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Overview of IBM 2105 Enterprise Storage Server
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Overview of IBM 2105 Enterprise Storage Server
The IBM 2105 Enterprise Storage Server (ESS) provides superior storage sharing for
Unix®, Windows NT®, Windows 2000®, Novell Netware, iSeries™ and zSeries™
servers. With the ESS any combination of these heterogeneous platforms can be used.
Hosts are attached to the ESS via the following interfaces:
• Fibre Channel (for Unix, Windows NT and Windows 2000),
• UltraSCSI (for Unix, Windows NT and Windows 2000, Novell Netware, and
• iSeries) ESCON and FICON (for zSeries)
The ESS provides the image of a set of logical disk devices to the attached servers. The
logical devices are configured to emulate disk device types that are compatible with the
attached servers. The logical devices access a logical volume that is implemented using
multiple disk drives.
The ESS consists of the following components:
• Storage server: the storage server is composed of two clusters that control and
manage data transfer. If one cluster fails the remaining cluster takes over the
functions of the failing one.
• Host adapters: each cluster has one or more host adapters that provide one or
more host I/O interfaces. A host adapter can communicate with either cluster
complex
• Device adapters: each cluster has one or more device adapters that provide one
or more storage device interfaces. Disk drives are attached to a pair of device
adapters, one in each cluster, so that the drives are accessible from either
cluster.
• Cluster complex: the cluster complex provides the management functions for the
ESS. It consists of cluster processors, cluster memory, cache, nonvolatile
storage and related logic
• The disk drives provide the primary nonvolatile storage medium for any host data
stored within the ESS storage devices. They are grouped into ranks and are
managed by the clusters.
Internally the ESS is divided into Logical Subsystems (LSSs). An LSS is a logical
structure that is used for configuration of the ESS. An ESS can have up to 16 LSSs
defined for Open Systems storage. In one LSS, up to 256 logical volumes can be
defined.
Storage capacity is partitioned among the attached servers using the flexible, Web-
based StorWatch Enterprise Storage Specialist management tool. With its Web interface
you can create, assign, and unassign logical volumes to the hosts attached to the ESS.
For details about the ESS, ESS Copy Services, and the Web and command line
interfaces please refer to the following Redbooks available at
http://www.redbooks.ibm.com
:
• SG245757 Implementing ESS Copy Services on UNIX and Windows NT/2000
• SG245465 IBM Enterprise Storage Server