System overview

IBM® IBM Elastic Storage System 3000 is an all-Flash array platform. This storage platform uses NVMe-attached drives in IBM Storage Scale System 3000 to provide significant performance improvements as compared to SAS-attached flash drives.

IBM Elastic Storage System 3000 can contain up to 24 NVMe-attached SSD drives, 12 drives (half populated) or 24 drives (fully populated). The drives are accessible from the front of IBM Storage Scale System 3000, as shown in Figure 1.

Note: The minimum number of drives is 12. In a 12-drive configuration, drives must be plugged into slots 1 - 6 and then 13 - 18.

Figure 1. Front view of IBM Storage Scale System 3000

Each IBM Elastic Storage System 3000 contains two identical I/O server canisters. As Figure 2 shows, the top I/O server canister is inverted above the bottom one; each server canister is connected to power supply units mounted on either side of the canister.

Figure 2. Rear view of IBM Storage Scale System 3000

Table 1. Overview of IBM Elastic Storage System 3000 systems
Product	Cores per CPU	Number of DIMMs per server canister	Total memory per server canister	Total memory per IBM Storage Scale System 3000	Specific features	Warranty
IBM Elastic Storage System 3000	14	12 or 24 (32 GB DIMM only)	384 GB or 768 GB	768 GB or 1536 GB	Dual 14-core Intel Skylake 64-bit CPUs at 2.2 GHz per each of the two server canisters Dual SSD boot drives	Service offerings
IBM Elastic Storage System 3000	14	12 or 24 (32 GB DIMM only)	384 GB or 768 GB	768 GB or 1536 GB		1 year plus 2 years extended support (total of 3 years) Installed by IBM SSRs Enterprise Class Support

The major characteristics of the ESS system are as follows:

IBM Spectrum® Scale software with enclosure-based, all-inclusive software feature licensing
NVMe transport protocol for high performance of 2.5-inch (SFF) NVMe-attached flash drives:
- Support for industry-standard 2.5-inch NVMe-attached SSD drive options with the following storage capacities: 1.92 TB, 3.84 TB, 7.68 TB, and 15.36 TB.
Onboard ports:
- Four 1 GbE/10 GbE Ethernet ports:
  - First port is reserved for system management
  - The other three ports are not used
- Two USB ports (disabled by software)
- One 1 Gb Ethernet SSR access port
Three PCIe HBA slots are available that support the following adapter options:
- EC64: PCIe4 x16 2-Port EDR 100GB InfiniBand adapter
- EC67: PCIe4 x16 2-Port 100GbE RoCE adapter
- AJP1: PCIe4 LP 2-Port VPI 100Gb IB-EDR/Ethernet adapter

Networking details

The networking details of IBM Storage Scale System 3000 are shown in the following figure:

IBM Storage Scale System 3000 networking — Figure 3. IBM Storage Scale System 3000 Networking

Figure 4. IBM Storage Scale System 3000 Sharing Existing Networks

Figure 5 shows the ESS 5000 network topology of a mixed ESS 5000 cluster, which contains IBM Storage Scale System 3000 and IBM POWER9 servers.

Note: IBM Storage Scale System 3000 is supported on a POWER8 EMS also. The Figure 5 does not show optional protocol nodes.

NVMe transport protocol in IBM Elastic Storage System 3000

The IBM Elastic Storage System 3000 systems uses the Non-Volatile Memory express (NVMe) drive transport protocol.

NVMe is designed specifically for flash technologies. It is a faster, less complicated storage drive transport protocol than SAS.
The NVMe-attached drives support multiple queues so that each CPU core can communicate directly with the drive. This avoids the latency and overhead of core-to-core communication, to give the best performance.
NVMe offers better performance and lower latencies exclusively for solid-state drives through multiple I/O queues and other enhancements.
High performance IBM Spectrum Scale RAID supports the following RAID code options: 3WayReplication, 4WayReplication, 8+2p, and 8+3p.
The NVMe transport protocol supports industry standard NVMe flash drives.

Enterprise level software and support

IBM Storage Scale System 3000 consists of two I/O server canisters that run the IBM Spectrum Scale software, which is a part of the IBM Spectrum Storage family. For more information on the IBM Spectrum Scale capabilities, see IBM Spectrum Scale documentation.

Enterprise level software and support is available based on the IBM Spectrum Scale software stack.

System hardware

An IBM Storage Scale System 3000 enclosure contains NVMe flash drives and a pair of server canisters.

System topology

Figure 6 shows hardware high-level architecture and topology.

EMS node

An EMS node is a management server that is required for each ESS system of one or more building blocks.

You need an EMS node as a part of your ESS system. The EMS node is ordered with the initial building block although you can use an existing customer system. The additional building blocks that are added to an existing building block do not require an additional EMS node. A single EMS node can support multiple building blocks in the same IBM IBM Storage Scale System 3000 cluster.

You need a minimum of one EMS node (5148-21L) as a part of your ESS cluster. The EMS node can be ordered as a part of IBM Storage Scale System 3000. When IBM Storage Scale System 3000 is added to an existing ESS cluster that has a 5148-21L EMS node, the same EMS node can also be used to manage IBM Storage Scale System 3000. In such a configuration, the existing POWER8 EMS node must be upgraded to ESS 5.3.5 or later versions before an IBM Storage Scale System 3000 building block can be added. For a new IBM Storage Scale System 3000 customer, the POWER8 EMS node is shipped with an already installed ESS 5.3.6. An EMS node can manage many ESS building blocks that are part of the same ESS cluster.

Start of change IBM Storage Scale System 3000 is also supported on the POWER9 EMS (5105-22E). If a customer is new to ESS they will receive an POWER9 EMS with one or more IBM Storage Scale System 3000 nodes. If shipped with aN POWER9 EMS, the minimum code level on the IBM Storage Scale System 3000 canisters is ESS 6.0.1. End of change

Start of change For more information on the POWER8 EMS node, see Model 5148-21L and 5148-22L server specifications. End of change

Start of change For more information on the POWER9 EMS node, see Model 5105-22E server specifications. End of change

The EMS node also serves as a third GPFS quorum node in a configuration with one building block.

System management

An EMS node in an IBM Storage Scale System 3000 cluster provides system management functions. IBM Storage Scale System 3000 GUI runs on the EMS nodes and provides management and health monitoring capabilities. The EMS node also runs a container with Ansible® playbook that can provide orchestration of complex tasks, such as cluster configuration, file system creation, and code update. Figure 7 shows high-level view of system management topology.