When IBM launched their all new, virtualised storage “Storwize” portfolio a few years back it consisted of a single product - the V7000. Today this is still the top-of-range model but the portfolio has expanded to include a couple of other systems.
The second model launched was the V3700. Like all in the range, this system runs the same SVC software as its V7000 big brother and so benefits from the same highly-intuitive GUI and ease of management, but has less hardware grunt inside and so sacrifices scalability and a couple of features. Scalability on the V3700 is considerably reduced as it only supports half the internal storage per controller and controllers cannot be clustered. Additionally, external storage virtualisation is lost meaning that the V3700 cannot manage external storage systems as if they were its own storage.
This is where the V5000 comes in. It fills in the gap between the top-of-range V7000 and the baby V3700. Using more powerful processing power and cache in the controllers’ two nodes, more storage can be attached to the V5000 and two V5000s can be clustered together. More key, however, is that SVC style external storage virtualisation is supported meaning that, like the V7000, it can manage external storage. This brings one of the key benefits of the SVC and V7000 code to the market at an even lower price point.
The V5000 offers a range of connectivity options including 10Gb iSCSI, FCoE or 8Gb FCP connectivity. As illustrated above, the appropriate I/O daughter card is installed meaning that while the V5000 does not offer the connection versatility of its bigger brother (as the V7000 natively offers all these protocols simultaneously) it can be configured to be suitable for either type of deployment.
A couple of other features are amiss such as compression, and extra cost licences are required to activate some other features that are included in the V7000 base code, but the V5000 is still a very powerful storage system that delivers everything many SMBs require at a price point making the technology even more competitive and affordable for more businesses.
The table below summarises some of the difference between the products in the Storwize family:
Per system so clustered models offer multiple of this value
Should you require further information regarding the IBM Storwize V5000 or have any storage requirements please do not hesitate to contact your Celerity Representative.
Edward Yates - Technical Consultant - Celerity Limited
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