STORAGE ARCHITECTURE/ MASTER): Where IP and FC Storage Fit in Your Enterprise

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STORAGE ARCHITECTURE/MASTER) Where IP and FC
Storage Fit in Your Enterprise
Randy Kerns Senior Partner The Evaluator Group
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Agenda

• Storage Connection
• Fibre Channel
• IP
• NAS
• iSCSI
• Planning
• Usage

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Storage connection

• Fibre Channel
• Used in Storage Area Networks (SAN)
• Enterprise datacenter environments
• In SMB primarily with packaged solution SAN in
  a Box
• Direct connection from servers to storage systems
• Used in storage systems for drive connections

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Fibre channel

• Targeted at block-level I/O for high performance
• Heterogeneous storage and server attachment
• Nearly unlimited scaling of storage
• capacity
• performance (bandwidth)
• Centralized administration
• Shared resources pooling of devices
• Enterprise class capabilities RAS, capacity
  planning, business continuity

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Fibre channel (2)
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Storage connection

• Network Attached Storage (NAS)
• Special purpose device to provide remote file
  system to other servers on the network
• Usually a kernel or thin server that supports
  NFS, CIFS, HTTP and FTP
• some implement standard server and call it NAS
• single purpose devices are called appliances
• Utilizes IP for connection protocol and UDP or
  TCP

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NAS

• Simplicity easy to install and administer
• High Availability many NAS devices are fault
  tolerant and support internal failover
• Scalability most NAS devices can scale in
  capacity and performance up to a point (upper
  limit)
• Connectivity utilizes standard network
  infrastructures (typically Ethernet) and supports
  multiple connections

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NAS (2)

• Access done with NFS and CIFS
• Data Sharing a basic function of NAS for files
• Cost significant competition has driven costs
  down. Many offerings from wide range of vendors
• Backup beginning to see backup over SANs, but
  many have integrated backup devices to avoid LAN
  usage

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NAS (3)
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Do you have NAS installed in

1. Departments in larger companies
2. Enterprise Data Center
3. Small to mid-size business
4. None

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Storage connection

• iSCSI Internet SCSI
• Use of SCSI commands over IP
• Target is to provide block I/O using Ethernet
  infrastructure
• No mechanism in Ethernet/IP to allow for
  command-response structure of SCSI
• SCSI is block oriented storage interface
• Both an interface and a protocol
• Ethernet / IP has network characteristics
• No flow control drops packets on congestion
• Packet size is limited get smaller as
  contention increases
• iSCSI attempts to work within these constraints

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iSCSI mapping over IP
iSCSI
TCP
IP
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iSCSI Encapsulation
Delivery of iSCSI Protocol Data Unit (PDU) to
contain state and control information for SCSI
Reliable transport software information for
delivery and ordering.
Internet Protocol for routing through a network
Physical network interface and control for
Ethernet
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iSCSI Encapsulation mapping
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iSCSI usage
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iSCSI usage (2)
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If you plan on using iSCSI, will it be for

1. An IP SAN
2. Connect stranded servers
3. Both

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Planning

• Understand requirements
• Look at performance, security, cost, availability
• Understand administrative issues and needs
• Look at needs in the future
• Decide which solutions fit the requirements
• Technology characteristics
• Consider the economics
• Administrative costs
• Expansion costs
• Device / infrastructure costs

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Usage

• Enterprise DataCenter market
• Majority of companies have deployed FC SANs
• gt 80 in some form
• gt Half of storage in storage network
• Most have single switch/director vendor for
  specific SAN
• Want to manage only one type
• Many have only one storage vendor per SAN
• Because thats the way salesmen sold it
• NAS Gateways are seeing deployments
• Major vendors offering gateways
• New challenge for storage administrators
• Establishes presence for NAS in Enterprise
  Datacenters
• Customer focus is now on storage management

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Usage (2)

• Small to mid-size business
• FC SAN is usually packaged SAN in a box
  solution
• No storage professionals to implement or manage a
  SAN
• Percentage-wise, a small amount of deployment
• IP SANs are early in deployment
• Typically in very cost-sensitive environments
• Still storage administration to do
• NAS is very successful in SMB market
• Also departmental and workgroup
• Fits well with requirements
• Market open for many types of solutions
• Large and growing market with varying requirements

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Summary

• Choose wisely
• Performance requirement FC
• Minimal administration and file I/O choose NAS
• Connect stranded server cheaply iSCSI
• Block I/O with minimal cost and not a high
  performance requirement iSCSI or packaged FC
  solution

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Thank You
www.evaluatorgroup.com