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

Storage Connection Fibre Channel IP  NAS  iSCSI Planning Usage Agenda

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 Storage connection

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 Fibre channel

Fibre channel (2)

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 Storage connection

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 NAS

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

NAS (3)

0/0 Do you have NAS installed in: 1.Departments in larger companies 2.Enterprise Data Center 3.Small to mid-size business 4.None

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 Storage connection

iSCSI mapping over IP IP TCP iSCSI

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 iSCSI – Encapsulation

iSCSI – Encapsulation mapping

iSCSI usage

iSCSI usage (2)

0/0 If you plan on using iSCSI, will it be for: 1.An IP SAN 2.Connect stranded servers 3.Both

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

Usage Enterprise DataCenter market Majority of companies have deployed FC SANs  > 80% in some form  > 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 that’s 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

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

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