Systems Hardware
Data Sheet
IBM SAN Volume Controller
Simplify and enhance your infrastructure
with software-defined storage
Highlights Although most users (71%) regard storage as a strategic
asset that is critical to their core business, multi-vendor
• Simplify storage with storage deployments introduce complexity into the data
consistent capability and center.
management
• Complement on-premises As a result, storage cost, management and optimization of
storage of all types with data placement, and data migration are among the top five
hybrid multicloud concerns of storage users.1
• Use encryption to help
improve data security These concerns delay deployment of new storage
• Apply data reduction for technologies, limit flexibility, and increase costs.
efficiency and lower cost
• Move data among storage
systems without
disruptions
• Implement multi-site
configurations for high
availability and data
mobility
• Optimize tiered storage
effortlessly with IBM Easy
Tier
Systems Hardware
Data Sheet
The right software-defined storage is the answer. IBM SAN Volume Controller, built with IBM
Spectrum Virtualize software, simplifies infrastructure and eliminates differences in
management, function, and even hybrid multicloud support.
SVC introduces a common approach to storage management, function, replication, and hybrid
multicloud that is independent of storage type. It's the key to modernizing and revitalizing your
storage, but is as easy to understand as A, B, C ...
Agility: Move data without disruption among storage systems
Use different storage systems for different tiers of storage
Manage all your storage in a consistent way with common tools
Bridging: Bridge to new storage technologies or application areas such as containers
Ease adoption of new technology so you get benefit quickly
Easily add new storage systems and migrate data without disruption
Support containers and Red Hat OpenShift with the storage you already have
Cloud: Add hybrid cloud capability to your storage
Deploy a unified cloud capability across all storage types and different clouds
Enjoy hybrid multicloud that is simple, consistent, and comprehensive
Data Reduction: Store more data on the storage you already own
Support growing volumes of data
Avoid or delay new purchases, reducing capex needs
Encryption: Improve cyber resiliency by encrypting data at rest
Apply consistent encryption and key management across storage systems
Make cyber resiliency simpler and more dependable
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Data Sheet
In the era of hybrid multicloud, big data and analytics, and mobile and social computing,
organizations need to meet ever-changing demands for storage while also improving data
economics. IT must deliver more services faster and more efficiently, enable rapid insight and
support more customer interaction.
Building an effective infrastructure starts with software-defined storage, which frees data from
physical storage and provides better access to applications.
Built with IBM Spectrum Virtualize software—the software at the heart of IBM
FlashSystem family—IBM SAN Volume Controller (SVC) helps organizations achieve better data
economics by supporting these new workloads that are critical to their success. SVC systems
can handle the massive volumes of data from mobile and social applications, enable rapid and
flexible cloud services deployments and deliver the performance and scalability needed to gain
insights from the latest analytics technologies.
An industry-leading storage solution, SVC has been delivering availability, reliability, flexibility
and efficiency for more than 15 years. Its innovative capabilities, built with IBM Spectrum
Virtualize, also provide the foundation for the IBM FlashSystem and Storwize families, and
VersaStack integrated solutions. IBM has shipped more than 180,000 systems running IBM
Spectrum Virtualize. These dependable systems are delivering more than five nines of
availability while managing more than 11 exabytes of data.2
Enhancing storage function
SVC includes IBM Spectrum Virtualize technology to help insulate applications from physical
storage. This enables applications to run without disruption, even when changes are made to
the storage infrastructure.
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Data Sheet
IBM SAN Volume Controller Engines
SVC helps make new and existing storage more effective and includes many functions
traditionally deployed separately in storage systems. SVC standardizes functions across storage
systems for greater flexibility and lower costs.
IBM Spectrum Virtualize functions in SVC benefit all supported storage, more than 500 systems
from IBM and others. For example, Easy Tier and compression help improve performance and
increase effective capacity; encryption helps improve data security; and high-performance thin
provisioning helps automate provisioning. These benefits can help extend the useful life of
existing storage assets, helping to reduce costs. And since these functions are integrated into
SVC, they can operate smoothly together, reducing management effort.
Hybrid multicloud
The IBM Institute for Business Value (IBV) surveyed over 1,000 executives in 19 industries
headquartered in 20 countries to help quantify the rapid industry shift toward hybrid multicloud.
They found 85 percent of companies were already operating some workloads in a multicloud
environment in 2018 and that by 2021, that model of computing would be practically
ubiquitous.3
The challenge for these organizations is how to take advantage of hybrid cloud technology
without the expense of replacing current storage with cloud-capable storage systems or the
complexity of different cloud solutions from different storage vendors. IBM Spectrum Virtualize
in SVC and the cloud enables a common cloud solution for all supported storage regardless of
vendor. IBM Spectrum Virtualize for Public Cloud enables new use cases including cloud DR,
DevOps and analytics, cyber resiliency, and workload migration.
Systems Hardware
Data Sheet
Data reduction for enhanced efficiency
SVC can apply data reduction to new or existing storage to significantly increase usable capacity
while maintaining application performance. This can help eliminate or drastically reduce costs
for storage acquisition, rack space, power, and cooling, and can extend the useful life of existing
storage assets. SVC data reduction includes compression, deduplication, thin provisioning, and
SCSI unmap.
Improved application availability
Moving data is one of the most common causes of planned downtime. IBM Spectrum Virtualize
with SVC enables moving data from one storage system to another, or between arrays, while
maintaining access to the data. This function can be used when replacing older storage with
newer storage, as part of load-balancing work, or when moving data in a tiered storage
infrastructure from disk drives to flash.
Should an SVC engine fail, a new “hot spare” capability enables the system to rapidly switch to a
standby engine, restoring full redundancy and performance in seconds.
The IBM HyperSwap function supports storage and servers in two data centers. In this
configuration, the solution enables servers at both data centers to access data concurrently with
automated switch-over in case of failure. When combined with server data mobility functions
such as VMware vMotion or IBM PowerVM Live Partition Mobility, this configuration enables
nondisruptive storage and virtual machine mobility between the two data centers, which can be
up to 300 km (186 miles) apart.
Tiered storage
Automated storage tiering with Easy Tier can help improve performance at a lower cost by
enabling more efficient use of flash storage, storage-class memory (SCM) or multiple tiers of
disk drives. Easy Tier automatically identifies more active data and moves that data to flash.
Easy Tier can use any supported flash storage to benefit data on any other storage. This
approach delivers greater benefits from flash storage than tiering systems that are limited to
just a single storage system.
Flexible replication
With many conventional storage systems, replication operations are limited to in-box or like-
box-to-like-box circumstances. Functions from different vendors can operate in different ways,
which makes operations in mixed environments more complex and increases the cost of
changing storage types. But IBM Spectrum Virtualize software in SVC is designed to enable
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Data Sheet
administrators to apply a single set of advanced, network-based replication services that
operate in a consistent manner, regardless of the type of storage being used.
IBM Spectrum Protect Snapshot is designed to perform near-instant, application-aware
snapshot backups using SVC IBM FlashCopy local replication, but with minimal impact to IBM
Db2, Oracle, SAP, VMware, Microsoft SQL Server or Microsoft Exchange databases.
SVC also supports remote mirroring to enable organizations to create copies of data at remote
locations for disaster recovery. Replication can occur between any systems built with IBM
Spectrum Virtualize and can include any supported storage (including cloud with IBM Spectrum
Virtualize for Public Cloud software). Support for VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager helps
speed disaster recovery.
Simplified management
IBM Spectrum Virtualize software delivers a modern user interface for centralized management.
With this single interface, administrators can perform configuration, management and service
tasks in a consistent manner over multiple storage systems—even from different
vendors—vastly simplifying management and helping reduce the risk of errors. Plug-ins to
support Microsoft System Center Operations Manager, VMware vCenter, and Red Hat
Ansible help enable more efficient, consolidated management in these environments. The
interface is consistent with other members of the IBM Spectrum Storage family, to simplify
tasks for administrators and help reduce the risk of error.
Gain storage visibility, insight and control
As the resource on which your business depends, data is paramount. Your storage systems take
on even greater importance. IBM Storage Insights and IBM Storage Insights Pro provide critical
capabilities that enhance your experience throughout that data’s lifetime:
A single dashboard so you can see the status of all your IBM block storage at a glance
Trend information about capacity and performance so you can make better and more informed
decisions
Storage health information that helps you bring your configuration in line with best practices
When support is needed, the ability to easily open a ticket, upload log information, and view
open tickets
Detailed configuration data available to IBM specialists to help close tickets quickly
Delivered as a service from IBM Cloud at no charge, Storage Insights is quick and easy to set up
and requires no ongoing software maintenance. IBM Storage Insights Pro is an upgrade that
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Data Sheet
provides more detailed information and additional capabilities including support for cloud
storage managed by IBM Spectrum Virtualize for Public Cloud.
Complement server virtualization and containerization
IBM Spectrum Virtualize in SVC complements server virtualization with technologies such as
PowerVM, Microsoft Hyper-V, VMware vSphere, Kubernetes and CRI-O.
Similar to virtualized servers, provisioning with SVC is achieved with software and with thin
provisioning and is designed to become an almost entirely automated function. Without SVC,
server provisioning could be slowed by the need to provision storage.
Containerization is a key enabling technology for flexibly delivering workloads to private and
public cloud and DevOps. SVC enables any supported storage to be used as persistent storage in
container environments with support for the Container Storage Interface (CSI), improving
flexibility, simplifying deployment and helping to lower costs while offering clients the
confidence of deploying stateful containers using highly available storage with enterprise
capabilities.
Many organizations run mixed environments with a variety of virtualized and non-virtualized
servers and expect to do so for years to come. SVC offers an external storage solution to provide
consistent services for all attached servers, whether or not those servers are virtualized.
Scalability and performance
SVC is an integrated, modular highly scalable system. SVC engines are deployed in pairs for high
availability; a system contains one to four pairs. SVC systems can be upgraded without
disruption with more engines for greater performance. Two engine models are available to suit
differing price/performance needs. Available networking options include 32 Gbps fibre channel,
10 Gbps ethernet, and 25 Gbps ethernet. SVC supports iSCSI, fibre channel, FC-NVMe, iWARP,
and RoCE protocols.
Foundation for cloud deployments
Improving efficiency and delivering a flexible, responsive IT infrastructure are essential
requirements for any cloud deployment. Technologies for delivering this infrastructure include
virtualization, consolidation and automation.
With its robust storage capabilities, high-availability architecture and compatibility with
PowerVM, Hyper-V, VMware, OpenStack, Kubernetes and CRI-O, SVC complements virtualized
and containerized servers that are at the heart of cloud deployments.
Systems Hardware
Data Sheet
1
“ESG Master Survey Results: 2019 Data Storage Trends,” November
2019. [Link]
2
Based on IBM internal measurements – October 2019.
3
IBM Institute for Business Value, “Assembling your cloud orchestra – A field guide to multicloud management”, 2018.
Systems Hardware
Data Sheet
IBM SAN Volume Controller at a glance
Shared SMP processor configuration per Model SA2: Dual 8-core 2.1GHz Intel Xeon 4208 (Cascade
engine Lake) processors with 128-768GiB memory
Model SV2: Dual 16-core 2.3GHz Intel Xeon 5218 (Cascade
Lake) processors with 128-768GiB memory
Processor memory per engine 128 to 768 GiB
Host adapter interfaces per engine • Up to twelve 32-Gbps Fibre Channel ports (FC or FC-NVMe)
• Up to six 25-Gbps optical (SFP+) Ethernet ports for (iSCSI,
iWARP, RoCE)
• Four 10-Gbps copper (RJ45) Ethernet ports
Maximum storage capacity Up to 32 PB usable capacity
Storage and server attachment Fibre Channel, FC-NVMe, and iSCSI
Storage system support More than 500 flash, hybrid and disk storage systems from
IBM and other vendors
Systems Hardware
Data Sheet
Why IBM? For more information
IBM offers services to help speed To learn more about IBM SAN Volume
implementation and improve return on Controller, please contact your IBM
investment. IBM storage specialists are representative or IBM Business Partner, or
available to conduct storage solution and visit: [Link]/us-en/marketplace/san-
infrastructure reviews that can help prepare volume-controller
and speed installation. And IBM Global
Services can examine your infrastructure to For the complete and latest support
help determine sizing and performance information, visit:
needs. In addition, you can choose from a [Link]/storage/support/2145
range of service and subscription offerings
designed to keep your infrastructure up-to- Additionally, IBM Global Financing provides
date and running smoothly. numerous payment options to help you
acquire the technology you need to grow
your business. We provide full lifecycle
management of IT products and services,
from acquisition to disposition. For more
information, visit: [Link]/financing
Systems Hardware
Data Sheet
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