
large zSeries resiliency requirements. The DS6000 series systems can only be used as a target system in z/OS Global Mirror operations.
1.2.6 Resiliency
The DS6000 series has built in resiliency features that are not generally found in small storage devices. The DS6000 series is designed and implemented with component redundancy to help reduce and avoid many potential single points of failure.
Within a DS6000 series controller unit, there are redundant RAID controller cards, power supplies, fans, Fibre Channel switches, and Battery Backup Units (BBUs).
There are four paths to each disk drive. Using Predictive Failure Analysis®, the DS6000 can identify a failing drive and replace it with a spare drive without customer interaction.
Four path switched drive subsystem
Most vendors feature Fibre Channel Arbitrated Loops, which can make it difficult to identify failing disks and is more susceptible to losing access to storage. The IBM DS6000 series provides dual active/active design architecture, including dual Fibre Channel switched disk drive subsystems which provide four paths to each disk drive. This ensures high data availability even in the event of multiple failures along the data path. Fibre Channel switches are used for each 16 disk drive enclosure unit, so that if a connection to one drive is lost, the remaining drives can continue to function, unlike disk drives configured in a loop design.
Spare drives
The configuration process when forming
Predictive Failure Analysis
The DS6800 uses the well known (xSeries and ESS) Predictive Failure Analysis (PFA) to monitor the operations of its drives. PFA takes
1.2.7 Interoperability
The DS6800 features unsurpassed enterprise interoperability for a modular storage subsystem because it uses the same software as the DS8000 series, which is an extension of the proven IBM ESS code. This allows for
1.2.8 Service and setup
DS6000 series systems are designed to be easy to install and maintain; they are customer setup products. The DS Storage Manager’s intuitive
Chapter 1. Introducing the IBM TotalStorage DS6000 series 13