Designed as reliable, powerful, scalable modular storage systems

offering a unied storage architecturewith exceptional value

for large-enterprise data center applications and consolidations

IBM System Storage N7000 Modular

Disk Storage Systems

The challenge: Managing data for business

advantage
In an increasingly demanding and com
petitive business landscape, effective
data management is essential to the
success of the enterprise. Data avail
ability from any location gives employ
ees, partners and customers the
up-to-the-minute information they need
to work productively, make timely deci
sions and meet business goals.
Information technology professionals
facing these challenges are under pres
sure to deliver more capacity and at

Highlights
ScalableDesigned for non-

higher levels of service. Yet critical

Efficient consolidation

disruptive expansion to more

Intended to provide storage for

than 1.1 petabytes (1.1 PB, or

multiple applications in a single

1100 TB) storage capacity

system with FlexShare to

ensure that critical workloads

VersatileSingle, integrated

get priority service

architecture designed to sup

port concurrent block I/O and

Application availabilityN7000

le serving over Ethernet

systems with Data ONTAP

and Fibre Channel SAN

enable application-level recov

infrastructures

ery in minutes, not hours, upon

failure or user error

FlexibleFibre Channel and

SATA disk-drive capabilities

PerformanceDelivers high,

allow for deployment in multiple

consistent performance for

solution environments, includ

mission-critical applications

ing data retention, near-line

storage, disk-to-disk backup
scenarios and highperformance, mission-critical
I/O intensive operations

resourcesstaffing, budget, power,

cooling and oor spaceare often
constrained.
These demands call for enterprise-class
storage systems with the exibility to
support changing IT requirements,
accommodate continuous data growth,
satisfy application-level service require
ments and unify SAN and NAS infra
structures with the expectation of
reducing overall costs.

The solution: IBM System Storage N7000

retention and archival storage in a sin

Both the N7900 and the N7700 sys

series

gle integrated architecture. N series

tems offer high-bandwidth controller

The IBM System Storage N7000

systems are designed for easy installa

designs, which can be in an active-

series systems are intended to help IT

tion, conguration, management and

active conguration. Each system

organizations tackle the challenge of

expansion. The combination of versatil

offers sixteen 4-Gbps Fibre Channel

effective data management using virtu

ity and simplicity of N series systems is

(FC) ports and twelve Gigabit Ethernet

alization technology and a unied stor

intended to help IT professionals

(GbE) ports standard with the systems

age architecture. The N7000 series is

respond quickly to changing business

ten PCI-e and six PCI-x expansion slots

designed to deliver high-end enterprise

needs.

that can accommodate quad-port

storage and data management value

4-Gbps FC adapter cards and ten GbE

with midrange affordability. Built-in

The N7000 series combines the bene

adapter cards. For additional connectiv

enterprise serviceability and managea

ts of a unied storage architecture

ity, the N7000 series can expand to a

bility features help support your efforts

suite of application-aware software with

maximum of 56 Fibre Channel ports

to increase reliability, simplify and unify

massive scalability, which is intended to

and 52 Ethernet ports.

storage infrastructure and maintenance,

provide an ideal platform for large-scale

and deliver exceptional economy.

data center applications and storage

Versatility. The unied storage archi

consolidations.

tecture of the N7000 series can help

The N7000 series, like all N series sys

eliminate the need to manage separate

tems, provides powerful virtualization

Designed to support scalability, versatility,

NAS and SAN storage by providing

and thin-provisioning capabilities

exibility, reliability and availability with

concurrent support for block and le

designed to maximize storage utilization

outstanding value

protocols via Ethernet and Fibre

and staff productivity while minimizing

Scalability. The N7000 series is

Channel interfaces. With support for

the use of power, cooling and oor

designed to meet the massive storage

Fibre Channel and SATA hard drives,

space. Staff productivity can be

scalability and I/O scalability needs that

the N7000 product line also has the

enhanced by an integrated suite of

are critical in large data center environ

exibility to be used for primary and

application-aware manageability soft

ments. The N7900 system can be con

secondary tiered storage.

ware that can provide policy-based

gured with 1.176 PB of raw storage

automation to otherwise manual tasks.

capacity using up to 1,176 disk drives.

Storage provisioning can take hours on

The N7700 system can support 840 TB

other storage systems but with N series

The IBM N7000 series is designed to

of capacity using as many as 840 disk

systems thin provisioning capabilities

provide remarkable versatility by unify

drives.

provided by FlexVol, volumes can be

ing FC SAN, iSCSI SAN, NAS, primary,

expanded and contracted automatically

nearline and regulatory compliance data

without IT staff intervention or disruption

to applications.

Another feature of the N series Data

Application availability. N7000 sys

it possible to instantly revert to a

ONTAP operating system, FlexClone,

tems combine a variety of features to

previous version of data upon failure or

enables the nearly instant creation of

meet the need for continuous availabil

user error. N series Snapshot copies

clones without requiring incremental

ity. Complementing the high-availability

are unique in that they can be created

storage. FlexClone can dramatically

hardware design is the proven reliability

frequently during production, because

accelerate test and development cycles

of the Data ONTAP operating system

they use only a small amount of incre

for IT projects.

and RAID-DP (N series implementa

mental storage and have virtually no

tion of RAID-6), which uniquely provides

impact on performance. Host-based

Efficient consolidation. The N7000

double-level RAID data protection to

SnapManager software integrates

series is designed to consolidate

help ensure that data is not lost in the

Snapshot management with applica

and serve data for a wide variety of

event of multiple disk drive failures. In

tions, designed to ensure consistent

workloads, including mission-critical

addition, RAID-DP has negligible per

backup images and application-level

business applications, technical appli

formance impact. The N7000 also sup

recovery in minutes.

cations, databases, e-mail, home direc

ports simple yet powerful synchronous,

tories, digital media, backup and

semi-synchronous and asynchronous

Performance. High performance and

recovery, regulatory compliant data

mirroring that can be deployed

massive storage capacity are character

retention and archival. IBM N series

in one-to-one, one-to-many and many-

istics that make the N7000 systems

systems support Windows, UNIX,

to-one mirroring congurations.

ideal for large-scale applications and

including AIX, Solaris and HP-UX,

storage consolidation. An N7000 sys

and Linux host operating systems as

The N7000 can serve as the foundation

tem is designed to complete jobs

well as VMware for server virtualization.

for a comprehensive data management

quickly and handle a large number of

solution consisting of hardware, soft

users via a powerful, high-bandwidth

IT organizations can be challenged with

ware and services. With an appliance

architecture with scalability to

poor response times during peak hours

architecture and built-in backup and

1,176 disk drives capable of delivering

of operations after consolidating stor

recovery software, an N7000 solution is

up to 1.176 PB of raw storage capacity.

age systems with dissimilar data work

designed to address the entire spec

With large cache memory congura

loads on to a single platform. To help

trum of data availability challenges while

tions, expandable high-performance

address this challenge, N series offers

offering value in price/performance and

I/O, 4 Gbps FC SAN support, 4 Gbps

FlexShare quality-of-service software,

scalability.

disk drive support and support for

which is intended to enable storage

10 Gbps Ethernet, the N7000 delivers

administrators to set and dynamically

Ultimately what matters is application-

exceptional enterprise-class system

adjust workload priorities. FlexShare

level availability, and this is where

performance.

can help ensure that important applica

N series systems excel. Snapshot, a

tions get fast response times.

standard feature of Data ONTAP, makes

N7000 near-line storage capabilities

component in an information lifecycle

The N7000 is well suited for near-line

management process by storing less-

NearStore software can use the

storage congurations. An N7000 sys

critical data on a device whose cost

Advanced Single Instance Storage

tem populated with Fibre Channel disk

and performance stand between pri

(A-SIS) software feature for better stor

drives that backs up to another

mary and tape storage.

age utilization. A-SIS software enables

N series system populated with SATA

IBM N series systems using

N series systems to deduplicate stored

disk drives offers disk-to-disk backup

Combined with SnapVault, the N7000

data at the block level in order to con

capabilities that are designed to help

disk-to-disk backup environments are

serve physical disk space when making

you ll the price/performance gap

designed to serve as a robust and fully

disk-to-disk copies of primary data.

between fast but costly primary storage

integrated appliance that makes back

Traditionally when copies of volumes

and less-costly but slow archival (tape

ing up and restoring data rapid and reli

are created, every duplicate data string

and optical) storage. Utilizing SATA disk

able. Backing up directly to an N7000

is also copied, resulting in an inefficient

drive technology, you could achieve

system in a near-line storage congura

use for secondary storage. A-SIS dedu

near-primary storage performance at

tion and then to tape can help your

plication helps eliminate this inefficiency.

near-tape storage costs. A disk-based,

organization enhance data protection

secondary storage device for enterprise

management, improve primary storage

Support for data retention through non

applications, N7000 disk-to-disk envi

and tape library performance, and

erasable, non-rewriteable security

ronments are designed to complement

reduce backup resource requirements

capabilities

and dramatically improve existing tape

and costs. Two N series systems oper

The N7000 offers multiple capabilities in

backup, archiving and data protection

ating in a disk-to-disk backup scenario

the area of data retention. It can serve

schemes. They do so by inserting eco

are designed to be faster and to con

as a high-performance device for stor

nomical and simple-to-use disk-based

sume less application-server CPU pro

ing mission-critical production data and

storage between application storage

cessing power than direct backup to

as a data-retention system by running

and tape libraries in a three-tier

tape. SnapVault software can be used

SnapLock software. The N7000 with

storage architecture.

to help reduce network bandwidth con

SnapLock software is designed to

sumption by supporting incremental

deliver high-performance and high-

This arrangement is designed to pro

block transfers to backup data across a

security data permanence to disk-

vide economical storage and rapid

LAN or WAN. SnapMirror software,

based nearline and primary N series

disk-based access to reference data to

which replicates data at high speeds

storage. An optional feature of the

help address business and regulatory

over a LAN or a WAN, is designed to

proven Data ONTAP operating system,

requirements. It can serve as a key

provide high data availability and

SnapLock software supports the accu

fast recovery for mission-critical

racy, integrity and security of data.

applications.

It helps prevent the alteration of busi

systems. This functionality is designed

non-rewriteable replication of data at

ness records and allows data to be

to prevent critical les from being

remote sites can help your organization

rapidly accessible online for long peri

altered or deleted until a specied

address regulatory concerns or best

ods of time.

retention date.

practices, resulting in a highly robust

compliant data protection solution.

SnapLock offers capabilities to help you

SnapLock is also designed to replicate

Non-erasable, non-rewriteable data

address regulatory and best-practices

non-erasable, non-rewriteable data

can also be backed up to tape for an

records retention requirements by sup

securely and automatically between

additional level of data protection.

porting the creation of non-rewritable,

multiple N series systems using

non-erasable volumes on IBM N series

SnapMirror software. The non-erasable,

non-rewriteable to non-erasable,

Software
Operating system

Data ONTAP

Operating systems supported

Windows 2000, Windows Server 2003, Windows XP, Linux, Sun Solaris, IBM AIX,
HP-UX, Mac OS, VMware ESX

Software features

Standard
Integrated RAID manager, including RAID-DP; Snapshot; Fast Boot; NIS; DNS; FilerView;
FlexVol; FlexShare; Disk Sanitization; SecureAdmin; Network Data Management Protocol
(NDMP)
Licensed
CIFS; NFS; HTTP; FTP; iSCSI; FCP; FlexClone; MultiStore; Clustered Failover; SnapMirror;
SyncMirror; SnapRestore; Single Mailbox Recovery; SnapVault; SnapMover;
NearStore; Advanced Single Instance Storage; SnapValidator; SnapLock; LockVault;
MetroCluster
Manageability software
Application Suite
SnapManager for Microsoft Exchange; SnapManager for Microsoft SQL Server;
SnapManager for Microsoft Office SharePoint; SnapManager for Oracle; SnapManager
for SAP
Server Suite
SnapDrive
Data Suite
Protection Manager; VFM Virtual File ManagerEnterprise Edition; Virtual File
ManagerMigration Edition
Storage Suite
File Storage Resource Manager; Operations Manager

Specications
N7700
Machine type model
2866-A11
Controller conguration
Single
Processors speed and type 2.6 GHz AMD Opteron
(Note 1)
Number of processors
2
Random access memory
16 GB
Standard integrated I/O ports
Fibre Channel ports/speed
Ethernet ports/speed
Storage scalability
Maximum raw capacity
Maximum number of disk
drives
Maximum volume size
Maximum number of
volumes/LUNs
Maximum number of
storage enclosures
Disk expansion units
supported

I/O scalability
PCI-Express (PCI-e)
expansion slots
PCI-x expansion slots
Maximum number FC ports
Maximum number of
Ethernet ports

N7700
2866-A21
Dual (active/active)
2.6 GHz AMD Opteron
4
32 GB

N7900
2867-A11
Single
2.6 GHz AMD dual core
Opteron
4
32 GB

N7900
2867-A21
Dual (active/active)
2.6 GHz AMD dual core
Opteron
8
64 GB

8 (4 Gbps)
6 (1 GbE)

16 (4 Gbps)
12 (1 GbE)

8 (4 Gbps)
6 (1 GbE)

16 (4 Gbps)
12 (1 GbE)

840 TB
840

840 TB
840

1176 TB
1176

1176 TB
1176

16 TB
2048

16 TB
2048

16 TB
2048

16 TB
2048

60

60

84

84

EXN40004 Gbps Fibre Channel Disk Storage Expansion Unit

EXN1000SATA Disk Storage Expansion
EXN2000FC Storage Expansion Unit (Legacy)

10

10

3
28
26

6
56
52

3
28
26

6
56
52

Specications
Machine type model
Controller conguration
Processors speed and type
(Note 1)
Number of processors
Random access memory

N7600
2866-A10
Single
2.6 GHz AMD Opteron

N7600
2866-A20
Dual (active/active)
2.6 GHz AMD Opteron

N7800
2867-A10
Single
2.6 GHz AMD Opteron

N7800
2867-A20
Dual (active/active)
2.6 GHz AMD Opteron

2
16 GB

4
32 GB

4
32 GB

8
64 GB

8 (2 Gbps)
6 (1 GbE)

16 (2 Gbps)
12 (1 GbE)

8 (2 Gbps)
6 (1 GbE)

16 (2 Gbps)
12 (1 GbE)

840 TB
840

840 TB
840

1008 TB
1008

1008 TB
1008

16 TB
2048

16 TB
2048

16 TB
2048

16 TB
2048

60

60

72

72

Standard integrated I/O ports

Fibre Channel ports/speed
Ethernet ports/speed
Storage scalability
Maximum raw capacity
Maximum number of disk
drives
Maximum volume size
Maximum number of
volumes/LUNs
Maximum number of
storage enclosures
Disk expansion units
supported

I/O scalability
PCI-Express (PCI-e)
expansion slots
PCI-x expansion slots
Maximum number FC ports
Maximum number of
Ethernet ports

EXN40004 Gbps Fibre Channel Disk Storage Expansion Unit

EXN1000SATA Disk Storage Expansion
EXN2000FC Storage Expansion Unit (Legacy)

10

10

3
28
26

6
56
52

3
28
26

6
56
52

For more information

Contact your IBM representative or
IBM Business Partner or visit:
ibm.com/storage/network
Copyright IBM Corporation 2008
IBM Systems and Technology Group

Route 100

Somers, NY 10589

For technical specications, optional I/O

expandability and software features,

Produced in the United States

February 2008

All Rights Reserved

functions and benets of the N7000

series, visit:
THE INFORMATION IN THIS DOCUMENT IS
PROVIDED AS-IS WITHOUT ANY
WARRANTY, EITHER EXPRESSED OR
IMPLIED. IBM EXPRESSLY DISCLAIMS ANY
WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE OR
NONINFRINGEMENT. IBM products are
warranted according to the terms and
conditions of the agreements (e.g.,
IBM Customer Agreement, Statement of Limited
Warranty, International Program License
Agreement, etc.) under which they are provided.

ibm.com/storage/network/n7000/
appliance
For N7000 series interoperability visit:
ibm.com/systems/storage/nas/
interophome.html

References in this document to IBM products,

programs or services do not imply that
IBM intends to make such products, programs
or services available in all countries in which
IBM operates or does business. Any reference
to an IBM program or product in this document
is not intended to state or imply that only that
program may be used. Any functionally
equivalent program or product that does not
infringe IBMs intellectual property rights may be
used instead. It is the users responsibility to
evaluate and verify the operation of any nonIBM product, program or service.

IBM is not responsible for the performance or

interoperability of any non-IBM products
discussed herein. Performance data for IBM and
non-IBM products and services contained in this
document was derived under specic operating
and environmental conditions. The actual results
obtained by any party implementing such
products or services will depend on a large
number of factors specic to such partys
operating environment and may vary
signicantly. IBM makes no representation that
these results can be expected or obtained in
any implementation of any such products or
services.
MB, GB, TB and PB equal 1,000,000,
1,000,000,000, 1,000,000,000,000 and
1,000,000,000,000,000 bytes, respectively,
where referring to storage capacity. Actual
storage capacity will vary based upon many
factors and may be less than stated. Some
numbers given for storage capacities give
capacity in native mode followed by capacity
using data compression technology.

IBMs customer is responsible for ensuring its

own compliance with legal requirements. It is
the customers sole responsibility to obtain
advice of competent legal counsel as to the
identication and interpretation of any relevant
laws and regulatory requirements that may
affect the customers business and any actions
the customer may need to take to comply with
such laws. IBM does not provide legal advice or
represent or warrant that its services or
products will ensure that the customer is in
compliance with any law.
a

Max. capacity is derived based on the

type, size, and number of the drives. Max.

capacity and volume size are calculated

using Base10 arithmetic (i.e., 1 TB =

1,000,000,000,000 bytes).

IBM, the IBM logo, AIX and System Storage are

trademarks or registered trademarks of
International Business Machines Corporation in
the United States, other countries or both.
Data ONTAP, FilerView, FlexClone, FlexShare,
FlexVol, LockVault, MultiStore, NearStore,
RAID-DP, SecureAdmin, SnapDrive, SnapLock,
SnapManager, SnapMirror, SnapMover,
SnapRestore, Snapshot, SnapValidator,
SnapVault, SyncMirror, and VFM Virtual File
Manager are trademarks or registered
trademarks of Network Appliance, Inc.,
in the U.S. and other countries.
Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds
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Server and the Windows logo are trademarks or
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UNIX is a registered trademark of The Open
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Other company, product and service names
may be trademarks or service marks of others.
This document could include technical
inaccuracies or typographical errors. IBM may
make changes, improvements or alterations to
the products, programs and services described
in this document, including termination of such
products, programs and services, at any time
and without notice. Any statements regarding
IBMs future direction and intent are subject to
change or withdrawal without notice, and
represent goals and objectives only. The
information contained in this document is
current as of the initial date of publication only
and is subject to change without notice.
IBM shall have no responsibility to update such
information.

TSD02538-USEN-08