Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Save with virtualization with IBM

Save with virtualization with IBM

Reduce IT costs, increase asset utilization and improve systems management with IBM Virtualization solutions.

Go Green with IBM

Go green with IBM System x solutions

Reduce costs while helping to build green IT infrastructures.

THANK YOU - from your IBM TEAM @ TD

Just wanted to thank everyone for the support and business through 2008. We have had many changes and some difficult decisions to make throughout the year, but you our customers have stuck by us and continue to support us in our IBM business.
We look forward to 2009 and supporting you through the year as well as growing our relationship and increasing our IBM business.
Have a safe and wonderful NEW YEAR - lets make 2009 GREAT!
__________________________________________________________________
David Pethick IBM Storage & Server Specialist

IBM Team 877-925-9983 ibmsolutions@techdata.ca
Direct 416-388-3760 david.pethick@techdata.ca
IBM information - IBM STORAGE IBM SERVER IBM SERVICEPAC
Tech Data Corporation – SSBU – Storage & Server Business Unit

IBM - Storage - DS5000 Quick Reference Sheet

Great little reference that tells you about the models and options for the NEW DS5000 Storage products.

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

IBM can help in a challenging economy

Thrive... don't just survive

IBM can help in a challenging economy.
Feeling the challenge of the current economy? You are not alone if you are taking a fresh look at the state of your business and considering strategic changes.
You may want to reduce your operating expenses or simply be certain you're getting the most out of your IT infrastructure. Or you might decide it's time to take advantage of your rival's weaknesses and grab a competitive advantage. Whatever your challenges, IBM can help you with strategies for managing your business in these uncertain times.

IBM offers solutions designed to simplify and optimize your infrastructure to meet your business goals. We have energy efficient technologies to help you cut costs. We offer collaboration tools to connect your employees, suppliers and partners and help them be more productive. And with decades of real business experience in good times and bad, IBM knows how to build solutions that can help your business succeed today and into the future.
IBM also offers financing options to help you implement your solution now and still meet your budget challenges. IBM Global Financing can help with:
Competitive low financing rates
Certified used PCs, IBM systems, upgrades and features at a fraction of the price of new

System X and BladeCenter Solutions to reduce IT complexity and costs

Dare to compare

System x and BladeCenter solutions to reduce IT complexity and costs

IBM BladeCenter solutions
IBM BladeCenter, blade servers and switch modules can be seamlessly moved between chassis, giving you incredibly flexible, to efficiently mix-and-match deployment choices and maximize the return on your IT investment. IBM's BladeCenter family has five chassis that help users of any size, type and performance level pick just the right fit.

IBM BladeCenterThe IBM BladeCenter uses up to 50% less floor space and up to 35% less energy than competitor rack servers without sacrificing performance.2

Dare to compare IBM BladeCenter

IBM System x solutions
The x3850 M2 and x3950 M2 deliver ground breaking performance as the first Intel Xeon® processor-based-8-socket systems to break the one million transaction-per-minute performance threshold.3 Their pay-as-you-grow scalability helps consolidate more servers, cut costs and simplify maintenance. You really can do more with less.
IBM System x3850 M2The System x3850 M2 delivers 27 % better performance per watt than HP PoLiant DL580 G5.4

IBM System x3950 M2The System x3950 M2 scales to 16 sockets on an Intel® Xeon®-based platform — for a total of 64 cores. Dell, HP and Sun cannot.

Dare to compare our System x3850 M2 and x3950 M2

Mid-range disk solutions for business critical applications

IBM System Storage DS4000 family offers you a robust portfolio of storage devices, from entry level to high-performance-all flexible, modular and affordable.

IBM System Storage DS4000 familyThe System Storage DS4800 offers the highest performance of DS4000 series for business-critical applications and efficient data replication and 2x the performance of EMC CX3-80.
Dare to compare the DS4000 family

Simple Math that HP and Dell cannot solve

2+2 = Investment protection

Simple math that HP and Dell cannot solve

Meeting today’s budget while planning for tomorrow’s growth can be difficult. With the new IBM BladeCenter® LS42 blade server and IBM’s 2+2 pricing program, IBM offers an affordable, scalable 2-processor LS42 blade server that you can easily upgrade to four processors as your business grows without paying a premium—simple blade expansion with investment protection no competitor can match.

Performance you can count on
The new BladeCenter LS42 blade server features the latest quad-core AMD Opteron processors for industry-leading performance. Supporting high memory capacity 16 DIMM slots and memory speeds up to 800MHz, the LS42 blade server can help drive your most demanding memory-intensive workloads such as virtualization, databases and high performance computing (HPC) applications.

Energy efficiency to help your bottom lineThe LS42 blade server offers an energy-efficient design along with low-voltage processors, integrated memory controller and available solid-state drives to help keep power consumption down and reduce cooling demands in your data center.

Monday, December 22, 2008

Solution - HS21 / HS21XM - INTEL - Solution Offering

SIMPLIFYING YOUR I.T. JUST GOT SIMPLER.

Use the Sell More Blue Grid on AMD Opteron LS21/LS41

Servers and Options and save more

than 50% off of the list price

Scalability. Reliability. Efficiency. Virtualization.

Hit the link and get an editable PDF file where you can add your price, your information and send the file out to your clients.

Solution - HS21 / HS21XM - INTEL - Solution Offering



SIMPLIFYING YOUR I.T. JUST GOT SIMPLER.

Use the Sell More Blue Grid on INTEL HS21/HS21 xm


Servers and Options and save more


than 50% off of the list price




Scalability. Reliability. Efficiency. Virtualization.



Hit the link and get an editable PDF file where you can add your price, your information and send the file out to your clients.


Wednesday, December 17, 2008

RESOURCE - IBM System Storage Technical Resource Guide (PDF)

Below is an electronic guide with link access to the resources for selling and supporting IBM TotalStorage solutions.


IBM System Storage Technical Resource Guide

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Solution - DS4700 - 1.2G Solution Offering



DS4700 Solution Offering


IBM DS4700 Disk System


High capacity and high performance for


today’s on demand business environment



DS4700 - superior SAN storage for Windows, VMware, Linux, NetWare, AIX, HP-UX and Solaris environments



1.2TB Raw Capacity Configuration


Included in this promotion are:


Qty 1 x 181470H – DS4700 Express (includes Windows


Attach Kit, 2 Partition Support, Qty


4 4Gb/s SFP Tranceivers & Rack Kit


Qty 4 x 42D0410 - 300GB Hot-swap 15K FC E-DDM


Qty 2 x 39R6527 – 4Gb/s Dual Port PCIe FC HBA


Qty 4 x 39M5697 - 5M Fiber Optic Cable



Hit the link and get an editable PDF file where you can add your price, your information and send the file out to your clients.


INTERNAL TD - huron/sales/ibm/Promo ibm/Q109/Bundles x/DS4700x

IBM - BladeCenter and System X product Information - Great Resource

Tables are provided for each system (example: x330) and Type (example: 8687). Click on the highlighted hotspot in the table and a Web page will open the subject document.

Click the document name/part number to launch a "PDF" file. Most files will have an index in the left margin where chapters on BladeCenter or System x can be located. Any exceptions to the standard publications are contained in this document under each system heading.

BladeCenter & System x Product Information

Find information like:

Dealer Confidential Hints and Tips
Hints and Tips
Overview
Packaging Instructions
Problem Determination and Service Guide
Replacement Packaging Process
System service parts listing
System x CA Perchlorate requirements
System x Warranty

IBM - VMware Management and Automation products through IBM channel

VMware Management and Automation products offer enhanced virtual machine management capabilities, helping lower total cost of ownership

Click Here for more information

VMware Management and Automation products offer enhanced virtual machine management capabilities, helping lower total cost of ownership. The Management and Automation products include Lifecycle Manager, Lab Manager, Stage Manager, and Site Recovery Manager.

VMware Lifecycle Manager allows you to implement a consistent, automated workflow for provisioning, operating, and decommissioning virtual machines. Lifecycle Manager automates the steps within the workflow to improve efficiency and productivity, and to help comply with internal company policies.

Benefits:
*Employ standardization and best practices for tracking and managing virtual machine deployment and use.
*Help eliminate manual and repetitive administrative tasks through automation.
*Help prevent virtual machine sprawl and respond to IT compliance needs.
*Leverage existing tools such as VMware VirtualCenter, change management software, and IT process and runbook automation tools.

VMware Lab Manager provides a rapid provisioning portal and image library management system to automate the setup and teardown of multimachine software configurations. VMware Lab Manager tightly integrates with VMware Infrastructure and VMware VirtualCenter to help increase service levels and simplify lab administration across multiple teams, projects, and geographies from a central location.

Benefits:
*Help reduce server sprawl and equipment-related capital and operating costs.
*Help reduce provisioning times for single- and multitiered system configurations.
*Help increase resource availability, streamline processes, and improve productivity.
*Help improve communication and collaboration among geographically distributed teams.
*Simplify administration of corporate lab infrastructure for the entire organization.

VMware Stage Manager allows IT service delivery teams to visualize, manage, and automate service transition activities, streamlining the resources and processes required to move an IT service or business application from one stage to another during preproduction. VMware Stage Manager works in concert with VMware Lifecycle Manager and VMware Lab Manager to automate the entire IT service delivery process, from developing, testing, and staging to deploying, monitoring, changing, and eventually retiring an IT service.

Benefits:
*Help reduce time spent rolling out new or upgrading existing services.
*Help accelerate the completion of change requests to production systems.
*More easily respond to change and release management procedures.
*Help increase the resource utilization efficiency of services hosted on VMware Infrastructure.
*Maintain accurate replicas of production systems.
*Help ensure consistency between stages of the release process.
*Help reduce infrastructure costs through more efficient use of hardware resources.
*Help keep a history of service configuration changes.

VMware Site Recovery Manager helps with disaster recovery. Site Recovery Manager delivers centralized management of recovery plans and automates the recovery process. It turns complex paper runbooks associated with traditional disaster recovery into an integrated element of virtual infrastructure management and helps organizations to improve recovery plan testing.

Benefits:
*Help accelerate recovery by automating execution of failover.
*Help simplify the creation and management of recovery plans.
*Help improve the reliability of recovery plans by simplifying recovery and testing.
*Help improve disaster recovery documentation and testing requirements.

Existing VMware Management and Automation products customers with valid support and subscription contracts will receive the new products and features included in each edition at no additional cost.

Information about non-IBM products is obtained from the manufacturers of those products or their published announcements. IBM has not tested those products and cannot confirm the performance, compatibility, or any other claims related to non-IBM products. Questions on the capabilities of non-IBM products should be addressed to the suppliers of those products. IBM makes no representation or warranty regarding third-party products.

Monday, December 15, 2008

IBM BladeCenter Service Advisor

As businesses take on the challenge to deliver greater capability with smaller budgets, they have to become smarter in how they approach every aspect of their IT. Especially in dealing with the sometimes hidden cost of service of the IT. IBM BladeCenter Service Advisor is a proactive way to manage and reduce these costs.

IBM BladeCenter Service Advisor comes standard in all BladeCenter chassis that have the Advanced Management Module. Once activated, it’s like having a 24/7 IT staff onsite at your office or datacenter. If there is a service event on the BladeCenter chassis, Service Advisor has the power to inform you, as well as IBM Service & Support, or your designated service provider. This proactive approach to service can help you eliminate expense, so you can focus on what is important; running your business.

Friday, December 12, 2008

INFORMATION - IBM Systems Director 6.1 FAQ


IBM Systems Director 6.1 FAQ


IBM Systems Director 6.1 Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) document which answers questions like:

·


General Questions

What is being announced ?
Today IBM is announcing our intention to deliver IBM® Systems Director 6.1 in 4Q/08. IBM Systems Director 6.1 is the next generation of IBM Director and is a platform management solution that streamlines the way physical and virtual systems are managed across a multi-system environment. IBM Systems Director provides the base function needed for modular extensible platform services to easily add advanced platform management functions as required. It is the basis for managing systems today and as clients move forward with virtualization and management of their data center as part of cloud computing.


When will IBM Systems Director be available?
IBMs intention is to deliver IBM Systems Director 6.1 in 4Q/08. Additional information on the product including price structures will be available at the product’s general availability.


What's new with IBM Systems Director?
IBM Systems Director 6.1 is the next generation platform management solution that streamlines the way physical and virtual systems are managed across a multi-system environment. IBM Systems Director provides the base function needed for platform modular extensible platform services foundation to easily add advanced platform management functions as required. Through an intuitive, point-and-click user interface, IBM Systems Director provides consistent views for visualizing managed systems that determines how these systems relate to one another while identifying their individual status which helps to quickly identify problems and limit the business impact. The IBM Systems Director solution includes inventory of hardware features and settings, system health and status notification, and system firmware and driver update management. The industry-standard foundation enables multi-systems hardware support and works with a variety of operating systems and network protocols. Key features of IBM Systems Director 6.1:
• Integrates IBM’s best-of-breed virtualization capabilities to provide new and radically improved ways to simplify the management of physical and virtual platform resources
• Unifies the monitoring and control of IBM systems, delivering a consistent look and feel for common management tasks.
• Delivers multi-system support across IBM Power, System x, System z, and IBM Storage systems
• Provides an extendable and modular foundation to advance the core systems management capabilities with additional plug-ins
• Enables seamless integration of IBM systems with the total infrastructure, and upward integration with enterprise service management solutions such as IBM Tivoli
• Delivers a consistent and unified platform management foundation that facilitates reduced training costs.
• Manages non-IBM x86-based systems through a dedicated agent


How is IBM Systems Director 6.1 Different from IBM Director 5.2?
What is new is that we have redesigned a complex product to make it easy to use (intuitive / point and click) to further simplify management of a virtualized datacenter. This also provides a more stable/reliable product that is easy to maintain and can be used as a single system platform manager (consolidating multiple tools into one) or across multiple systems giving a single simplified view across many. This is why we call IBM Systems Director 6.1 the "next generation of platform management." This does not necessarily translate into performance savings, but savings in people time to manage (understand, add/delete and fix) the environment, which the new ITG Analysts Paper states can be as much as 23% in management savings. Virtualization management was an add-on in IBM® Director 5.2 and is now integrated into IBM Systems Director 6.1. Also, we have enhanced integration points Systems Director has with Tivoli in order to provide rich hardware information and capabilities into a business and services context. In an effort to help customers attack their NEDC issues, IBM Systems Director is still no charge (for IBM systems)


What is the value that IBM Systems Director 6.1 brings to clients?
IBM Systems Director 6.1 enables improved system availability, helps lower IT costs and enables customers to get started faster and be more productive with an open integrated toolset. IBM Systems Director 6.1 provides the following value to customers
• Simplifies operations by offering monitoring and event management capabilities
• Simplifies IT management of multiple industry leading hypervisors through the use of a single tool
• Reduces the complexity of virtualization through understanding and communicating the relationship of physical servers to virtual servers (i.e. VMware)
• Reduces the time associated with analyzing unavailable systems by providing a topology graph views to show relationships between virtual and physical systems and their manageable components to simplify troubleshooting
• Enhances productivity through a simplified easy to use web-based user interface for management of virtual and physical systems.
• Protects IT investments by utilizing an open, standards-based design that facilitates the management of IBM multi-systems environments and select non-IBM systems
• Seamlessly integrates with enterprise management products from IBM Tivoli and other software vendors
• Improves IT efficiency by easily integrating with single system platform management products for AIX, IBM i,, System z and System x
• Reduces IT costs for training and maintaining multiple tools by providing one easy to use interface for management of virtual and physical systems
• Reduces systems maintenance window churn by supporting currency for physical and virtual servers as well as operating systems
• Reduces human error by providing automated support of VMWare’s VMotion based upon physical hardware status information



How can Systems Director assist in deployment of virtualization?
Virtualization has completely transformed enterprise-class IT. Virtualized solutions unlock technological resources, such as processing power and storage, from specific hardware, redelivering them in a fluid form that can be allocated dynamically to business goals and strategies in real time. Next-generation virtualized infrastructures, however, require next-generation management such as IBM Systems Director 6.1. With IBM Systems Director, the underlying technical differences across different hardware and software virtual solutions are abstracted out, allowing administrators to manage the overall virtualized infrastructure as a unified whole. Furthermore, through its next-generation feature set—extensible via a plug-in architecture—IBM Systems Director can help you accomplish more through virtualization than ever before.


Basic support for common lifecycle management tasks used throughout the virtual infrastructure is significantly simplified and enhanced with Virtualization Manager as part of IBM Systems Director. In IBM Systems Director 6.1 Virtualization Manager includes support for virtualized environments managed by wholly different server virtualization environments. These include Hardware Management Console (HMC), Integrated Virtualization Manager (IVM), Microsoft Virtual Server, VMware and Xen virtualization. Some additional basic discovery and health management is supported for z/VM virtualization. As a result of this cross-solution management consolidation, you can visualize and control both the physical and virtual resources from a single user interface.


Features and benefits of Virtualization Manager in IBM Systems Director 6.1 include:
• Consolidated management for different virtualized environments and tools, including Hardware Management Console (HMC), Integrated Virtualization Manager (IVM), Microsoft® Virtual Server, VMware and Xen virtualization.
• A topology viewer to relate the connection between physical and virtual resources, which can vary dynamically across time.
• Tracking of alerts and system status for virtual resources and their resources to easily diagnose problems affecting virtual resources.
• Creation of automation plans based on events and actions from virtual and physical resources, such as relocating a virtual server based on critical hardware alerts.
• Lifecycle management tasks, such as creating additional virtual servers, editing virtual server resources or relocating virtual servers to alternate physical hosts.



How can IBM Systems Director 6.1 assist in saving energy?
IBM Systems Director allows you to extend the base platform with additional plug-ins, that are separately installed. By following design guidelines, a plug-in of this type can deliver key new functionalities while retaining a consistent user experience with the base offering by taking advantage of the common tasks and capabilities. One such plug-in is IBM® Systems Director Active Energy Manager. Active Energy Manager measures, monitors and manages the energy components built into IBM systems, enabling a cross-platform management solution. Active Energy Manager extends the scope of energy management to include facility providers, thus enabling a more complete view of energy consumption within the data center.



Does this leverage my customer's current investment in IBM® Director 5.20?
IBM Systems Director 6.1 enables a smooth transition for customers using IBM Director 5.20. The IBM Systems Director 6.1 Common Agent can optionally be used to replace the previous 5.x Level 2 Agent (though Director will continue to work with it, as well). This option will appeal to many administrators because the new agent supports a richer set of features and subagent tasks. A forthcoming migration tool imports customer data from previous Director releases so it can be used with IBM Systems Director 6.1.


IBM Systems Director Jumpstart services from IBM will be enhanced to provide clients with the expertise and experience of STG Lab Services to speed up the analysis and deployment of IBM Systems Director 6.1 and can assist existing IBM Director customers migrate to the new release. In addition, key skills are transferred to IT and facility management staffs for effective management of systems. Additional information will be available at product availability.


How does IBM Systems Director 6.1 leverage open standards?
IBM Systems Director 6.1 helps spur cross-system management consistency by representing agent information in a consistent manner. Regardless of the type of agent or protocol configured on an operating system, the user interface delivers a single system view of the operating system and its related resources, thereby consolidating system health information and also depicting common tasks, such as inventory and updates. In version 6.1, the following agent types are supported: No Director Agent, Platform Agent, and Common Agent.


The Platform Agent is well-suited to environments in which a smaller agent footprint is desired, yet one in which administrators wish to retain a broad array of features. It provides a subset of Common Agent functions used to communicate with and administer the managed system, including hardware alerts and status information.


IBM’s ongoing commitment to improve interoperability through open standards, rather than through proprietary technologies, is evidenced by Platform Agent. This agent provides discovery, authentication and management entirely through industry standards, such as the Common Information Model (CIM) and Web-based Enterprise Management (WBEM) interfaces, which were developed by a consortium of major hardware and software vendors (including IBM) called the Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF). The CIM provides the framework upon which a system can be managed by using common building blocks rather than proprietary software. If a device is CIM-compliant, software that is also CIM-compliant, such as Systems Director, can more easily manage the device.


This open standard commitment enables clients to include a larger scope of systems within their managed infrastructure.


What endpoints can be managed with IBM Systems Director 6.1 ?
In general current models of Power systems, Systems x, Blades/BladeCenter and System z servers as well as Systems storage and non-IBM systems are supported as end points with IBM Systems Director 6.1.


For a complete list of supported systems and operating environments, visit the IBM Systems Director website at www.ibm.com/systems/management/director/



Which servers can host the Systems Director server?
The IBM Systems Director 6.1 management server is available on IBM servers running Linux on x86, Linux on System z, Linux on Power, AIX, as well as Windows operating environments, and can manage other operating systems such as IBM i.


For a complete list of supported systems and operating environments, visit the IBM Systems Director website at www.ibm.com/systems/management/director/



How does the new Systems Director improve integration with Tivoli suite?
IBM Systems Director 6.1 has been designed to work with Tivoli products to provide a total systems management solution that is easily managed by our customers while eliminating redundancy across both product sets.


The IBM Systems Director console builds on industry-standard technologies (AJAX, Web 2.0, JSR 168 portlets) and leverages existing components to provide a powerful and extensible Web- based console. Because it’s Web-based, the console is exceptionally easy to administer, and can be accessed from any supported browser. It allows you to carry out many essential platform tasks spanning a broad range of resources, such as storage management tools, IBM Tivoli system management solutions and embedded consoles included with systems like BladeCenter, HMC, Service Processors and various operating systems.


The IBM Systems Director Common Agent is a cross compatible, single agent runtime shared by IBM systems and Tivoli products, such as Tivoli Provisioning Manager, that reduces agent footprint, supports shared credentials and drives discovery, inventory and other common services




What's the difference between Systems Director and Tivoli? How do they work together?


IBM management solutions – from rich platform management provided by Systems Director to enterprise and service management from Tivoli – is the most comprehensive in the industry and delivers the solutions you need to help drive greater IT efficiencies and improved business performance.


• System Director’s focus is on IBM hardware platform management, health and configuration to help deliver maximum availability for your IBM systems. It consists of a set of industry leading tools that provide very granular platform management information - for both physical and virtual resources - which can be integrated into Tivoli products, providing them with richer hardware metrics.
Tivoli offers industry leading service management by providing customers the integrated visibility, control & automation across the service lifecycle that are needed to innovate and achieve business objectives.
• The Tivoli software portfolio of products provides a set of management capabilities which are broader in scope than Systems Director and are more scalable for enterprise-wide operations. Tivoli products also go beyond platform management and provide advanced, automated tools for managing software applications, networks, storage and how IT resources, performance and usage fit and with overall business policies and goals as part of service management.
• A key point of this announcement are new integration points and joint offerings between Systems Director and Tivoli which provides a smooth bridge from Systems Director to full cross-enterprise service management capabilities using Tivoli software solutions. By integrating Systems Director with select Tivoli products, Systems Director's rich platform management capabilities and hardware data can be brought into a broader business service context. This enhances troubleshooting, reporting, energy efficiency, and capacity planning that can help customers deliver highly available, critical business services that drive their business results.
• The Systems Director toolset and Tivoli Software are complementary and can be used either individually or together to deliver industry leading end-to-end IT management.



How does IBM Systems Director 6.1 interact with Tivoli?
IBM Systems Director 6.1 has been designed to work with Tivoli products to provide a total systems management solution that is easily managed by our customers while eliminating redundancy across both product sets.


The IBM Systems Director console builds on industry-standard technologies (AJAX, Web 2.0, JSR 168 portlets) and leverages existing components to provide a powerful and extensible Web- based console. Because it’s Web-based, the console is exceptionally easy to administer, and can be accessed from any supported browser. It allows you to carry out many essential platform tasks spanning a broad range of resources, such as storage management tools, IBM Tivoli system management solutions and embedded consoles included with systems like BladeCenter, HMC, Service Processors and various operating systems.


The IBM Systems Director Common Agent is a cross compatible, single agent runtime shared by IBM systems and Tivoli products, such as Tivoli Provisioning Manager, that reduces agent footprint, supports shared credentials and drives discovery, inventory and other common services



How is storage supported in IBM Systems Director 6.1?
A key strength of IBM Systems Director is the power it gives IT managers to manage not only virtual servers, but also virtual storage—a fundamentally different class of technology that must nevertheless be integrated with virtual server management for best business results. By transforming both processing power and storage into fluid resources that can be dynamically allocated to business services in a prioritized manner, IT can help organizations to achieve business goals more efficiently and cost effectively.


IBM Systems Director’s Storage Management plug-in helps fulfill this exciting possibility via lifecycle management of storage systems, including discovery, health and status monitoring, configuration, updates and virtualization. It also provides a Welcome Page summary view and platform-specific functions. Some of its capabilities include:
• Seamless integration of the Storage Configuration Manager (SCM) features for managing integrated RAID Controllers, BladeCenter’s SAS Module and BC-S RAID SAS Module.
• Integration of embedded management interfaces for DS3000, DS4000 and DS6000, and TPC LE to provide management of SVC, DS8000 and ESS storage devices.
• Simplified discovery and management scenarios for storage systems that require the SIM-S proxy agent (SNIA Storage Management Interface Specification) to be managed.
• Standards-based storage implementations to reduce confusion, ease vendor adoption and broaden the storage systems supported by Systems Director.
• Automation plans based on events and actions from storage resources.
• Support for IBM System Storage™ Area Network products.



What plug-ins are supported by IBM Systems Director 6.1 and when are they supported?
IBM Systems Director allows you to extend the base platform with additional plug-ins, separately installed. By following design guidelines, a plug-in of this type can deliver key new functionalities while retaining a consistent user experience with the base offering by taking advantage of the common tasks and capabilities. IBM intends to the deliver the following Systems Director plug-ins.


IBM intends to:
• Deliver an updated version of IBM Systems Director Active Energy Manager as a plug-in to IBM Systems Director in 1Q09
• Provide a migration tool, in 1Q09, to facilitate customer migrations from IBM Director 5.20.
• Provide a virtual server image management plug-in to IBM Systems Director in 2009.
• IBM intends to deliver an updated version of IBM Blade Center Open Fabric Manager as a plug-in to IBM Systems Director in 2009
• Availability functions as part of IBM Systems Director in 2009
• Provide a capacity planning plug-in to IBM Systems Director in 2009
• Tivoli® Provisioning Manager for OS Deployment (TPMfOSD) tool which enables a customer to provision an operating system via a library of disk images to supported systems on the network.


Product previews provide insight into IBM plans and directions. General availability, prices, ordering information, and terms and conditions will be provided when the product is announced.

For a complete list of Systems Director plug-ins and their availability, visit the IBM Systems Director website at
www.ibm.com/systems/management/director/.



What IBM Systems and/or operating systems are supported by IBM Systems Director 6.1?
In general current models of Power systems, Systems x, Blades/BladeCenter and System z servers as well as Systems storage and non-IBM systems are supported with IBM Systems Director 6.1. IBM Systems Director 6.1 is available on IBM servers running Linux on x86, Linux on System z, Linux on Power, AIX, as well as Windows operating environments, and can manage other operating systems such as IBM i.


For a complete list of supported systems and operating environments, visit the IBM Systems Director website at www.ibm.com/systems/management/director/



Are agents required on every system that is managed by IBM Systems Director 6.1?


No, although the type of agent may vary based upon the support required for the managed end-point. IBM Systems Director is designed to facilitate the best possible utilization of both storage-based and server-based physical and virtual resources throughout the infrastructure. In order to accomplish this task, the solution combines three main components: a single web-based console, a central management server and agents (either common or platform-based). In version 6.1, the following agent types are supported: Common Agent, Platform Agent, and No Director Agent.
• The IBM Systems Director 6.1 Common Agent can optionally be used to replace the previous 5.x Level 2 Agent (though Director will continue to work with it, as well). This option will appeal to many administrators because the new agent supports a richer set of features and subagent tasks.
• The Platform Agent is well-suited to environments in which a smaller agent footprint is desired, yet one in which administrators wish to retain a broad array of features. It provides a subset of Common Agent functions used to communicate with and administer the managed system, including hardware alerts and status information. This agent provides discovery, authentication and management entirely through industry standards, such as the Common Information Model (CIM) and Web-based Enterprise Management (WBEM) interfaces, which were developed by a consortium of major hardware and software vendors (including IBM) called the Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF).
• With No Director Agent support, IBM Systems Director also provides a set of manageability functions for managed systems that have neither the Common Agent nor the Platform Agent installed. These systems with no Director Agent are best for environments that require very small footprints and are used for specific tasks, such as one-time inventory collection, firmware and driver updates and remote deployment. Systems without a Director Agent must support the Secure Shell (SSH), Distributed Component Object Model (DCOM) protocol or SNMP in order for Systems Director to support them.


What IBM Systems and/or operating systems are supported by IBM Systems Director 6.1?
In general current models of Power systems, Systems x, Blades/BladeCenter and System z servers as well as Systems storage and non-IBM systems are supported with IBM Systems Director 6.1. IBM Systems Director 6.1 is available on IBM servers running Linux on x86, Linux on System z, Linux on Power, AIX, as well as Windows operating environments, and can manage other operating systems such as IBM i.


For a complete list of supported systems and operating environments, visit the IBM Systems Director website at www.ibm.com/systems/management/director/



What non-IBM systems does IBM Systems Director 6.1 support?
The IBM Systems Director 6.1 management server is not supported on non-IBM hardware – this is a change from pervious releases of IBM Director. IBM Systems Director 6.1 agents are supported on non-IBM x86-compatible systems running Linux and/or Windows. The IBM Systems Director Agent provides basic system-management capabilities on non-IBM Intel-based or AMD-based systems with SMBIOS 2.1 or later that meet the Intel® Wired for Management (WfM) 2.0 specification. These functions and features include File Transfer, Inventory (Software), Power Management, Process Management, Remote Control (VNC or Remote Desktop), Remote Session, Resource Monitors, SNMP events for SNMP Agent and SNMP Browser.


The IBM Systems Director license agreement enables Power Systems, System z and System x customers, up to a maximum of 20 free non-IBM x86 Agent licenses for no charge. Additional Agent licenses, for a list price of $59/server continue to be available from IBM.com after having purchased. Power Systems and System z customers will be able to order service and support for their non-IBM x86 machines in the same manner they currently order this for IBM platforms.



How does IBM Systems Director 6.1 compare to HP Insight Manager?
IBM Systems Director 6.1 competes with HPs Systems Insight Manager (SIM) while providing a broader scope of coverage and superior functionality across systems than what HP offers. HPs SIM focuses on HPs UNX and Intel servers while providing minimal support for non-HP systems. IBM Systems Director not only focuses on UNX and Intel servers, but also includes mainframe systems as well as support for storage and non-IBM systems. Both IBM and HP provide compatibility support for systems they do not sell while supporting more in-depth functions for their own systems. On a function by function basis IBM System Director delivers improved benefits in the following areas.

• Failure prediction and resolution for IBM systems
• New easy to use web interface technology which is not available with HP SIM
• IBM Systems Director software health checking will automatically indicate when software needs to be updated
• Easy-to-use wizard builds Event Automation Plans
• Single agent install/remove (one package contains all agents)
• Virtualization management delivered with the IBM Systems Director base (don't have to buy a plug-in)
• Systems Director has better grouping capability because more functions can operate on a group, such as deployment of updates for a group of systems
• Dashboard views are more granular and allow customization
• Topology navigation for viewing and analyzing relationships between managed resources
• Explore file system of a managed system
• Explore services that are running on a managed system
• Context-based task execution
• Acquire appropriate updates only (based on software inventory), HP acquires all updates for the platform


IBM Systems Director provides simplified management which can mean faster time-to-solution in the event of a problem; higher return on investment; a tailored fit between features, functions and the specific needs of your organization; and an accelerated, more flexible response to changing business goals and strategies.



What implementation services are available to help client install IBM Systems Director 6.1?
IBM Systems Director Jumpstart is a service that provides the client with the expertise and experience of STG Lab Services to speed up the analysis and deployment of IBM Systems Director and can assist existing IBM Director customers migrate to the new release. In addition, key skills are transferred to IT and facility management staffs for effective management of systems. More information can be obtained at the following website:
http://www.ibm.com/systems/services/labservices/pdf/stgls_aem_ij_lr.pdf



What is the cost of IBM Systems Director 6.1?
IBM Systems Director management server and agents are available on IBM Systems as a
“no-charge” feature of the system and can be downloaded through the IBM Systems Director website at:
www.ibm.com/systems/management/director/
Service and support is orderable through the respective platform ordering mechanisms or in the case of Systems x through GTS service offerings.

The IBM Systems Director license agreement enables Power Systems, System z and System x customers, up to a maximum of 20 free non-IBM x86 Agent licenses for no charge. Additional non-IBM x86 agent licenses for servers will continue to be available from IBM.com for a list price of $59/server. Power Systems and System z customers will be able to order service and support for their non-IBM x86 machines in the same manner they currently order this for IBM platforms.


Additional information on the product including price structures will be available at the product's general availability.



Where can I find more information on IBM Systems Director 6.1?
More information can be found at the IBM Systems Director website at:
www.ibm.com/systems/management/director/.



BRAND SPECIFIC QUESTIONS



System x


How does Systems Director support my VMware environment?
Systems Director provides a rich set of functionality for a VMware virtualized x86 environment. The topology view helps customers understand and manage the relationships between physical and virtual resources. The Virtualization Manager function included in Systems Director can perform lifecycle tasks in an ESX environment, such as creating or deleting new VMs. Systems Director can link to VMware VirtualCenter (ESX and ESXi) to surface advanced VMware technologies such as VMotion within Systems Director and to include such functions in event action plans to help automate the response to system alerts.


How does Systems Director support my Microsoft virtualization environment?
Systems Director provides lifecycle management for Microsoft Virtual Server environments. For the new Hyper-V environment, System Director will provide lifecycle support in a future release. Since Hyper-V is built on Windows 2008, the current version of Systems Director will provide management of physical resources for servers running a Hyper-V environment.


How is service and support purchased for a System x or BladeCenter server?
Support is purchased from GTS through a ServicePac or SupportLine agreement. Support of Systems Director requires a support contract for the system(s) running Systems Director server (ServicePac support for a System x server running IBM Systems Director server software includes support for IBM Systems Director agent software running on managed endpoints.)


There is mention of how Systems Director 6.1 works with the previous 5.20 versions of IBM Director. Can it interoperate with old versions?
IBM intends to expand Systems Director 6.1 agent support to include the 5.10 L2 agents.


Source: The FAQ has been provided to us by IBM, IBM Systems Director


For the full document



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Thursday, December 11, 2008

NOTICE - DS4300 UPGRADE - LIMITED OPPORTUNITY

Did you sell the IBM DS4300 Storage Unit
Do you have customers that need more storage or Features
YOUR LAST OPPORTUNITY TO UPGRADE THESE CUSTOMERS
Currently you can purchase the EXP810 and drives to upgrade the storage; the issue was not being able to obtain the licenses to make it work as they went EOL in March of this year.
IBM has put an order exception process in place to allow you to upgrade your customers for a short period of time.

With hundreds of DS4300 in the field, many of you have sold those units and have had requests for these licenses in the past. Call those customers; sell them the upgrades and licenses today before it's too late.

I have included the FULL list of DS4300 licenses, but this is an exception ordering program which means some products may not be available depending on when the order is placed.

PROCESS: Please email ibmsolutions@techdata.ca with your request; we will get the part number activated as well as confirming the pricing. Through your CRBP you will need to request an exception order with some specific details which we will post on the BLOG on the right side (DS4300 Upgrades). Once you’re given the approval you then can place the order with Tech Data. ETA on this will be up to 4 weeks once the order is placed since IBM is not stocking these, but getting them from LSI.

24P8217
DS4300 FLASHCOPY
24P8218
DS4300 VOLUMECOPY
24P8219
DS4300 FLASH/VOLUME COPY
25R0169
DS4300 ENCLOSURE INTERMIX
24P8066
DS4300 TWO EXP700 ATTACH
24P8149
DS4300 1ST EXP700 ATTACH
24P8151
DS4300 2ND EXP 700 ATTAC
24P8183
DS4300 3RD EXP700 ATTACH
24P8180
DS4000 THREE EXP700 ATCHM
24P8067
DS4300 INTEL PACK
24P8068
DS4300 LINUX/INTEL HOST
24P8069
DS4300 NOVELL NETWARE HO
24P8070
DS4300 VMWARE HOST KIT
24P8072
DS4300 AIX HOST KIT
24P8073
DS4300 SUN HOST KIT
24P8074
DS4300 HP-UX HOST KIT
25R0091
DS4300 LINUX FOR POWER HOST
39M5711
DS4300 IBD FOR EXCHANGE
24P8075
DS4300 4-STORAGE PART.AC
24P8157
DS4300 8-STORAGE PART.AC
24P8221
DS4300 16 STORAGE PARTIT
24P8154
DS4300 4TO8 STORAGE PART
24P8223
DS4300 UPG.FROM 8 TO 16