IBM recently announced the brand new Version of one of the industry's fastest Flash Storage Solution. The IBM Flashsystem 900. Now triple capacity and inline compression on top.

1. IBM Flash Storage
IBM FlashSystem 900
Technical Presentation
Stefan Lein
Offering Leader High End Storage Solutions DACH
lein@de.ibm.com
October 2017

2. IBM Flash Storage
Major shifts and disruption
in the storage market
Cloud
Flash
Software-defined
Uncertainty can cause hesitation
Industry consolidation
Industry disruption
Clients are challenged
with how to navigate
into the future

3. IBM All-Flash Storage

4. IBM Storage & SDI
IBM Systems Flash Storage Offerings Portfolio
IBM Elastic
Storage Server
DS888xF
Business Critical
z/OS | AIX
Power HA
Power i HA
• Extreme performance
• Targeting database acceleration
& Spectrum Storage booster
FlashSystem 900
Application acceleration
IBM FlashCore™ Technology Optimized
FlashSystem
A9000
FlashSystem
A9000R
• Full time data
reduction
• Workloads: Cloud,
VDI, VMware
Large deployments
FlashSystem
V9000
Highest
Performance
Cloud service
providers
• Full time data
reduction
• Workloads: Mixed
and cloud
Storwize
V7000F
Storwize
V5030F
Entry Storage
Virtualization
Midrange Storage
Virtualization
Enhanced data storage functions, economics
and flexibility with sophisticated virtualization
SVC
• Simplified management
• Flexible consumption model
• Virtualized, enterprise-class, flash-optimized, modular storage
• Enterprise class heterogeneous data services and selectable data reduction • Business critical,
deepest integration
with z Systems
• Superior
performance &
reliability
• Three-site / Four-
site replication
• DS8884F,
DS8886F, DS8888F
IBM
Power
Systems
Big Data
• Consolidates file &
object workloads
• Faster data
analysis
• Global sharing
Flexible
Converged
Infrastructure
with power of
Storwize
V5030F and
Spectrum Scale
VersaStack

5. IBM Flash Storage
FlashSystem 900 - Value Prop Keeps Improving
Data center optimized to accelerate business with
extreme performance, flexible capacity and total system protection
Extreme Performance
enable businesses to unleash the power of
performance, scale, and insight to drive
services and products to market faster.
• Performance same or better even
with compression!!
Macro Efficiency
driven by consolidation of hardware and
software, deployment speed, efficient use of IT
staff as well as power and cooling savings.
• Now with Hardware Compression
offering up to 2.4X effective capacity
MicroLatency
deliver microsecond scale response time to
accelerate critical applications to achieve
competitive advantages.
• Response time improves with
compression!
Enterprise Reliability
durable and reliable designs that use IBM
patented technology to achieve enterprise
robustness from consumer level flash.
• 3D TLC Flash combined with
IBM FlashCore technology

6. IBM Flash Storage
New IBM FlashSystem 900
Capacity and Density Increase
• 3X usable capacity with new IBM enhanced 3D TLC in 2U
• Micron 3DTLC Gen 1 with secret sauce
• 220TB maximum effective capacity for compressible
workloads
Breakthrough in Compression Technology
• Inline Hardware Compression with no performance
penalty
• Compression is done in the Flash controller with
already existing LSA
• Supports up to 2.39 average compressibility on 3.6
and 8.5TB cards
• 60% reduction in price per TB
World Class Performance even with 3D TLC
• 1.1M IOPS, 10GB/s (Read)
• Tuning free, consistent response time
• Response time for real workloads even better with
compressible data than current 900
First all flash array with hardware compression and 3D TLC

7. IBM Flash Storage
• New Flash Modules Design adding support for 3D TLC NAND and HW compression
• UI Enhancements to enable usability enhancements (and deal with Compression)
• Update Mechanicals to improve reliability during service actions
• Updated Midplane to improve reliability and connectivity to new flash modules
• Software enhancements to increase reliability
• RAS enhancements to increase serviceability
What’s changing from the current 900?
Client Value
• Hardware compression gives tight predictable performance
with real workloads.
• Connecting to servers running Oracle, SAP, SQL, is now
more cost effective, due to compression, with no sacrifice in
response time or performance.
• Allows setting Virtualization appliances to thick provisioning
to give maximum performance and lowest response time.
• SKLM external key manager supported

9. In-line hardware compression
IBM enhanced 3D TLC
3X higher density
Next generation
FlashCore technology
60% lower price per TB
IBM FlashSystem 900 (Model AE3)
flash without compromise

10. IBM Flash Storage
3.6TB
8.5TB
18TB
36.1*
85.5*
180*
Small Medium Large
110*
220*
Inline HARDWARE compression
with NO performance penalty
*Usable TB after RAID (12 modules, fully populated system)
*Max effective TB after inline hardware compression (fully populated)
18TB module for large uncompressible workloads
3x higher density with IBM enhanced 3D TLC MicroLatency® modules
IBM FlashSystem 900 (Model AE3)

11. IBM Flash Storage
3x higher density with IBM enhanced 3D TLC MicroLatency® modules
IBM FlashSystem 900 (Model AE3)
Module 3.6TB 8.5TB 18TB
Qty 6 8 10 12 8 10 12 8 10 12
Usable 14.4 21.6 28.8 36.1 51.3 68.4 85.5 108 144 180
Maximum 43.9 65.9 87.9 109.9 131.9 175.9 219.9 131.9 175.9 219.9
Guaranteed 2:1 compression
on Small (3.6TB) and Medium (8.5TB) modules

12. § First all flash array with inline hardware compression and 3D TLC
– Modified dynamic GZIP algorithm implemented in FPGA hardware
– IBM technology originated with Z and adopted to flash controller
– Takes advantage of existing logical-to-physical mapping
§ Improved data economics with no performance penalty
– Compression/decompression performed at line speed on individual logical pages
– Compression is first step in the inbound data path, decompression is last step in the
outbound data path, so there is less backend data transfer
– Data protection (ECC) implemented on top of compressed data
§ End-to-end data integrity checking
IBM FlashSystem 900 (Model AE3)
Inline hardware compression with no performance penalty

13. § First all flash array with custom 3D TLC flash modules
– Traditional 2D NAND has reached the physical limits of scalability
– Shrinking flash cells and more bits per cell cause lower endurance, heavy error
correction, and degraded latency
§ 3D NAND flash enables greater scalability
– Increases density without compromising latency or endurance
– Stacks NAND cells vertically instead of shrinking size of each cell
– Allows increased lithography size
§ Next generation FlashCore technology improves on native flash
chip endurance by up to 11x
– Combination of advanced flash management and inline hardware compression
IBM FlashSystem 900 (Model AE3)
World class performance even with 3D TLC

14. IBM Flash Storage
§ Provides a new Dashboard view of the system
– At a glance overview of performance, capacity and health
§ Enhancements for use with mobile devices
– Including Event Flag based performance charts
§ Performance graphs overlaid with events
§ Improvements to “strongly encourage” enabling of
Call Home and Remote Access
§ “Open PMR” button
§ Capacity over time GUI
– Gives clients more insight on how they are using their
capacity over time
§ Managing effective capacity with compression
§ 300 days of performance history
IBM FlashSystem 900 (Model AE3)
Enhanced user interface

15. IBM Flash Storage
FlashSystem 900 AE3 capacity configurations
Small capacity...
• Only one of the two memory interfaces are populated, one node, no daughter card, the single
node will have 12 NAND. This assumes the FRAM is 16GiB DDP.
• This would provide a usable capacity of around 3.6TBu before compression, with a max
effective capacity of 10.9TBe
Medium capacity...
• Both memory channels would be populated, both cards are installed in a module, but only 14
NAND on each node are populated, this is believed that this would be required for
performance reasons. This assumes the FRAM is 32GiB DDP.
• This would provide us with a usable capacity of 8.6TBu before compression, with a max
effective capacity of 21.9TBe
Large capacity...
• Both memory channels would be populated, both cards are installed in a module, all 28 NAND
for each node are populated. This assumes the FRAM is 32GiB DDP.
• This would provide us with a usable capacity of 18.0TBu before compression, with a max
effective capacity of 21.9TBe

16. IBM Flash Storage
§ 3X capacity with new IBM enhanced 3D TLC in 2U
§ Up to 220TB effective capacity for compressible workloads
§ Inline hardware compression with no performance penalty
§ Next generation FlashCore technology
§ Consistent response time; latency as low as 95 microseconds
§ Enhanced user interface with new dashboard view
§ Centralized encryption key management; SKLM
§ Flash wear guarantee
3.6TB 8.5TB 18TB
Qty 6 8 10 12 8 10 12 8 10 12
Usable 14.4 21.6 28.8 36.1 51.3 68.4 85.5 108 144 180
Maximum 44 66 88 110 132 176 220 132 176 220
Minimum Latency
Write 95µs
Read 155µs
Max IOPS (4 KB Random)
Read 1,100,000
70/30 900,000
Write 600,000
Max Bandwidth (64KB Sequential)
Read 10 GB/s
Write 4.5 GB/s
IBM FlashSystem 900 (Model AE3)
flash without compromise
*Performance with 12 x 8.5TB modules, 2:1 compression

17. IBM Flash Storage
FlashCore: The DNA of IBM FlashSystem
Making flash work better with FlashCore
17

18. Hardware accelerated I/O
IBM MicroLatency® module
Advanced flash management
Industry standard chip technology
Industry standard interface
With hardware NVM data path
With inline compression
With 3D TLC flash
IBM FlashSystem 900 (Model AE3)
Next generation FlashCore technology

19. Hardware accelerated I/O
*40Gb QDR Infiniband adapters capable of supporting both SRP
and NVMe-oF; Proof of concept and public demo planned in 4Q17
§ End-to-end flash optimized architecture
§ Low latency hardware NVM data path
§ Fine-grained grid architecture, highly parallel
§ FPGA based distributed processing
§ Two dimensions of RAID protection
– System-level RAID across modules
– IBM patented Variable Stripe RAID within modules
§ No single point of failure
§ Independent data path and control path
§ Full Active-Active design
§ 99.999% Availability
NVMe over Fabrics ready*

20. Hardware
FlashSystem
IBM Software
Common IBM
Stack
USIC
Interface
Controller
(PPC)
Flash
Manager
(PPC)
Raid
Controller
GUI
SVC
UTDE
Drivers
MCP Linux
System
Manager
Volume
Manager
Service
Manager
ControlPath
DataPath
• Hardware driven, NVM data path
provides the fastest latency possible
• Software managed control paths provide
system management and error handling
when required
• All subsystems are concurrently
maintainable, both for code update and
service tasks
IBM-engineered flash achieves
superior latency with a hardware only
data path to our non-volatile memory
Hardware accelerated I/O

21. The FlashSystem data compression/decompression algorithm is a
Modified Dynamic GZIP algorithm
• Implemented completely in hardware, no processor intervention
• This technology originated with Z and has been adopted it to fit into a flash
controller
Improved economics with no performance impact
• Compression is performed as the first step in the inbound data
path, and decompression is the last step in the outbound data
path, so there is less data to transfer
• Data protection (ECC) is implemented on top of compressed data
• Compression and decompression are completely transparent
above the Flash cards except for management of space
Who has it?
No one else.
IBM is the only vendor to
deliver Tier 0 ultra-dense
purpose-built TLC flash
modules with inline high-
performance compression!
Hardware accelerated I/O
NEW inline hardware compression

22. • The same or better performance than the current
generation!
• Response time for real workloads slightly better with
compressible data than the current generation
• Tuning free, consistent response time
FlashSystem 900 AE3 Performance Overview
0
0,2
0,4
0,6
0,8
1
1,2
1,4
1,6
1,8
0 200000 400000 600000 800000 1000000 1200000
AverageResponseTime(ms)
Throughput (IOPS)
FlashSystem 900 (AE3): 4KB Random Mix (CR =2.5):
12x 8.5TB, 85%
4K random write
4K random 40/60
4K random 70/30
4K random 90/10
4K random read
0
0,5
1
1,5
2
2,5
3
0 100000 200000 300000 400000 500000 600000 700000AverageResponseTime(ms)
Throughput (IOPs)
4K Random Write (CR1 vs CR 2.5):
FlashSystem 900 (AE2) (12x2.6TiB, 90%) vs. FlashSystem
900 (AE3) (12x 8.9TiB, 85%)
Texan R2 1.5.0.0-126.394 CR1.0
Maverick 1.5.0.0-126.406 CR1.0
Maverick 1.5.0.0-126.394 CR2.5
World-class performance with 3D TLC

23. IBM Patented Variable Stripe RAID®
• Maximum level of flash
module data protection
• Maximum wear life
• Fast writes
• Scalable
• Fast at reads
• Non-volatile
• Very low power
Variable Stripe RAID
Who has it?
Only the IBM FlashSystem
Advantages:
• Protects data from a chip failure
• Dynamically re-stripes data at a sub-chip
level
• Preserves life, protection and performance
IBM VSR protected flash modules:
Now we can build our system using far
more advanced technology than SSDs
1
2
3
P
Dynamic RAID Re-striping To Isolate & Bypass Media Failures

24. Patented Variable Stripe RAID allows RAID stripe sizes to vary.
If one die fails in a 14-chip stripe, only the failed die is bypassed, then data and parity is
restriped across the remaining flash. Additional flash on the second circuit board.
Variable Stripe RAID reduces maintenance intervals caused by Flash failures
Flash Chips
Die
Failure
IBM Patented Variable Stripe RAID®
Dynamic RAID Re-striping To Isolate & Bypass Media Failures

25. IBM Storage & SDI
8.5TB IBM MicroLatency Module contains 28 flash devices
If failures are distributed across the 2 controllers in a 8.5TB IBM MicroLatency Module…
• Can lose up to 951GB of flash capacity (almost 475GB per flash controller) before failing
• More than 2 flash devices within the module can fail before it needs to be replaced.
• 20 of the 220 flash dies can fail without any issue
• When the 9th die fails, the module will issue a warning, but continue to run
• When the 21st die fails, the module is failed and the system-level protection is engaged
If the failures are localized to a single controller, divide those numbers by 2...
• 5 flash die failures on a single controller (controlling 14 flash chips) will trigger a warning
• 11 flash die failures (of the 112 total) will trigger the failure
Compare this to an off the shelf SSD which can sustain approximately ½ of a flash chip failure before failing
the entire drive!
FlashCore: Resiliency Well Beyond SSDs
Numerous Media Failures Are Easily Tolerated

26. • Maximum level of system
protection
• Maximum level of flash module
data protection
• Maximum wear life
• Fast writes
• Scalable
• Fast at reads
• Non-volatile
• Very low power
Who has it?
Only the IBM FlashSystem
Advantages:
• VSR protects from flash chip or sub-
chip issues
• System-level RAID protects against
abrupt module failure and controller
failure
2D RAID
across
modules
VSR within modules
Two-Dimensional Flash RAID
2-Dimensional RAID Protection
Innovative Engineering To Avoid Media Failures

27. High Speed Interface
Variable Stripe RAID
IBM Engineered
Massively Parallel Design
Distributed RAM
IBM MicroLatency® Module
FPGAs in the Data Path
Hardware-based Data
at Rest Encryption
Better data protection keeps your business running
Faster data path allows you to do more analytics, on more data, more quickly
Inline Hardware
Compression

28. IBM Enhanced ECC
• IBM designed a new Error Corrector using a novel code which:
• Corrects an astoundingly large number of errors
• Does not rely on additional reads
Flash Conditioning (proactive voltage-level shifting)
• Predictive techniques adjust internal flash settings in advance minimizing
probability of uncorrectable errors
Adaptive, self-optimizing wear-leveling (health-binning + heat-segregation)
• Put the most accessed data on the healthiest blocks
Result: Up to 7.2x improvement in lifespan over base media (flash chips)
Advanced Flash Management
Numerous Media Failures Are Easily Tolerated

29. IBM Storage & SDI
With and without FlashCore
§ 3D TLC NAND flash
§ Program/Erase cycle spec: 5k cycles
§ Specification assumes strong error
correction of 0.01 raw BER
§ IBM FlashCore technology:
– Voltage threshold calibration
– Strong error correction
– Health binning
§ With FlashCore technology we can
achieve 18.8k P/E cycles
§ Raw endurance gain: 18.8/5.0 = 3.8x
§ With 3:1 compression: over 11x
Endurance Gain = 3.8X
3D TLC Flash

30. MicroLatency Module Key Differentiators
• Innovative ECC algorithm corrects very high bit error rates, but does
not require additional reads
• Latency does not degrade as parts age – even with 3DTLC
• Health binning and heat segregation
• FlashCore technology continually assesses health by monitoring
several key parameters
• Hotter data placed in healthier blocks
• Write Amplification reduced by grouping like heat levels
• The IBM and Micron collaboration provides special access to the Flash
• Extensive characterization determined optimal read offsets to
set as block ages. This has been redone for 3DTLC
• Powerful checks on entire data path, including inside
the flash modules
• Variable Stripe RAID reduces what needs to be retired
• Hardware compressor also can reduce write amplification since less
data written with no loss of compression.
Results:
• Large endurance gains w/o latency penalty
• Asymmetrical wear leveling results in higher
endurance in real life workloads!
• As the part ages and we determine the
health of each block, the ideal voltage levels
are set in order to minimize errors!
• Outstanding data reliability and improved
endurance

31. IBM All-Flash Storage