IBM Systems

Data Sheet

IBM FlashSystem A9000
A highly parallel all-f lash solution for the cloud-scale
business

Whether you are a public cloud services provider or your company has
Highlights implemented its own private or hybrid delivery model, the cloud presents
challenges. The “always-on” dynamic nature of cloud services requires
●● ● ●
Harness the performance of highly parallel infrastructure that can adapt, grow and provide consistent response under
architecture and IBM® FlashCore™ tech-
nology in one innovative system any workload. Delivering consistent, extreme performance while manag-
ing complex infrastructure can be costly. You must mitigate the impacts of
Optimize storage economics with pattern
variable customer use cases, application workloads, and noisy neighbors
●● ● ●

removal, deduplication and compression

with high input-output demands that can conf lict with other applications.
Prevent “noisy neighbor” problems with
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The cost of switching service providers is low; if you don’t offer outstand-
quality-of-service (QoS) features that sup-
ing service, you will lose your customers.
port multi-tenancy and mixed workloads

●● ● ●
Deliver consistent, extreme performance Achieving the flexibility, scalability and performance essential to
to meet service level agreements for
unpredictable, data-intensive workloads cloud services providers requires a new approach to data storage.
IBM FlashSystem® A9000 integrates the extreme performance of
Easily integrate with VMware, OpenStack,
IBM FlashCore technology, highly parallel architecture and comprehen-
●● ● ●

Linux and Microsoft platforms, and with

almost any existing infrastructure sive data reduction in one powerful solution. Whether you are a service
provider requiring highly efficient management or an enterprise imple-
Simplify storage administration with an
menting cloud on a budget, IBM FlashSystem A9000 provides the simply
●● ● ●

innovative, new user interface

consistent, simply reliable, simply efficient storage you need.

Dynamic performance: Simply, consistently fast

IBM FlashSystem A9000 is designed to accelerate your workloads to help
you reduce costs, increase revenue, meet service level agreements, and
improve customer satisfaction. IBM FlashCore technology, which delivers
market-leading storage response times for data-intensive workloads,
IBM Systems
Data Sheet

forms the all-flash foundation of IBM FlashSystem A9000.

Fundamental to this technology are many hardware-accelerated
I/O features—redundant backplanes, non-blocking crossbar
switching and hardware-based RAID controllers—designed to
deliver consistent microsecond latency with market-leading
performance.

IBM FlashSystem A9000 includes industry-leading data protec-

tion and endurance capabilities that allow enterprises to
consistently address the full range of application performance
or system latency requirements and deliver greater than
99.999 percent availability.1 IBM FlashCore technology keeps
your data safe with enterprise-class data protection features
like IBM Variable Stripe RAID™ technology, IBM-engineered
error correction codes, overprovisioning capabilities, ultra-fast
write buffers and hardware-based data offloads. Proprietary
f lash media wear leveling, health binning, heat segregation and
garbage collection are purpose-engineered into IBM FlashCore IBM FlashSystem A9000
technology to eliminate most flash wear-out and management
challenges. In addition to reducing operational expenses,
IBM FlashSystem A9000 can save labor costs by simplifying
Enduring economics: Greater efficiency, storage management—the innovative new user interface enables
lower costs agile orchestration of private and hybrid multi-tenant cloud
The enduring economics of IBM FlashSystem A9000 mean environments. In fact, this leading management application is
that your business can benefit from greater storage efficiency designed to accelerate and simplify day-to-day storage manage-
and lower costs—at the moment of deployment and for ment tasks. Moreover, IBM FlashSystem A9000 integrated
years to come. Flash-optimized data reduction capabilities— software, built with IBM Spectrum Accelerate™, provides
including pattern removal; inline, global deduplication; cutting-edge data protection that includes space-efficient
and inline compression—help lower storage costs throughout snapshots and synchronous/asynchronous replication.
both structured and unstructured data environments.
IBM FlashSystem A9000 microsecond latency helps your Agile integration: Purpose-built for
business improve data economics even further by increasing the cloud
staff productivity and enabling consolidation of servers, which From installation through years of efficient operation,
can cut software licensing costs. Fewer servers and reduced IBM FlashSystem A9000 is designed with simplicity in mind.
storage requirements can also translate into lower power, Its integrative approach provides flexibility to help you easily
cooling and data center expenses. manage and grow your infrastructure. IBM Hyper-Scale
Manager enables management of multiple IBM FlashSystem
A9000 and IBM FlashSystem A9000R solutions from a single
user interface, while IBM Hyper-Scale Mobility enables seam-
less migration of data across IBM FlashSystem A9000 arrays.

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IBM Systems
Data Sheet

IBM FlashSystem A9000 at a glance

Model 9836-415 (1-year warranty), 9838-415 (3-year enterprise-class warranty)

Controllers Three-way active grid controllers, each containing:

Two Intel Xeon E5 v3 8-core 2.4 GHz processors
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192 GB DDR4 memory

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Redundant battery backup units and power supply units

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Software IBM FlashSystem A9000 and A9000R software v12.0

Flash Enclosure-60 Flash Enclosure-150 Flash Enclosure-300

Effective capacity* 60 TB 150 TB 300 TB

Maximum capacity† 1,200 TB 1,200 TB 1,200 TB

Raw capacity 21.4 TB 52.8 TB 105.6 TB

IBM MicroLatency® modules 12 x 1.2 TB 12 x 2.9 TB 12 x 5.7 TB

Flash type IBM-enhanced MLC

Performance

IOPS Up to 500,000

Maximum bandwidth 4.5 GB/s

Minimum latency 250 µs

Data reduction and efficiency ●●

Pattern removal
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Global, inline deduplication
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Inline compression
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Space-efficient snapshots
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Thin provisioning

Encryption Hardware-based AES-XTS 256-bit with centralized key management‡

Host connectivity options 12 x 16 Gb Fibre Channel + 6 x 10 Gb iSCSI, or

12 x 10 Gb iSCSI

Backplane interconnect InfiniBand

Power 1.69 KW (typical); 2.91 KW (max)

Dimensions (H x W x D) 356 mm (8U) x 483 mm x 930 mm (14 in. x 19 in. x 36.6 in.)

Weight 125 kg (275.5 lb)

Client operating For a current list of platforms supported, please visit the IBM System Storage Interoperation Center (SSIC).
system support

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IBM FlashSystem A9000 integrates easily into your existing
data center infrastructure and also integrates with a wide variety
of hypervisor and virtualization software, including solutions
from VMware, OpenStack, Linux and Microsoft. To further
eliminate risk, IBM provides industry-leading worldwide cus-
tomer support and solution maintenance to help ensure that © Copyright IBM Corporation 2016
IBM FlashSystem A9000 can provide the highest possible IBM Systems
performance, enduring economics and business value for years Route 100
Somers, NY 10589
into the future.
Produced in the United States of America
April 2016
Why IBM?
Building on decades of storage leadership, IBM offers a IBM, the IBM logo, ibm.com, IBM FlashSystem, IBM FlashCore,
IBM Spectrum Accelerate, MicroLatency, and Variable Stripe RAID are
comprehensive portfolio of flash-optimized storage solutions trademarks of International Business Machines Corp., registered in many
that can propel organizations into the next era of IT. These jurisdictions worldwide. Other product and service names might be
proven flash solutions accelerate decision making, provide trademarks of IBM or other companies. A current list of IBM trademarks
is available on the web at “Copyright and trademark information” at
best-in-class reliability and deliver new efficiencies across the ibm.com/legal/copytrade.shtml
­ ­
entire business environment for a faster return on investment.
Intel is a trademark of Intel Corporation in the U.S. and other countries.
IBM f lash storage solutions provide enterprises with the appli-
cation performance they need to compete, innovate and grow. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds in the United States,
other countries, or both.

For more information Microsoft is a trademark of Microsoft Corporation in the United States,
other countries, or both.
To learn more about IBM FlashSystem A9000, please contact
your IBM representative or IBM Business Partner, or visit the This document is current as of the initial date of publication and may be
changed by IBM at any time. Not all offerings are available in every
following website: ibm.com/systems/storage/flash/a9000
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country in which IBM operates.

IBM Global Financing can help you acquire the IT solutions The performance data discussed herein is presented as derived under
specific operating conditions. Actual results may vary.
that your business needs, visit: ibm.com/financing
­
THE INFORMATION IN THIS DOCUMENT IS PROVIDED
“AS IS” WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY, EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED, INCLUDING WITHOUT ANY WARRANTIES
OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR
PURPOSE AND ANY WARRANTY OR CONDITION OF
NON-INFRINGEMENT. IBM products are warranted according to the
terms and conditions of the agreements under which they are provided.

Statements regarding IBM’s future direction and intent are subject to

change or withdrawal without notice, and represent goals and
objectives only.

Actual available storage capacity may be reported for both uncompressed

and compressed data and will vary and may be less than stated.

* Typical effective capacity is the available capacity after system overhead

(including over-provisioning and RAID protection) as well as the data
reduction benefits of pattern removal, deduplication and compression.
This assumes data reduction of up to a multiple of 5.26 to 1.
† Maximum capacity refers to the effective capacity provisioning limit.
‡ Complete encryption capabilities will be available in June 2016.
1 Based on IBM internal measurements.

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