Designed as reliable, powerful, scalable modular storage systems
offering a unified storage architecture—with exceptional value—
for large-enterprise data center applications and consolidations
IBM System Storage N7000 Modular
Disk Storage Systems
The challenge: Managing data for business
advantage
In an increasingly demanding and com-
petitive business landscape, effective
data management is essential to the
success of the enterprise. Data avail-
ability from any location gives employ-
ees, partners and customers the
up-to-the-minute information they need
to work productively, make timely deci-
sions and meet business goals.
Information technology professionals
facing these challenges are under pres-
sure to deliver more capacity and at
higher levels of service. Yet critical
resources—staffing, budget, power,
cooling and floor space—are often
constrained.
Highlights
■
■
■
Scalable—Designed for non-
disruptive expansion to more
than 1.1 petabytes (1.1 PB, or
1100 TB) storage capacity
Efficient consolidation—
Intended to provide storage for
multiple applications in a single
system with FlexShare™ to
ensure that critical workloads
get priority service
These demands call for enterprise-class
storage systems with the flexibility to
support changing IT requirements,
accommodate continuous data growth,
satisfy application-level service require-
ments and unify SAN and NAS infra-
structures with the expectation of
reducing overall costs.
Versatile—Single, integrated
architecture designed to sup-
port concurrent block I/O and
file serving over Ethernet
and Fibre Channel SAN
infrastructures
■
Application availability—N7000
systems with Data ONTAP®
enable application-level recov-
ery in minutes, not hours, upon
failure or user error
■
Flexible—Fibre Channel and
SATA disk-drive capabilities
allow for deployment in multiple
solution environments, includ-
ing data retention, near-line
storage, disk-to-disk backup
scenarios and high-
■
Performance—Delivers high,
consistent performance for
mission-critical applications
performance, mission-critical
I/O intensive operations
Another feature of the N series Data
ONTAP operating system, FlexClone®,
enables the nearly instant creation of
clones without requiring incremental
storage. FlexClone can dramatically
accelerate test and development cycles
for IT projects.
Application availability. N7000 sys-
tems combine a variety of features to
meet the need for continuous availabil-
ity. Complementing the high-availability
hardware design is the proven reliability
of the Data ONTAP operating system
and RAID-DP™ (N series implementa-
tion of RAID-6), which uniquely provides
double-level RAID data protection to
help ensure that data is not lost in the
event of multiple disk drive failures. In
addition, RAID-DP has negligible per-
formance impact. The N7000 also sup-
ports simple yet powerful synchronous,
semi-synchronous and asynchronous
mirroring that can be deployed
it possible to instantly revert to a
previous version of data upon failure or
user error. N series Snapshot copies
are unique in that they can be created
frequently during production, because
they use only a small amount of incre-
mental storage and have virtually no
impact on performance. Host-based
SnapManager® software integrates
Snapshot management with applica-
tions, designed to ensure consistent
backup images and application-level
recovery in minutes.
Efficient consolidation. The N7000
series is designed to consolidate
and serve data for a wide variety of
workloads, including mission-critical
business applications, technical appli-
cations, databases, e-mail, home direc-
tories, digital media, backup and
Performance. High performance and
massive storage capacity are character-
istics that make the N7000 systems
ideal for large-scale applications and
storage consolidation. An N7000 sys-
tem is designed to complete jobs
quickly and handle a large number of
users via a powerful, high-bandwidth
architecture with scalability to
recovery, regulatory compliant data
retention and archival. IBM N series
systems support Windows®, UNIX®,
including AIX®, Solaris™ and HP-UX,
and Linux® host operating systems as
well as VMware for server virtualization.
in one-to-one, one-to-many and many-
to-one mirroring configurations.
The N7000 can serve as the foundation
for a comprehensive data management
solution consisting of hardware, soft-
ware and services. With an appliance
architecture and built-in backup and
recovery software, an N7000 solution is
designed to address the entire spec-
trum of data availability challenges while
offering value in price/performance and
scalability.
IT organizations can be challenged with
poor response times during peak hours
of operations after consolidating stor-
age systems with dissimilar data work-
loads on to a single platform. To help
address this challenge, N series offers
FlexShare quality-of-service software,
which is intended to enable storage
administrators to set and dynamically
adjust workload priorities. FlexShare
can help ensure that important applica-
tions get fast response times.
1,176 disk drives capable of delivering
up to 1.176 PB of raw storage capacity.
With large cache memory configura-
tions, expandable high-performance
I/O, 4 Gbps FC SAN support, 4 Gbps
disk drive support and support for
10 Gbps Ethernet, the N7000 delivers
exceptional enterprise-class system
performance.
Ultimately what matters is application-
level availability, and this is where
N series systems excel. Snapshot™, a
standard feature of Data ONTAP, makes
N7000 near-line storage capabilities
The N7000 is well suited for near-line
storage configurations. An N7000 sys-
tem populated with Fibre Channel disk
drives that backs up to another
component in an information lifecycle
management process by storing less-
critical data on a device whose cost
and performance stand between pri-
mary and tape storage.
IBM N series systems using
NearStore® software can use the
Advanced Single Instance Storage
(A-SIS) software feature for better stor-
age utilization. A-SIS software enables
N series systems to deduplicate stored
data at the block level in order to con-
serve physical disk space when making
disk-to-disk copies of primary data.
Traditionally when copies of volumes
are created, every duplicate data string
is also copied, resulting in an inefficient
use for secondary storage. A-SIS dedu-
plication helps eliminate this inefficiency.
N series system populated with SATA
disk drives offers disk-to-disk backup
capabilities that are designed to help
you fill the price/performance gap
between fast but costly primary storage
and less-costly but slow archival (tape
and optical) storage. Utilizing SATA disk
drive technology, you could achieve
near-primary storage performance at
near-tape storage costs. A disk-based,
secondary storage device for enterprise
applications, N7000 disk-to-disk envi-
ronments are designed to complement
and dramatically improve existing tape
backup, archiving and data protection
schemes. They do so by inserting eco-
nomical and simple-to-use disk-based
storage between application storage
and tape libraries in a three-tier
Combined with SnapVault®, the N7000
disk-to-disk backup environments are
designed to serve as a robust and fully
integrated appliance that makes back-
ing up and restoring data rapid and reli-
able. Backing up directly to an N7000
system in a near-line storage configura-
tion and then to tape can help your
organization enhance data protection
management, improve primary storage
and tape library performance, and
reduce backup resource requirements
and costs. Two N series systems oper-
ating in a disk-to-disk backup scenario
are designed to be faster and to con-
sume less application-server CPU pro-
cessing power than direct backup to
tape. SnapVault software can be used
to help reduce network bandwidth con-
sumption by supporting incremental
block transfers to backup data across a
LAN or WAN. SnapMirror® software,
which replicates data at high speeds
over a LAN or a WAN, is designed to
provide high data availability and
Support for data retention through non-
erasable, non-rewriteable security
capabilities
The N7000 offers multiple capabilities in
the area of data retention. It can serve
as a high-performance device for stor-
ing mission-critical production data and
as a data-retention system by running
SnapLock® software. The N7000 with
SnapLock software is designed to
deliver high-performance and high-
security data permanence to disk-
based nearline and primary N series
storage. An optional feature of the
proven Data ONTAP operating system,
SnapLock software supports the accu-
racy, integrity and security of data.
storage architecture.
This arrangement is designed to pro-
vide economical storage and rapid
disk-based access to reference data to
help address business and regulatory
requirements. It can serve as a key
fast recovery for mission-critical
applications.
It helps prevent the alteration of busi-
ness records and allows data to be
rapidly accessible online for long peri-
ods of time.
systems. This functionality is designed
to prevent critical files from being
altered or deleted until a specified
retention date.
non-rewriteable replication of data at
remote sites can help your organization
address regulatory concerns or best
practices, resulting in a highly robust
compliant data protection solution.
Non-erasable, non-rewriteable data
can also be backed up to tape for an
additional level of data protection.
SnapLock offers capabilities to help you
address regulatory and best-practices
records retention requirements by sup-
porting the creation of non-rewritable,
non-erasable volumes on IBM N series
SnapLock is also designed to replicate
non-erasable, non-rewriteable data
securely and automatically between
multiple N series systems using
SnapMirror software. The non-erasable,
non-rewriteable to non-erasable,
Software
Operating system
Data ONTAP
Operating systems supported
Windows 2000, Windows Server® 2003, Windows XP, Linux, Sun™ Solaris, IBM AIX,
HP-UX, Mac OS, VMware ESX
Software features
Standard
Integrated RAID manager, including RAID-DP; Snapshot; Fast Boot; NIS; DNS; FilerView®;
FlexVol; FlexShare; Disk Sanitization; SecureAdmin™; Network Data Management Protocol
(NDMP)
Licensed
CIFS; NFS; HTTP; FTP; iSCSI; FCP; FlexClone; MultiStore®; Clustered Failover; SnapMirror;
SyncMirror®; SnapRestore®; Single Mailbox Recovery; SnapVault; SnapMover®;
NearStore; Advanced Single Instance Storage; SnapValidator®; SnapLock; LockVault™;
MetroCluster
Manageability software
Application Suite
SnapManager for Microsoft® Exchange; SnapManager for Microsoft SQL Server™;
SnapManager for Microsoft Office SharePoint®; SnapManager for Oracle®; SnapManager
for SAP
Server Suite
SnapDrive®
Data Suite
Protection Manager; VFM® Virtual File Manager™—Enterprise Edition; Virtual File
Manager—Migration Edition
Storage Suite
File Storage Resource Manager; Operations Manager
Specifications
N7700
2866-A11
Single
N7700
N7900
N7900
2867-A21
Machine type model
2866-A21
2867-A11
Controller configuration
Dual (active/active)
2.6 GHz AMD Opteron
Single
Dual (active/active)
2.6 GHz AMD dual core
Opteron
Processors speed and type 2.6 GHz AMD™ Opteron™
(Note 1)
2.6 GHz AMD dual core
Opteron
4
Number of processors
2
4
8
Random access memory
16 GB
32 GB
32 GB
64 GB
Standard integrated I/O ports
Fibre Channel ports/speed
Ethernet ports/speed
8 (4 Gbps)
6 (1 GbE)
16 (4 Gbps)
12 (1 GbE)
8 (4 Gbps)
6 (1 GbE)
16 (4 Gbps)
12 (1 GbE)
Storage scalability
Maximum raw capacity
Maximum number of disk
drives
840 TB
840
840 TB
840
1176 TB
1176
1176 TB
1176
Maximum volume size
Maximum number of
volumes/LUNs
16 TB
2048
16 TB
2048
16 TB
2048
16 TB
2048
Maximum number of
storage enclosures
60
60
84
84
Disk expansion units
supported
EXN4000—4 Gbps Fibre Channel Disk Storage Expansion Unit
EXN1000—SATA Disk Storage Expansion
EXN2000—FC Storage Expansion Unit (Legacy)
I/O scalability
5
10
5
10
PCI-Express (PCI-e)
expansion slots
PCI-x expansion slots
Maximum number FC ports
Maximum number of
Ethernet ports
3
6
3
6
28
26
56
52
28
26
56
52
Specifications
N7600
2866-A10
N7600
N7800
2867-A10
N7800
Machine type model
Controller configuration
Processors speed and type
(Note 1)
2866-A20
2867-A20
Single
Dual (active/active)
2.6 GHz AMD Opteron
Single
Dual (active/active)
2.6 GHz AMD Opteron
2.6 GHz AMD Opteron
2.6 GHz AMD Opteron
Number of processors
Random access memory
2
4
4
8
16 GB
32 GB
32 GB
64 GB
Standard integrated I/O ports
Fibre Channel ports/speed
Ethernet ports/speed
8 (2 Gbps)
6 (1 GbE)
16 (2 Gbps)
12 (1 GbE)
8 (2 Gbps)
6 (1 GbE)
16 (2 Gbps)
12 (1 GbE)
Storage scalability
Maximum raw capacity
Maximum number of disk
drives
840 TB
840
840 TB
840
1008 TB
1008
1008 TB
1008
Maximum volume size
Maximum number of
volumes/LUNs
16 TB
2048
16 TB
2048
16 TB
2048
16 TB
2048
Maximum number of
storage enclosures
60
60
72
72
Disk expansion units
supported
EXN4000—4 Gbps Fibre Channel Disk Storage Expansion Unit
EXN1000—SATA Disk Storage Expansion
EXN2000—FC Storage Expansion Unit (Legacy)
I/O scalability
5
10
5
10
PCI-Express (PCI-e)
expansion slots
PCI-x expansion slots
Maximum number FC ports
Maximum number of
Ethernet ports
3
6
3
6
28
26
56
52
28
26
56
52
For more information
Contact your IBM representative or
IBM Business Partner or visit:
© Copyright IBM Corporation 2008
IBM Systems and Technology Group
Route 100
For technical specifications, optional I/O
expandability and software features,
functions and benefits of the N7000
series, visit:
Somers, NY 10589
Produced in the United States
February 2008
All Rights Reserved
IBM, the IBM logo, AIX and System Storage are
trademarks or registered trademarks of
THE INFORMATION IN THIS DOCUMENT IS
PROVIDED “AS-IS” WITHOUT ANY
International Business Machines Corporation in
the United States, other countries or both.
WARRANTY, EITHER EXPRESSED OR
IMPLIED. IBM EXPRESSLY DISCLAIMS ANY
WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE OR
NONINFRINGEMENT. IBM products are
warranted according to the terms and
conditions of the agreements (e.g.,
Data ONTAP, FilerView, FlexClone, FlexShare,
FlexVol, LockVault, MultiStore, NearStore,
RAID-DP, SecureAdmin, SnapDrive, SnapLock,
SnapManager, SnapMirror, SnapMover,
SnapRestore, Snapshot, SnapValidator,
SnapVault, SyncMirror, and VFM Virtual File
Manager are trademarks or registered
trademarks of Network Appliance, Inc.,
in the U.S. and other countries.
For N7000 series interoperability visit:
IBM Customer Agreement, Statement of Limited
Warranty, International Program License
Agreement, etc.) under which they are provided.
References in this document to IBM products,
programs or services do not imply that
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in the United States, other countries or both.
IBM intends to make such products, programs
or services available in all countries in which
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is not intended to state or imply that only that
program may be used. Any functionally
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Server and the Windows logo are trademarks or
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IBM is not responsible for the performance or
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IBM’s customer is responsible for ensuring its
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significantly. IBM makes no representation that
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MB, GB, TB and PB equal 1,000,000,
1,000,000,000, 1,000,000,000,000 and
1,000,000,000,000,000 bytes, respectively,
where referring to storage capacity. Actual
storage capacity will vary based upon many
factors and may be less than stated. Some
numbers given for storage capacities give
capacity in native mode followed by capacity
using data compression technology.
a
Max. capacity is derived based on the
type, size, and number of the drives. Max.
capacity and volume size are calculated
using Base10 arithmetic (i.e., 1 TB =
1,000,000,000,000 bytes).
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