This IBM® Redbooks® publication introduces and describes the IBM Elastic Storage® Server 3200 (ESS 3200) as a scalable, high-performance data and file management solution. The solution is built on proven IBM Spectrum® Scale technology, formerly IBM General Parallel File System (IBM GPFS). IBM Elastic Storage System 3200 is an all-Flash array platform. This storage platform uses NVMe-attached drives in ESS 3200 to provide significant performance improvements as compared to SAS-attached flash drives.

This book provides a technical overview of the ESS 3200 solution and helps you to plan the installation of the environment. We also explain the use cases where we believe it fits best. Our goal is to position this book as the starting point document for customers that would use the ESS 3200 as part of their IBM Spectrum Scale setups.

This book is targeted toward technical professionals (consultants, technical support staff, IT Architects, and IT Specialists) who are responsible for delivering cost-effective storage solutions with ESS 3200.

Chapter 1. Introduction

Chapter 2. ESS 3200 architecture and overview

Chapter 3. Planning considerations

Chapter 4. Use cases

Appendix A. Convert a previous generation switch into a version 2