DS8000 Family - the most resilient storage for the most critical applications
Our customers use the product for various purposes from mainframe to open systems uses.
IBM System Storage DS8900F
IBM System Storage DS8900F
Overview
What is IBM System Storage DS8900F?
IBM System Storage DS8900F is a line of storage appliances.
Recent Reviews
IBM System Storage DS8000 User Review
IBM System Storage DS8000 is used for both z/OS and z/VM to store all back end data and for all online and mobile servers.
Use of sharks
It is being used by my customers with iSeries, mainframe and open systems with a need for always on high availability for business …
DS8882F - CKD Storage in a Manageable Footprint
We use our DS8882F for our mainframe infrastructure across the whole organization. It addresses the business problem of providing CKD …
New Storage for USAA
We are replacing EMC storage with IBM storage. It's used company wide. Will be looking to implement FlashCopy for database backups.
DS8K for my Enterprise
We use IBM DS8000 to support all of our mortgage servicing customers on the mainframe. The DS8K was chosen for its performance, …
DS8000 value
We use the DS8000 at many of our customers. I have several of them installed at customers who work in financial markets. Typically, I see …
DS8000 Disaster Recovery
DS8000 provides the reliability for mission critical applications and un-surpassed speed. It allows our DB2 and IMS systems to run without …
DS8000 A great Storage tool with a very flexible GUI
We uss DS8000 for our storage solution in our IT department. It's very flexible for adding new LUNs to our system and works very well as …
Store data for days on DS8800 series
We use the DB8886 to house our system z data. This meets our business needs by providing fast and secure data storage.
Awards
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Product Details
- About
- Competitors
- Tech Details
- FAQs
What is IBM System Storage DS8900F?
IBM System Storage DS8900F is a family of all-flash data systems designed to meet a wide variety of workloads for different business needs through mission-critical acceleration, ultra-low application response times, uncompromising availability and unparalleled integration with IBM Z® and IBM Power Systems™.
IBM System Storage DS8900F Competitors
- HPE Nimble Storage
- Pure Storage Flash arrays
- Dell EMC PowerMax
IBM System Storage DS8900F Technical Details
| Operating Systems | Unspecified |
|---|---|
| Mobile Application | No |
Frequently Asked Questions
IBM System Storage DS8900F is a line of storage appliances.
HPE Nimble Storage are common alternatives for IBM System Storage DS8900F.
The most common users of IBM System Storage DS8900F are from Enterprises (1,001+ employees).
Comparisons
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Reviews and Ratings
(25)Reviews
(1-5 of 5)Companies can't remove reviews or game the system. Here's why
May 03, 2019
DS8882F - CKD Storage in a Manageable Footprint
We use our DS8882F for our mainframe infrastructure across the whole organization. It addresses the business problem of providing CKD storage in a rack mounted system that can fit in our data center. Its all-flash configuration enables us to run mainframe workloads with the lowest possible latency, helping us establish a testing environment for the setups we implement at other clients.
- Copy Services
- Disaster Recovery
- High throughput
- I have seen the GUI say that the storage facility is inaccessible, even when getting a clean health check from IBM. Typically rebooting the HMC fixes this.
- When decommissioning a box, you cannot delete arrays until ranks are done formatting. This adds a lot of time to the decomm process
- IO ports do not have a topology by default
Well suited for CKD mainframe workloads and legacy support. Less appropriate for situations where FS9100 is more appropriate, such as needing external virtualiztion.
- The DS8882 allows us to run CKD mainframe workloads in a data center that cannot fit a new rack for a larger DS8886
- Allows training of new employees on mainframe storage concepts for implementation at other clients
- Runs jobs to process SMF data to provide our clients with performance analysis
DS8882F provides CKD storage in a manageable footprint. Its advantage over FlashSystem is its interoperability with IBM Z Systems.
May 01, 2019
DS8K for my Enterprise
Verified User
Professional in Information Technology
Financial Services Company, 5001-10,000 employees
We use IBM DS8000 to support all of our mortgage servicing customers on the mainframe. The DS8K was chosen for its performance, reliability and synergy with IBM zSeries. The DS8k is also important in reducing risk. The capabilities in replication and disaster recovery are unmatched in the industry and allow us to utilize complimentary technologies such as GDPS for resiliency.
- Performance, the DS8k has provided excellent levels of service levels. I/O response time is no longer a concern.
- Scalability - as we grow the platform, performance has been steady.
- Replication - copy services capabilites are vast and ensure data integrity and consistency.
- Ease of use, the latest GUIs have vastly improved over the last 5+ years. The GUI is a great learning tool for support teams not familiar with the DS8k.
- Ability to use advanced features on HMC (for customers).
- Provide better integration with GDPS - for example GDPS GUI hosted on DS8k HMC
- Allow customers to install firmware
Well suited for mainframe CKD based applications. There is unmatched synergy with IBM zSeries when compared to the competition, for example zHPF, SUPERPAV, zHyperLink, cache management and replication technologies. For distributed, the fact that Copy Services Manager comes with the box is a great move on IBMs part to provide replication capability no matter what the applicaiton. I think the DS8k is less suited for smaller distributed environments. I think product overlap with V9000 in this case.
- Ability to retain the machine past its depreciable life
- Performance is steady as machine scales upward
- LDAP Security setup not well documented
Other vendors lack many of the mainframe functions provided by DS8k. SInce IBM is the most prominent maninframe vendor support is unmatched.
May 01, 2019
DS8000 value
We use the DS8000 at many of our customers. I have several of them installed at customers who work in financial markets. Typically, I see it used in Mainframe only environments, due to the relative cost of the DS8k compared to the variety of platforms available for open systems environments. However, even now I have some customers who have open systems environments connected to DS8000 when it is an extremely high priority environment that cannot afford downtime.
Primarily I see it used for FICON attachment. The reason for that is pretty simple -- IBM works very closely between their storage and z groups to maintain "synergy". But it's also just a rock solid highly available platform that's become more reliable with time.
Additionally, when it comes to business continuity functions it can be pretty incredible. Its Global Mirror function particularly impresses me. It's able to deal with exceptionally high latency and still deliver single-digit seconds of RPO (in extreme cases this might require development to use "pokeables"). When combined with Copy Services Manager or GDPS, it really brings disaster recovery functions to a very usable level for the enterprise.
Primarily I see it used for FICON attachment. The reason for that is pretty simple -- IBM works very closely between their storage and z groups to maintain "synergy". But it's also just a rock solid highly available platform that's become more reliable with time.
Additionally, when it comes to business continuity functions it can be pretty incredible. Its Global Mirror function particularly impresses me. It's able to deal with exceptionally high latency and still deliver single-digit seconds of RPO (in extreme cases this might require development to use "pokeables"). When combined with Copy Services Manager or GDPS, it really brings disaster recovery functions to a very usable level for the enterprise.
- Remote Copy -- The DS8k has decades of excellent code built to handle the most demanding environments for mainframe or open systems and can be combined with automation solutions like GDPS or Copy Services Manager
- Reliability and Availability -- This is the platform that gets used for the most demanding environments, even when FICON attachment isn't required
- Continued enhancement -- IBM continues to put resources into the DS8k and the platform has advanced with the technology from z and power
- Mainframe synergy -- Poughkeepsie communicates and works very closely with the DS8k developers
- Data Reduction -- DS8k doesn't do any. If you're running a mainframe with pervasive encryption turned on, that's not an issue but it could be for many distributed environments
- FlashCopy -- based on Copy on Write. It works well, but it would be nice to see it move to something like Redirect on Write
- Expense -- What can I say? It is more expensive than most people in an open systems environment are willing to pay when compared with offerings that don't have FICON
It's a qualified 10. If it's a mainframe environment I wouldn't think twice. An open systems environment I would ask many questions to make sure that it's not going to be a bad decision. The open systems environments would need to have requirements to drive the DS8000. It would work for any environment in the interop matrix, but I'd just want to make sure that it's the right fit.
- I've worked with a focus on DR for a long time, and the DR options in the DS8k have been impressive the entire time
- zSynergy features have helped my customers make more effective use of their environment
- The fact that it can use both FICON and FCP has provided flexibility for those customers I have who really do need both at that level of availability
I find that I still prefer to recommend the DS8k unless a customer is very committed to EMC, which does sometimes happen. Global Mirror has always been a much stronger replication platform than SRDF/A, capable of maintaining much better RPOs. But it's really the relationship that IBM is able to maintain between z and storage development teams in IBM. The mainframe is a pretty specific environment and it's important to have what IBM brings to the table
May 01, 2019
DS8000 Disaster Recovery
Verified User
Technician in Information Technology
Retail Company, 10,001+ employees
DS8000 provides the reliability for mission critical applications and un-surpassed speed. It allows our DB2 and IMS systems to run without interruption with the speed needed to meet customer expectations. By providing a highly available system combined with disaster recovery, we never worry about missing a sale.
- Disaster Recovery
- Response Time
- HIgh Availability
- Configuration menus
With any mission critical application, the uptime and DR capabilities of the DS8000 are with equal in the industry. Choosing less is risking your data.
- Increased response time allows meeting of difficult SLA's
- Increased reliability allows meeting Disaster Recovery goals
no comment, no other experience
February 14, 2019
Store data for days on DS8800 series
Verified User
Analyst in Information Technology
Government Administration Company, 501-1000 employees
We use the DB8886 to house our system z data. This meets our business needs by providing fast and secure data storage.
- Allows us to use GDPS for our disaster recovery solution. This is a strength because it enables us to meet our DR requirements.
- Allows us to have encryption of our data at rest. This is a strength because it enables us to meet our security requirements.
- Allows us to have a stable and reliable disk storage. This is a strength because it enables us to meet our data availability requirements.
- The hardest thing for us is the storage server software for configuring the storage. We find that the previous GUI interface is easier to use.
- Being able to utilize some of the GDPS functions that need all flash to use.
- The order process could be improved by telling the customer which additional cables/network requirements are needed.
The DS8000 series meets all of our processing needs. Our DB2 colleagues are very impressed with the speed of this new DASD. We have just fully installed our new DS8886, so I am sure that other units will be greatly impressed with the speed and availability of this new DASD.
- No positive or negative impact to our overall business objectives.
We choose IBM DS8886 because it meets our business requirements and won the competitive bid process.