IBM DS4300 User Manual

Information technology is the lifeblood of any business, espe-

cially today when organizational performance depends on

information on demand. Business accountability hinges on it,

laws and regulations mandate it, customers demand it and

effective business processes rely on it. With information on

demand, businesses can respond quickly with the flexibility to

meet customer requirements, market opportunities or external

threats. But as utterly valuable as information on demand has

become, it also has become more costly to store, maintain

and protect.

To meet these challenges, IBM

®

has taken a holistic approach

to the problem, looking well beyond storage products alone to

help you share, manage and protect your data. To provide

complete solutions for businesses using the on demand

model, IBM has addressed three areas of IT.

Few would question the statement that IT infrastructures have

grown more complex in recent years. The dramatic growth in

the use of IT, combined with distributed computing architec-

tures, is part of the reason. But business processes have also

become more complex and integrated too, driving a greater

need for complex interconnections among systems.

The added complexity that accompanies growth can stand in

the way of fully realizing the benefits of IT. Infrastructure simpli-

fication is a way to look at the entire IT operation and help

eliminate the complexity that can raise costs, reduce reliability

and create dependencies on specialized skills—factors making

it harder to operate as an on demand business.

Three proven methods for simplifying an IT infrastructure are

consolidation, virtualization and automated management. Each

technique can be applied to all areas that compose an IT

operation—servers, storage and networks.

Within the storage arena, consolidation can include reducing

the number of data centers and sharing fewer large-capacity

storage systems among a greater number of application

servers. Consolidated resources can cost less and can be

easier to share and protect.

Storage virtualization involves a shift in thinking from physical

to logical—treating storage as a logical pool of resources, not

individual devices. Not only can this help simplify the storage

environment, but it also can help increase utilization and 

availability.

The storage arena is ripe with opportunities to lower adminis-

trative costs through automation. Once tasks are automated,

administrators can deal with more strategic issues. In addition,

automation can help reduce errors and contribute to higher

system performance.

On demand businesses rely on their IT systems to conduct

business. Everything must be working all the time. Nothing

less is acceptable. A sound and comprehensive business con-

tinuity strategy encompasses high availability, near continuous

operations and disaster recovery. For each of these areas, the

IBM TotalStorage

®

Resiliency Family includes a comprehensive

set of products that are compatible with multiple platforms.

The primary goal of information lifecycle management (ILM)

techniques is to optimize the storage and management of

information based on its value to your business. An ILM

process can help a business maximize the value of informa-

tion, from the moment of its creation to the moment of its dis-

posal. Corporate governance policies, business processes and

compliance guidelines all influence ILM policies.

The primary capabilities from IBM that support ILM include

optimized storage environments with tiered storage platforms,

policy-based retention management software, content and

records management applications, and non-erasable, non-

rewritable media. The potential benefits to your business

include improved risk management, optimum storage utiliza-

tion, better handling of compliance issues and lower costs.