified hardware
The file module is a volume storage system comprised of two units that provide file systems for use by network-attached storage. The file module uses the Storwize V7000 storage system to provide the file module with volumes. Other volumes, which are block volumes, are provided on the SAN to be presented to hosts.
Figure 1 shows how a Storwize V7000 Unified system can be configured.
1Two 1 Gbps Ethernet for 700 file modules and Six 1 Gbps Ethernet for 720 file modules.
Part number | Part name | CRU or FRU |
---|---|---|
64P8473 | 4-port 8 Gbps Fibre Channel host interface adapter | CRU |
00WY984 | 4-port 16Gbps Fibre Channel host interface adapter | CRU |
00RY007 | 2-port 16 Gbps Fibre Channel host interface adapter | CRU |
Communications type | File module to Storwize V7000 | Host to Storwize V7000 | Storwize V7000 to storage system | Storwize V7000 to Storwize V7000 |
---|---|---|---|---|
Fibre Channel Direct Attach | Yes | No | No | No |
Fibre Channel SAN | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
iSCSI (1 Gbps Ethernet or 10 Gbps Ethernet) | No | Yes | No | No |
Fibre Channel Over Ethernet SAN | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
The Storwize V7000 storage system consists of a drive enclosure called the control enclosure. Both regular and flash drives are supported. The control enclosure contains disk drives and two node canisters that are managed as a single volume storage system. Expansion enclosures contain drives and are attached to the control enclosure. Expansion canisters include the serial-attached SCSI (SAS) interface hardware that enables the node hardware to use the drives of the expansion enclosures.
Figure 2 shows the Storwize V7000 system as a traditional RAID storage system. The internal drives are configured into arrays, and volumes are created from those arrays.
The Storwize V7000 system can also be used to virtualize other storage systems as shown in Figure 3.
The two node canisters in each control enclosure are arranged into pairs known as I/O groups. A single pair is responsible for serving I/O on a given volume. Because a volume is served by two node canisters, there is no loss of availability if one node canister fails or is taken offline.
Storwize V7000 Unified software
- Common Internet File System (CIFS)
- Network File System (NFS)
- File Transfer Protocol (FTP)
- Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS)
- Secure Copy Protocol (SCP)
IBM Storwize V7000 Unified is built with IBM Spectrum Virtualize™ software, which is part of the IBM Spectrum Storage™ family.
Figure 4 shows an example of a management GUI view of the various components in a Storwize V7000 Unified system.
System management
The management node function within the file module presents a single point of control for system management and service. You use the command line interface (CLI) or the graphical user interface (GUI) for configuring, administering, and monitoring the system. The management node function also provides a CLI interface and web interface for performing hardware service actions.
Fabric types
I/O operations between hosts and Storwize V7000 nodes and between Storwize V7000 nodes and RAID storage systems are performed by using the SCSI standard. The Storwize V7000 nodes communicate with each other by using private SCSI commands.
FCoE connectivity is supported on Storwize V7000 Gen1 models 2076-312 and 2076-324, after the system software has been upgraded to version 6.4. A Storwize V7000 Gen2 model 2076-524 can have up to eight 10 Gbps Ethernet ports per control enclosure when two 4-port 10 GbE host interface adapters are installed.
Storwize V7000 uses the SCSI commands over the Fibre Channel SAN and either 1 Gbps Ethernet or 10 Gbps Ethernet. Table 2 shows the fabric type that can be used for communicating between hosts, nodes, and RAID storage systems. These fabric types can be used at the same time.