IBM storage support and maintenance
Finding it a little confusing whether your IBM storage system is at “EOL” end of life or “EOS” end of support? Don’t worry, because everyone at DC Parts provides relevant information to help demystify the confusion that can sometimes engulf the world of Information and Technology. We provide storage-specific focus on IBM N and V series models. Please take a look at the respective pages to find more information about specific models for which we are able to provide technical solutions and ongoing support.
Outsourcing IBM storage maintenance
A key factor for most organizations today is the ability to utilize and maximize internal resources to minimize any additional operational costs. DC Parts provides a variety of services, from technical to support maintenance solutions that focus on this ideology. These services range from providing organizations with a spare parts kit for on-site maintenance and utilizing the available in-house resource as a cost-effective approach, as opposed to a comprehensive maintenance support solution. This service can also be enhanced by providing additional technical resources through remote assistance if a specific skill set is required, but still maintaining a cost-prohibitive solution.
Residual asset value for your IBM hardware
Our unique IBM storage maintenance and support service can provide you with the potential to customize a cost-neutral maintenance contract for IBM storage that is now post-warranty, end-of-life, or end-of-life (EOL/EOSL). Our service allows clients with IBM hardware to have multiple stages in a lifecycle program, while providing extended maintenance support regardless of the need for 3, 6, 9 or even 12 months of support, thus effectively creating a cost-neutral solution.
Cost reduction in your contract
We allow a cost-neutral maintenance solution to be delivered through the residual value on your IBM storage hardware that we would remove at the end of the agreed-upon maintenance support term. As well as services for secure decommissioning and data erasure in accordance with internal compliance requirements will also be part of the hardware lifecycle services program discussion.
If you don’t need a support service, our maintenance service can still benefit you. As such, we can provide a residual value quote for your IT server and storage hardware and discuss the process of data decommissioning and disposal, allowing you to achieve a much higher return on your initial capital investment. There is no obligation to get a quote from DC Parts, but it does allow you to explore whether this service can be feasible and beneficial to you.
DC PARTS SERVICE PACKAGES
We specialize in providing solutions for IT equipment that is out of warranty. With more than 5 years of experience in the market, we offer comprehensive maintenance, repair, replacement and resale services for a variety of recognized brands, including Cisco, Dell EMC, HPE, IBM, NetApp, among others.
HOURS ON DEMAND
Sometimes, you may not need an ongoing support contract, but rather one-off support such as firmware updates, support for your virtualization system or operating system, or even diagnosing issues affecting your environment. With this need in mind, DC Parts has developed packages of consumable hours, valid for 6 months. Offer you the flexibility to have a partner when you need it, without the obligation of monthly commitments.
COVERAGE SERVICE IN THE HOURS PACKAGE
- Hardware Firmware Update
- Troubleshooting Hardware and Software
- Connectivity Configuration
- Disk pool management (expansion, disk/lun creation)
- Performance analysis (server/storage/network)
- Support for changing parts in person
- Environment documentation
- Analysis and best practices
- Support Storage/Server/Blade/Switch/Firewall/Switch FC
HOURS PACKAGE
- Minimum of 3 hours of service (commute counts as hours worked)
- Remote 24×7 – Face-to-face 24×7 (Brasilia- São Paulo) / 8×5 other cities in Brazil
- SLA of 12 hours remote (24×7) or 24 hours in person (8×5), after opening tickets.
To know our values, contact us and ask for our price list for our hour packages.
SUPPORTED EQUIPMENT
- We offer support for the entire FlashSystem line, including the 9200, 9100, 7200, 5200, 5100 and 5000 models. These all-flash systems deliver exceptional performance and efficiency for critical workloads.
- We support the Storwize series, including the V7000, V5000, V3700, and V3500, which is known for its flexibility and scalability.
- Our support covers rugged enterprise systems such as DS8900F, DS8880, DS8870, DS8800, and the DS6000 series.
- We support the SVC 2145-DH8 and 2145-SV1 models, which are essential for storage virtualization.
- We support a variety of tape libraries, including TS4500, TS3500, TS3310, and TS3200.
- We maintain support for older systems, including IBM XIV Storage System and the DS3000, DS4000, and DS5000 series.
The IBM Storwize family provides organizations with robust mid-tier storage solutions that are suitable for many Serial Attached SCSI “SAS” client environments. Most SAS workloads can be identified as incoming and outgoing “I/O” requests predominantly from large blocks to large volumes of data. The performance of the storwize V series is capable of supporting up to nearly one million IOPS. This midrange storage solution from IBM is designed to deliver enterprise-grade performance, scalability, and ease of management in many application environments, such as the aforementioned SAS environment.
The flexibility of IBM’s modular midrange storage solution gives you the ability to easily increase capacity as your data needs grow, providing scalability to 960 HDDs (forty 24-bay bays). The intuitive GUI eliminates the complexity of simple tasks such as storage configuration, storage provisioning, storage classification, and capacity upgrades. The pre-installed software offers simplified out-of-the-box provisioning, online data migration, simplified remote mirroring, easy tiering, and event monitoring.
Our team of support specialists is able to discuss viable cost-effect options for ongoing maintenance support or technical consultation on the IBM Storwize V series platform.
Benefits of DC Parts maintenance support on IBM V storage
- IBM V-Series Hardware Technical Diagnostics and Repair
- Level 3 engineer assigned to an account
- Global Service Availability
- Email alert notification
- Maintenance support for current and end-of-life IBM equipment
- Pro-rata and co-termination support dates
- Consultancy
- Detailed Health Check Reports
- Site Audits/Surveys
- Data/Platform Migration
- IT Decommissioning
- Data Erasure
- Highly experienced and specially trained technical field engineers
- On-site spare parts kit
- Multiple methods to generate a failed call ticket
- Helpdesk assistance
- Operation and Setup Assistance
- AIX
- Flexible short- and long-term maintenance support contracts
- Hardware Rental
- Digital Media Retention (DMR)
- Operational Savings
IBM V end of support, but not DC Parts
EOSL “End of Life” Dates
- STORWIZE V3700
- STORWIZE V5000
- STORWIZE V7000
- JULY 2020
Trying to understand the position of IBM N-series systems can be a bit confusing, and we hope that the following information can be helpful. The end of official availability understood for the new N-series arrays was May 27, 2014. Customers are still able to upgrade various pieces of equipment for the next 12 months, but support for current N-series configurations will still be available in 2018.
However, IBM does not plan to support the N-series portfolio going forward. This will inevitably force N-Series customers to understand that their organization’s data is on a platform that is nearing end-of-life and supported by the manufacturer. However, DC Parts is able to maintain and continue to support this equipment in the future. Our technical understanding and knowledge of these systems can provide you with the time to perform the necessary due diligence on alternative storage solutions, but also provide you with the ability to achieve a greater return on investment.
Being an independent, vendor-agnostic IT service provider, why not speak to a DC Parts consultant to see if we can customize a support solution to meet your current needs? Our goal is to provide a cost-effective and flexible approach without any hassle.
Benefits of DC Parts maintenance support on IBM N storage
- IBM N-series hardware technical diagnostics and repair
- Level 3 engineer assigned to an account
- Global Service Availability
- Email alert notification
- Maintenance support for current and end-of-life IBM equipment
- Pro-rata and co-termination support dates
- Consultancy
- Detailed Health Check Reports
- Site Audits/Surveys
- Data/Platform Migration
- IT Decommissioning
- Data Erasure
- Highly experienced and specially trained technical field engineers
- On-site spare parts kit
- Multiple methods to generate a failed call ticket
- Helpdesk assistance
- Operation and Setup Assistance
- ONTAP Data
- Flexible short- and long-term maintenance support contracts
- Hardware Rental
- Digital Media Retention (DMR)
- Operational Savings
IBM N end of support, but not DC Parts
EOSL “End of Life” Dates
- N3150 – JULY 2018
- N3220 – JULY 2018
- N3240 – JULY 2018
- N3300 – JUNE 2017
- N3400 – OCTOBER 2017
- N3600 – DECEMBER 2014
- N5200 – MARCH 2014
- N5500 – DECEMBER 2012
- N6040 – MARCH 2017
- N6060 – MARCH 2017
- N6210 – JULY 2018
- N6220 – JULY 2018
- N6240 – JULY 2018
- N6250 – JULY 2018
- N6270 – JULY 2018
- N7800 – JUNE 2017
- N7900 – DECEMBER 2015
- N7550T – JULY 2018
- N7950T
IBM DS8000 Series Technical Specifications
IBM’s DS8000 family of disk storage is rated as the best storage system for mainframe connection. The DS8000 series is IBM’s mission-critical flagship storage family, providing an RPO of less than 3 seconds; Replication sites 3 and 4 and has an availability rating of 6 9’s. Used DS8800, DS8870 and DS8880 systems are available, as well as Top Gun Technology maintenance service for the DS8800 and DS8870s.
IBM DS5000 Series Technical Specifications
IBM’s DS5300 is a block storage system with 4/8 GB FC or 1 GB iSCSI connection with support for FC drive technology and is the predecessor of the Storwize v7000. Top Gun technology provides shelf additions and maintenance support for the DS5300, allowing you to extend the life of your storage system a little further.
IBM DS4000 Series Technical Specifications
IBM’s DS4000 family of disk storage is IBM’s first 2GB/4GB modular FC rack-mounted storage system. Drives and shelves are available for select DS4000 models, as well as Top Gun maintenance support to extend the life of the DS4000 a little further.
IBM DS3000 Series Technical Specifications
IBM’s DS3500 series of disk storage was IBM’s affordable entry-level storage offering moving to SAS drive technology. Drives and shelves for many of the DS3500s are available, as well as Top Gun maintenance support, allowing you to extend the use of your IBM DS3500 disk storage a little further.
IBM XIV Technical Specifications
IBM’s XIV disk storage is known for its grid architecture, it has high levels of reliability, performance, scalability, and functionality that is provided through its operating system – Spectrum Accelerate. Additional RAM has been added on the 314 which is dedicated to compression. Built-in software functionality includes snapshots, thin provisioning, remote mirroring, and space reclamation.
IBM Storwize V7000 technical specifications
IBM’s Storwize v7000 spans multiple generations and offers cost-effective mid-to-high-end storage options. The v7000 offers hardware-based compression, 4-way clustering for all generations, and scalability, providing non-disruptive expansion using IBM’s Spectrum Virtualize O/S, making it easy to manage, migrate, and offsite (licensed) virtualization.
IBM Storwize V5000 technical specifications
IBM’s Storewize v5000 spans 2 generations and offers cost-effective entry-level to mid-tier storage, as well as a vast selection of NL-SAS, SAS and SSD drives. The v5000 series scales in functionality with each model. The high-end v5000 (v5030) offers 2-way clustering, external virtualization (licensed), and encryption (licensed). All v5000s use Spectrum Virtualize O/S.
IBM TS2200 and TS2300 technical specifications
IBM offers a cost-effective, single-desktop LTO tape drive designed for small businesses that need a tape backup solution. The half-height TS2200 and full-height TS2300 connect directly to a server.
IBM TS2900 Technical Specifications
IBM’s TS2900 series is a half-height flatbed tape drive with an autoloader designed for businesses that need to access multiple cartridges. The autoloader saves labor by automatically managing up to 9 cartridges stored in the magazine.
IBM TS3100 and TS3200 Technical Specifications
IBM’s TS3100 and TS3200 tape libraries feature the small automated tape library for managing 24 to 48 tape cartridges and 1 to 4 tape drives in full-height or half-height size. Drives range from LTO 4 to LTO 8 and are available in 8 GB SAS or FC. Library-managed encryption and system-managed encryption are available as optional features.
IBM TS3310 Technical Specifications
IBM’s TS3310 is a modular, scalable LTO tape library designed to support up to 26 drives and 409 cartridge slots in a single rack. The system scales up from 5U to 41U and can be scaled as tape backup requirements increase. The TS3310 offers optional support for both library and managed system encryption and is multipathed with each tape drive able to be configured as an individual logical library.
IBM TS3500 Technical Specifications
IBM’s TS3500 is an enterprise-class automated tape library management system designed to work with LTO technology using IBM 3588 LTO tape drives and IBM’s 3592 tape technology using IBM TS1120 to TS1150 tape drives. The TS3500 supports mixed media in the same system, scales to 16 frames, and supports up to 192 tape drives. The TS3500 has drive-level encryption, supports multiple host attachments, can support connecting TS7700 virtual tape servers, and has dual accessor connection via the high-availability frame.
IBM TS4500 Technical Specifications
IBM’s TS4500 succeeds the TS3500 in IBM’s enterprise-class automated tape library offering. The TS4500 has advanced features for integrated tape drive and media management, supports z14 and up to 284 drives, scales to 18 frames, and supports TS1140-1160 and LTO 5 through LTO 8. In addition, the TS4500 offers flexibility to grow. both right and left sides of the first L-frame for floor space flexibility.
IBM 3592 Tape Drives and Controllers Technical Specifications
IBM’s proprietary 3592 tape family offers higher throughput, better data protection and data integrity features, more flexible cartridge usage, and the ability to attach to a ficon controller through LTO technology. The 3592 can operate in a stand-alone rack-mounted environment, or it can be integrated with a TS3500 or TS4500 ATL. The current products listed below are available on the second-hand market.
IBM 3588 LTO Tape Drives Technical Specifications
IBM’s 3588 LTO tape series are LTO units designed for installation in TS3500 and TS4500 automated tape library systems. Depending on the frame model, the TS3500 can support LTO 3 up to LTO 8 tape drive, and frames can be mixed in ATL to allow flexibility across multiple generations. The TS4500 supports 3588 LTO 5 to LTO 8 tape drives.
IBM TS7700 Series Technical Specifications
The IBM TS7700 series of virtual tape servers are designed to connect to the TS3500 and TS4500 tape library and are available as stand-alone storage systems independent of a tape library. The TS7700 offers a modular and scalable architecture, allowing capacity to grow as needs change. The TS7700 series adds disk performance for greater efficiency and can be configured in a grid environment with a disaster recovery box for additional backup.
IBM Flash Series Technical Specifications
IBM offers many variations of its flash technology utilizing its patented flash core modules bundled with different Spectrum O/S offerings. The first generations of Flash 840 and Flash 900 with AE1 and AE2 provide Tier 0 flash performance without additional software. The XIV’s A9000 and A9000R successors offer Tier 1 performance by adding Spectrum Accelerate.
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Third-party maintenance for IBM End-of-Life (EOL) servers and IBM End-of-Service-Life (EOSL) servers
DC Parts has analyzed more than 250 customer contracts using storage, servers, networks, and tapes and shown us that 40-60% of these customers’ equipment operates beyond their end-of-support dates.
There are simple options so you can reduce your expenses and feel more confident about your IT infrastructure. When you choose a custom solution to extend the life of your IT equipment, you can make big savings.
How we can help:
We offer our customers a unique assessment to help analyze their OEM support contracts and understand exactly which devices can be supported in a more affordable way, without compromising their performance.
IBM storage support
DC Parts support services provide support for IBM servers. We work to match the right approach with the right equipment to solve your IBM servers support needs.
With a highly trained team of certified engineers ready to troubleshoot any IBM DC Parts support is uniquely qualified to serve you. If you would like to speak with a representative about purchasing IBM support servers, please contact us.
DC Parts support helps businesses of all sizes better manage their IT data centers by providing third-party support and maintenance services to leading equipment manufacturers including: IBM, HPE (HP), DELL EMC, DELL, NETAPP, and more.
With DC Parts support, we manage all your hardware, between manufacturers via one call. DC Parts Support offers flexible service level agreements, certified engineering support teams, and dedicated customer service representatives.
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