IBM FlashSystem 7200
End to end NVMe-accelerated, multicloud enabled midrange enterprise flash arrays

Features:

Cyber resiliency

As systems became linked with external networks, organizations adopted a “defense-in-depth” security mode so that if the perimeter was breached, there were additional layers of security to protect critical information.

IBM FlashSystem 7200 provides advanced capabilities that can help maximize data protection, security, and high availability to significantly reduce the risk of disruption and financial losses due to user errors, malicious destruction, or ransomware attacks.

In addition, physical isolation layers can be created by storing sensitive copies in immutable storage, cloud environments, or off-line write-once read many (WORM) tape devices to provide true “air-gap” protection.

IBM FlashSystem provides modern data protection to efficiently prevent, detect, and respond to cyberattacks.

Enhanced functionality

IBM FlashSystem 7200 uses IBM Spectrum Virtualize technology that provides a wide range of market-leading data services to help ensure that applications run without disruption, even when changes are made to the storage infrastructure.

IBM FlashSystem 7200 also extends data services to more than 500 heterogeneous storage systems. When virtualized, data in an external storage system becomes part of the IBM FlashSystem solution and can be managed in the same way as internal drives. External systems inherit all the IBM Spectrum Virtualize functional richness and ease-of-use features, including advanced replication, high-performance thin provisioning, encryption, compression, deduplication, and IBM Easy Tier that improve administrator productivity and boost storage utilization while also enhancing and extending the value of existing storage investments.

IBM FlashSystem 7200 can accelerate efficiency and business value. Non-disruptive data migration shortens time-to-value from weeks or months to days, minimizes downtime for migration, eliminates the cost of add-on migration tools, and helps eliminate penalties and additional maintenance charges for lease extensions. The result can be real cost savings to your business.

Hybrid multicloud

The challenge for organizations these days is how to take advantage of hybrid cloud technology without the expense of replacing current storage with cloud-capable storage systems. IBM Spectrum Virtualize in IBM FlashSystem 7200 enables the use of cloud storage for disaster recovery, dramatically speeds deployment of hybrid cloud configurations, and helps slash storage costs. IBM Spectrum Virtualize for Public Cloud enables new opportunities to migrate data between on-premises and public cloud storage. By leveraging IBM Spectrum Copy Data Management software, cloud storage may be used for data copies as well.

Data reduction for enhanced efficiency

As well as inline hardware compression with FCM, the FlashSystem 7200 offers data reduction pools (DRP). When applied to new or existing storage systems, clients can significantly increase usable capacity while maintaining consistent application performance. These data reduction technologies 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.

In addition to the FCM inline hardware compression, DRP further offers:

• Block deduplication that works across all the storage in a data reduction pool to minimize the number of identical blocks
• Compression technology that provides consistent performance across application workload patterns
• SCSI UNMAP support, that de-allocates physical storage when operating systems delete logical storage constructs such as files in a file system.

Tiered storage

Automated storage tiering with Easy Tier can help improve performance and lower costs by enabling the more efficient use of flash storage or multiple tiers of drives. Easy Tier automatically identifies more active data and moves that data to faster storage such as Storage Class Memory and FlashCore Modules. This helps organizations leverage flash storage for the data that can benefit the most. Easy Tier can use any supported flash storage to accelerate any other storage, including the new SCM drives. This approach delivers greater benefits from flash storage than tiering systems that are limited to just a single disk system.

Advanced replication

The IBM Spectrum Virtualize functionality in IBM FlashSystem 7200 is designed to enable administrators to apply across all systems under management a single set of advanced network-based replication services that operate in a consistent manner, regardless of the type of storage being used.

When used with other IBM FlashSystem 7200 arrays, volumes can be replicated across 3 sites, offering both high availability and data recovery using synchronous and asynchronous data communication.

IBM FlashCopy functionality is designed to create an almost-instant copy (or “snapshot”) of active data that can be used for backup purposes or for parallel processing activities. Up to 256 copies of data may be created.

IBM Spectrum Protect Snapshot is designed to perform near-instant application-aware snapshot backups using FlashCopy local replication, but with minimal impact to IBM DB2, Oracle, SAP, VMware, Microsoft SQL Server, or Microsoft Exchange databases.

IBM FlashSystem 7200 also supports remote mirroring, enabling 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 involve any supported storage, including cloud. Support for VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager helps speed disaster recovery.

For IP replication, IBM Spectrum Virtualize uses innovative Bridgeworks WANrockIT technology to optimize the use of network bandwidth and can compress data being transmitted to help reduce networking costs and improve remote replica currency.

High availability

Moving data is one of the most common causes of planned downtime. The IBM Spectrum Virtualize technology within IBM FlashSystem 7200 enables data movement 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.

The IBM HyperSwap function supports storage and servers in three data centers. In this configuration, IBM FlashSystem solutions enable servers at each data center 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, HyperSwap technology enables non-disruptive storage and virtual machine mobility between data centers that can be up to 300 km (186 miles) apart.

Simplified management

IBM FlashSystem 7200 with IBM Spectrum Virtualize is designed to simplify hybrid multicloud storage environments from the very start. The systems utilize 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 and VMware vCenter 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.

AI-powered storage visibility, insight, and control

IBM Storage Insights and Storage Insights Pro provide critical system analysis and optimization capabilities that enhance your IBM FlashSystem experience, such as:

• A single dashboard so you can see the status of all your block storage at a glance
• System information gathered from approximately 23 million data points so you can make better, more informed decisions
• AI-enhanced analytics that leverage knowledge from over two exabytes of storage under management to better predict and help prevent problems before they impact your business
• 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 provides more detailed information and additional capabilities.

Easier server virtualization and containerization

The IBM Spectrum Virtualize functionality in IBM FlashSystem 7200 complements server virtualization technologies such as PowerVM, Microsoft Hyper-V, VMware vSphere, Kubernetes, and Docker. Similar to provisioning virtualized servers, provisioning capacity with IBM FlashSystem 7200 is designed to become an almost entirely automated function.

Containers are an open-source technology that wraps applications with everything needed to run in any environment. Containerization is a key enabling technology for flexibly delivering workloads to private and public cloud and DevOps. IBM FlashSystem 7200 supports Red Hat OpenShift and Kubernetes container environments, accelerating the deployment of persistent volumes with the IBM block storage CSI driver, certified by Red Hat and IBM.

Greater Confidence

To enhance the IBM FlashSystem 7200 acquisition, deployment, and operational experience, IBM offers a suite of programs collectively called IBM FlashWatch. This suite of programs includes high availability, data reduction, and flash endurance guarantees; all-inclusive licensing; comprehensive care and cloud-based analytics; cloud-like utility pricing; storage upgrade options; and free data migration for the first 90 days. IBM FlashWatch is driven by the concept - Storage Made Simple - and helps increase confidence in purchasing, owning, and upgrading IBM Storage solutions.

Benefits:

Accelerate business execution

Unlock the value of your data and accelerate business execution with end-to-end NVMe-powered IBM FlashCore technology and SCM support for even lower latency.

Increase ROI

Transform IT infrastructure while increasing ROI by leveraging the power of IBM Spectrum Virtualize to extend a rich set of data services across all your storage systems.

Optimize storage efficiency

AI-powered IBM Storage Insights uses predictive analytics to optimize storage use and delivers proactive capabilities to streamline support.

Hybrid multicloud enabled

Enable enterprises across public, private, and traditional environments. Grow your hybrid multicloud with the flexibility to start small and scale up as business demands or client adoption grows.

Easy to scale

Clustered systems can scale both up and out for performance and capacity. High density enclosures increase the maximum number of drives by almost three times.

Six 9's availability

Gain the highest levels of availability to support your mission-critical applications.

Specifications:

IBM FlashSystem 7200 Specifications
Models	Control enclosures: 2076 Models 824, U7C Expansion enclosures: 2076 Models 12G, 24G, 92G
Clustering	Up to 4 FlashSystem 7200 control enclosures can be clustered and operated as a single system.
Software	IBM Spectrum Virtualize IBM Storage Insights
Host interface	Per control enclosure: Up to 24 x 16 Gbps Fibre Channel (FC, NVMeoF) Up to 24 x 32 Gbps Fibre Channel (FC, NVMeoF) 8 x 10 Gbps Ethernet (iSCSI) Up to 12 x 25 Gbps Ethernet (iSCSI, iSER - iWARP, RoCE)
User interface	GUI, CLI, REST API
Supported drives	24 2.5” NVMe drives per control enclosure 12 3.5” SAS drives per 12G expansion enclosure 24 2.5” SAS drives per 24G expansion enclosure 92 2.5” or 3.5” SAS drives per 92G expansion enclosure Up to a maximum of 760 SAS drives in expansion enclosures per control enclosure
Supported NVMe drives	FlashCore Modules (FCM): 4.8 TB, 9.6 TB, 19.2 TB and 38.4 TB with hardware compression Storage Class Memory (SCM): 375 GB, 750 GB, 800 GB, 1.6 TB Industry Standard NVMe: 800 GB, 1.92 TB, 3.84 TB, 7.68 TB and 15.36 TB
Supported SAS drives	2.5-inch SAS SSD: 800 GB, 1.6 TB, 1.92 TB, 3.84 TB, 7.68 TB, 15.36 TB, and 30.72 TB 2.5-inch SAS HDD: 1.2 TB, 1.8 TB and 2.4 TB 10k SAS 2 TB 7.2k nearline SAS 3.5-inch disk drives supported: 4 TB, 6 TB, 8 TB, 10 TB, 12 TB, 14 TB and 16 TB 7.2k nearline SAS
RAID levels	DRAID 5 and 6 with dynamic DRAID expansion and TRAID 1 and 10
Maximum IOPS (4K read hit)	2.3 million
Minimum latency (4K read hit)	<70 μs
Maximum IOPS (4K read miss)	700 k
Maximum bandwidth (256Kb read miss)	35 GB/s
Processors	Four 8-core processors per control enclosure Up to sixteen 8-core processors in a 4-way clustered system
Cache	From 256 GB up to 1,536 GB per control enclosure Up to 6,144 GB in a 4-way clustered system
Fans and power supplies	Fully redundant, hot swappable
Rack support	Standard 19-Inch
Advanced features	Data reduction via thin provisioning, unmap, compression and deduplication Data-at-rest AES-XTS 256 encryption Easy Tier Data migration External virtualization
Replication features	IBM Storage Insights Pro IBM Spectrum Protect Snapshot IBM Spectrum Virtualize for Public Cloud IBM Spectrum Control
Warranty	Hardware: 3-year limited warranty Customer-replaceable units Next business day between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. Warranty service upgrades available Software: 1-year software maintenance Software maintenance agreement available
Dimensions	Control enclosures Width: 483 mm (19.0 in.) Depth: 850 mm (33.5 in.) Height: 88 mm (3.5 in.)
Weight	Fully configured (24 drive modules installed): 46.6 kg (102.5 lb)
Supported systems	For a list of currently supported servers, operating systems, host bus adapters, clustering applications and SAN switches and directors, refer to the IBM System Storage Interoperation Center: https://www.ibm.com/systems/support/storage/ssic/interoperability.wss
Independent software vendor (ISV) solutions	For a list of high-quality solutions with our partner ISVs, including access to solution briefs and white papers, refer to the ISV Solutions Resource Library: https://www.ibm.com/partnerworld/wps/pub/systems/whyibm/programs

Views:

IBM FlashSystem 7200 Front
(Up to 24 SFF 2.5-inch drives)

IBM FlashSystem 7200 Rear

Documentation:

Download the IBM Flash System 7200 Datasheet (.PDF)