Hardware - IBM DS8880 Series Introduction And Planning Manual

The machine types for the DS8000 series specify the service warranty period. The
warranty is used for service entitlement checking when notifications for service are
called home. All DS8000 series models report 2107 as the machine type to attached
host systems.

Hardware

The architecture of the IBM DS8000 series is based on three major elements that
provide function specialization and three tiers of processing power.
Figure 1 illustrates the following elements:
v Host adapters manage external I/O interfaces that use Fibre Channel protocols
v Flash RAID adapters and device adapters manage the internal storage devices.
v A pair of high-performance redundant active-active Power servers is functionally
Figure 1. DS8000 series architecture
The DS8000 series architecture has the following major benefits.
v Server foundation
for host-system attachment and for replicating data between storage systems.
They also manage the SAS paths to drives, RAID protection, and drive sparing.
positioned between the adapters and a key feature of the architecture.
The internal Power servers support the bulk of the processing to be done in the
storage system. Each Power server has multiple processor cores. The cores are
managed as a symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) pool of shared processing
power to process the work that is done on the Power server. Each Power server
®
runs an AIX kernel that manages the processors, manages processor memory as
a data cache, and more. For more information, see IBM DS8000 Architecture and
Implementation on the IBM Redbooks website(www.redbooks.ibm.com/)
Adapter processors
Adaptor processors
Power server
Power server
Shared processors
Shared processors
cache
cache
Flash RAID adapters and device adapters
Flash RAID adapters and device adapters
Adapter processors
Adapter processors
– Promotes high availability and high performance by using field-proven Power
servers
HOST adapters
HOST adapters
Protocol management
Protocol management
Power server
Power server
Shared processors
Shared processors
cache
cache
RAID & sparing management
RAID & sparing management
5
Chapter 1. Overview