IBM XIV Storage System

Contents

History

The IBM XIV Storage system was developed at XIV, an Israeli company funded and headed by engineer and businessman Moshe Yanai. The first customer system was installed in early 2005[1]. IBM acquired XIV in December 2007.[2]

Overview

The IBM XIV Storage System is a high-end disk storage server designed to provide high performance, scalability, and availability in disk storage. The system is a collection of modules, each of which is an independent computer with its own memory, interconnections, disk drives, and other subcomponents, laid out in a grid and connected together in parallel using either InfiniBand (third generation systems) or Ethernet (second generation systems) connections. Each module has an x86 CPU and runs a software platform consisting largely of a modified Linux kernel and other open source software.

Traditional storage systems distribute a volume across a subset of disk drives in a clustered fashion. The XIV storage system distributes volumes across all modules in 1 MiB chunks (partitions) so that all of the modules' resources are used evenly. For robustness, each logical partition is stored in at least two copies on separate modules, so that if a part of a disk drive, an entire disk drive, or an entire module fails, the data is still available.

One can increase the system storage capacity by adding additional modules. When one adds a module, the system automatically redistributes previously stored data to make optimal use of its I/O capacity. Depending on the model and disk type chosen when the machine is ordered, one system can be configured for storage capacity from 27 TB to 243 TB.[3]

Features

The XIV has a significant list of software features that are all included in the base software. There are no special licenses needed to activate any of these features [4].

Management Software

The IBM XIV management GUI is a software package that can be installed on a variety of operating systems including Windows, Linux and Mac OS. It is designed for simple ease-of-use and can manage multiple XIVs. [5]

In addition to the management GUI there is an XIV Mobile Dashboard available for the Apple iPad through the Apple App Store via the following URL: IBM Mobile Dashboard

References

  1. ^ Aussie Storage Blog, July 12, 2011 "A Brief History of XIV" Retrieved December 21, 2011.
  2. ^ Sherman, Brian. "IBM XIV Storage System", 2009. Retrieved on 2011-09-18.
  3. ^ Official IBM Webpage "IBM XIV Product Specifications Page" Retrieved on 2011-12-21
  4. ^ Official IBM Webpage "IBM Announcement letter" Retrieved on 2011-12-21
  5. ^ Official IBM Webpage Official IBM Webpage. Retrieved on 2011-12-21.

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