Directed Attached Storage: 1. Introduction To DAS

UA - Direct Attached Storage
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1. Directed Attached Storage

1. Introduction to DAS
Direct-attached storage, or DAS, is the most basic level of storage, in which storage devices are part of the host computer, as with drives, or directly connected to a single server. Network workstations must therefore access the server in order to connect to the storage device. This is in contrast to networked storage such as NAS and SAN, which are connected to workstations and servers over a network. As the first widely popular storage model, DAS products still comprise a large majority of the installed base of storage systems in today's IT infrastructures. Although the implementation of networked storage is growing at a faster rate than that of direct-attached storage, it is still a viable option by virtue of being simple to deploy and having a lower initial cost when compared to networked storage. When considering DAS, it is important to know what your data availability requirements are. In order for clients on the network to access the storage device in the DAS model, they must be able to access the server it is connected to. If the server is down or experiencing problems, it will have a direct impact on users' ability to store and access data. In addition to storing and retrieving files, the server also bears the load of processing applications such as e-mail and databases. Network bottlenecks and slowdowns in data availability may occur as server bandwidth is consumed by applications, especially if there is a lot of data being shared from workstation to workstation. DAS is ideal for localized file sharing in environments with a single server or a few servers - for example, small businesses or departments and workgroups that do not need to share information over long distances or across an enterprise. Small companies traditionally utilize DAS for file serving and e-mail, while larger enterprises may leverage DAS in a mixed storage environment that likely includes NAS and SAN. DAS also offers ease of management and administration in this scenario, since it can be managed using the network operating system of the attached server. However, management complexity can escalate quickly with the addition of new servers, since storage for each server must be administered separately. From an economical perspective, the initial investment in direct-attached storage is cheaper. DAS can also serve as an interim solution for those planning to migrate to networked storage in the future. For organizations that anticipate rapid data growth, it is important to keep in mind that DAS is limited in its scalability.
1.1. Advantages of DAS

Expand Storage Without Adding Servers When the internal storage capacity of your server is maximized, simply adding an INLINE storage array allows you to increase network storage capacity with adding the management headaches associated with putting another server on the network. Protect Your Data and Your Operations INLINE arrays feature redundant hot swappable components. Should a component on the system fail, its work is picked up by a redundant component. The failed component can be replaced or repaired without taking the system off-line. Scalable Storage Direct attached storage allows you to easily scale as your organization grows. Start out with a few hundred gigabytes and increase to 17.2 terabytes* without increasing your system. *Based on current maximum drive size of 300 GB
1.2. Direct Attached Storage (DAS) Model

The Direct Attached Storage (DAS) model can be thought of as the way computer systems worked before networks. The DAS model contains three basic software layers: Application Software, File System Software (which is part of the Unix or NT operating system software) and Disk Controller Software. The elements are usually located close together physically and operate as a single entity. In the DAS model, the UNIX or NT application software makes an I/O request to the file system, which organizes files and directories on each individual disk partition into single hierarchy. The file system also manages buffer cache in UNIX. When database applications are installed, the database software sometimes bypasses the UNIX buffer cache and provides its own cache as with Oracles System Global Area (SGA). The system or database software determines the location of the I/O requested by the application and manages all caching activity. If the data is not
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in cache, the file system then makes a request to the disk controller software the retrieves the data from its disk or RAID array and returns the data to the file system to complete the I/O process.
Fig.1.3 - Direct Attached Storage Model
1.3. Ideal Situations for DAS

When fast access to storage is required, but the newest SAN technology prices remain out of reach or are not necessary. For very cost-conscious customers, DAS will remain the least expensive storage mechanism for a long time. Of course, this is only in terms of hard physical media costs. When a full comparison with other technologies is completed that takes into consideration administrative overhead and storage efficiencies, you might find that DAS is not at the top of the chart anymore. For very small environments that just don't need anything more.
1.4. Adaptec Direct Attached Storage SANbloc 2GB JBOD

The SANbloc 2GB JBOD is end-to-end 2Gb Fiber Channel. 2Gb Fiber Channel, the latest generation of Fiber Channel network interface technology, offers greatly accelerated performance in network storage environments, providing simultaneous transmit and receive operations in full-duplex mode as high as 400 MB/s. Each subsystem boasts simplified cabling and supports up to 14 disk drives in a dense 3U form factor. The SANbloc 2GB JBOD can be scaled in multiple dimensions, enabling flexible configuration of capacity, performance and functionality, to match and grow with virtually any application or IT environment.
Highlights
Upgradeable to RAID with the swap of a module Redundant data paths with dual-ported Fiber drives and dual Fiber Channel loops Quad Loop feature provides over 700 MB/s from a single subsystem Enhanced enclosure services (SES) monitoring and reporting Intuitive, comprehensive management with Adaptec Storage Examiner
1.5. Connectivity
Direct-attached storage refers to a storage device, such as a hard drive or tape drive that is directly connected to a single computer. These connections are usually made by one of the following methods: Enhanced Integrated Drive Electronics (EIDE) Small Computer Systems Interface (SCSI) Fiber Channel
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EIDE connects internal Advanced Technology Attachment (ATA) storage to a computer, SCSI provides a means to connect both internal and external storage to a computer, and Fiber Channel connects external storage to a computer. Fiber Channel is most often used with external storage in a SAN. Although Fiber Channel can be used for direct-attached storage, less expensive SCSI storage can offer similar performance, but works only over limited distances due to the physical limitations of the SCSI bus. When external direct-attached storage devices are located more than twelve meters away from a server, then Fiber Channel must be used. Direct-attached storage retains its high popularity because of its low entry cost and ease of deployment. The simple learning curve associated with direct-attached storage technologies is also a factor many organizations consider. Direct-attached storage also makes it easy to logically and physically isolate data, because the data can only be directly accessed through a single server. Although it is simple to deploy, there are other management considerations to take into account with directattached storage: Direct-attached storage can be more expensive to manage because you cannot redeploy unused capacity, which results in underutilization. Having storage distributed throughout the organization makes it difficult to get a consolidated view of storage across the organization. Disaster recovery scenarios are limited because a disaster will cause both server and storage outages. For data backup and recovery, you need to choose whether to attach local backup devices to each server, install dual network adapters in each server and back up the data over a separate LAN, or back up the server over the corporate LAN. Large organizations have found that placing stand-alone tape drives in individual servers can quickly become expensive and difficult to manage, especially when the number of servers in the organization grows into the hundreds. In this situation, it is often best to back up servers over a network to a storage library, which offers backup consolidation and eases management.
1.5.1. Enhanced IDE

Enhanced Integrated Digital Electronics. The current standard for hard drives. Sometimes called "Super IDE." Replaces the original IDE specification. The controller is built into the drive, and does not require an accessory card on the bus. New hard drives should be EIDE. Enhanced Integrated Drive Electronics. A newer version of the IDE standard for hard drives. Enhanced IDE Western Digitals proprietary extension of the IDE interface standard with ATA-2 and ATAPI features, used to connect hard drives and CD-ROMS to a PC. Enhanced IDE An improved version of the IDE interface, used to connect hard drives and CD-ROMS to a PC. (Enhanced Integrated Drive Electronics) An improved version of IDE, which offers better performance than standard SCSI. It offers transfer rates between 4 and 16.6 MB/sec. (Enhanced Integrated Device Electronics or Enhanced Intelligent Drive Electronics) An enhanced version of the IDE drive interface that expands the maximum disk size from 504 MB to 8.4 GB, more than doubles the maximum data transfer rate, and supports up to four drives per PC (as opposed to two in IDE systems). Now that hard disks with capacities of 1 GB or more are commonplace in PCs, EIDE is an extremely popular interface. EIDE's primary competitor is SCSI-2, which also supports large hard disks and high transfer rates. (See also IDE and SCSI.) Enhanced Integrated Drive Electronics. Improved version of the IDE interface for hard drives and CD-ROMs. EIDE uses Logical Block Addressing which allows for HD capacities over 528 MB. It makes use of Direct Memory Access and can address up to four devices. Also called Fast ATA. enhanced integrated device (or drive) electronics A second take on the PC platform's IDE drive interface that increases the previous maximum disk size from 504MB to more than 8GB, speeds up the data transfer rate to more than twice what IDE was capable of, and doubles the number of drives a PC can contain, bringing the number up to four. On the PC platform, EIDE gives SCSI-2 a run for its money, and while most people agree that SCSI-2 is technically superior, EIDE is cheaper to implement, which gained it widespread acceptance. If someone were to say they preferred a serial connection to a parallel connection, most would laugh at them uncontrollably. Serial COM ports have always been known to be one of the slowest connections in modern computers. However, the newest version of Advanced Technology Attachment (ATA), Serial ATA, is set to sweep parallel ATA off its feet. PATA vs. SATA
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Hardware, Configurations & Pictures
1.5.1.1 PATA
Parallel ATA is the primary internal storage interconnects for the desktop, connecting the host system to peripherals such as hard drives, optical drives, and removable magnetic media devices. Parallel ATA is an extension of the original parallel ATA interface introduced in the mid 1980s and maintains backward compatibility with all previous versions of this technology. The latest revision of the Parallel ATA specification accepted by the ANSI supported INCITS T13 committee, the governing body for ATA specifications, is ATA/ATAPI-6, which supports up to 100Mbyte/sec data transfers. Development of the ATA/ATAPI-7 specification, an update of the parallel bus architecture that provides up to 133Mbytes/sec, was recently finalized.
1.5.1.2 SATA
SATA is the next -generation internal storage interconnects, designed to replace parallel ATA technology. SATA is the proactive evolution of the ATA interface from a parallel bus to serial bus architecture. This architecture overcomes the electrical constraints that are increasing the difficulty of continued speed enhancements for the classic parallel ATA bus. SATA will be introduced at 150Mbytes/sec, with a roadmap already planned to 600Mbytes/sec, supporting up to 10 years of storage evolution based on historical trends. Though SATA will not be able to directly interface with legacy Ultra ATA hardware, it is fully compliant with the ATA protocol and thus is software compatible.
1.5.1.3 Advantages of SATA over PATA

Parallel ATA
Up to 133 Mbytes/sec Tiny jumpers Eighteen-inch cable Two-inch-wide ribbon cable 80 conductor 40 pin and socket Two-inch-wide data connector Onboard DMA controller High 5V tolerance for legacy drives Limited (legacy command queuing) ---CRC on data only
Serial ATA
No master/salve, point to point Up to 39-inch (1-meter) cable Thin cable (1/4-inch) 7-wire differential (noise canceling) Blade and beam connector (snap in) -inch-wide data connector First-party DMA support Low voltage (.25V) tolerance Intelligent Data Handling Hot Swap CRC on data, command, status
SATA Advantages Ease of use Ease of Integration Improved system airflow Eliminates data integrity problems Ease of Use Ease of Integration Performance enhancement Design improvement Performance enhancement Ease of Integration/use Enhanced data protection
Up to 150 Mbytes/sec (1.5 Gbits/sec) Faster, and room for expansion
1.5.1.4. PATA vs. SATA

Parallel ATA (PATA) has been the industry standard for connecting hard drives and other devices in computers for well over a decade. However, due to a few major limitations, PATA could be a quickly dying breed with the introduction of Serial ATA (SATA). To compare, PATA cables are limited to only 18 inches long, while SATA cables can be up to 1 meter in length, which is less than 40 inches. It is possible to have longer cables but, due to attenuation, these longer cables are generally more trouble than they are worth. PATA cables are large and bulky and can easily restrict airflow. With the onslaught of better and faster devices, computers continue to generate more heat and this can cause many problems including complete computer failure. PATA cables are 40 wires wide and they block precious space, which can restrict airflow greatly. SATA cables are only 7 pins wide and, with their longer maximum length, can be easily routed to not restrict any airflow at all. The change to serial transfer is what allows the cable to be so thin, only two data channels are required, one for sending and one for receiving data. Parallel cables use multiple wires for both sending and receiving and this technology uses a total of 26 wires for data transfer.
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Another comparison is that SATA devices require much less power than PATA. Chip core voltages continue to decline and, because of this, PATA's 5-volt requirement is increasingly difficult to meet. In contrast, SATA only requires 250 mV to effectively operate. SATA is also hot-swappable meaning that devices can be added or removed while the computer is on. The last, and most important, difference is the maximum bandwidth between the two technologies. The true maximum transfer rate of PATA is 100 MB/sec with bursts up to 133 MB/sec. With the first introduction of SATA, the maximum transfer rate is 150 MB/sec. This is supposed to increase every 3 years with a maximum transfer of 300 MB/sec in 2005 and 600 MB/sec in 2008. Finally, SATA doesn't require any changes to existing operating systems for implementation. SATA is 100% software compatible and, with SATA adapters, some hardware doesn't have to be immediately replaced.
Parallel ATA Maximum Speed Cable Length Cable Pins

100 MB/s with bursts up to 133 MB/s 18 Inches 40
Serial ATA
150 MB/s Currently 300 MB/s by 2005 and 600 MB/s by 2008 1 Meter (about 40 inches) 7 15 2 250 mV Yes
Power Connector Pins 4 Data transfer wires used Power Consumption Hot Swappable?
26 5V No
1.5.1.5. Hardware, Configurations & Pictures

Between the last quarter of 2002 and the first quarter of 2003, motherboards with onboard SATA adapters were released to the public market. For users that are not ready to purchase new motherboards, SATA RAID controllers are available as well. Most Hard drive manufacturers released their first SATA hard drives for sale in the first or second quarter of 2003. For those that would like to take advantage of SATA's longer and thinner cabling requirements without having to purchase new hard drives, SATA adapters, can be purchased to convert current drives to accept SATA cables. To fully implement the SATA standard a new motherboard, a new hard drive or other storage device and a new power supply or power adapter must be purchased. Its unknown how soon power supplies with new SATA power connectors will be available for sale but, for the time being, power adapters, can be used with existing power supplies. When looking at the hardware for serial connections, one can easily see the differences between it and parallel ATA. A side-by-side comparison of the two connectors on a motherboard is shown in figure 1.5.1.5.1. As shown, the SATA connector is much smaller than its parallel counterpart. This effectively means that motherboard manufacturers will have more room to include more on board options as well as being able to offer better board layouts, as this will not be so restricted by the ATA connectors.
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Fig. 1.5.1.5.1 - These pictures show the difference in size of PATA and SATA connectors.
Furthermore, a look at figure 1.5.1.5.2 shows a PATA cable on the left and an SATA cable on the right. As is easily apparent, the SATA cable is much more builder friendly and can be easily routed out of the way in a case due to its length and flexibility.
Fig. 1.5.1.5.2 - SATA is the undisputed champion in terms of size and flexibility of cables.
Figure 1.5.1.5.3 shows an SATA power adapter with a 15-pin connector as opposed to the customary 4 pin connectors in parallel ATA. The new 15-pin connector may sound as though it would be a hindrance in comparison to the older ones but the two connectors measure almost the same width. The reason for the 15-pin connector is so that different voltages are supplied to the appropriate places. In addition to the customary 5v and 12v wires, new 3.3v wires are included for the new devices. 9 of the pins provided are for the positive, negative and ground contacts for each voltage. The remaining 6 connectors are for the hot-swappable feature of SATA, designating an additional two contacts per voltage for this.
Fig. 1.5.1.5.3 - As seen in the picture above, SATA power connectors are still the same size as current power connectors even though they have a total of 15 contacts.
As discussed earlier in this article, SATA to PATA adapters are currently available to allow existing hard drives to be used with new motherboards or controller cards and one is shown below in figure 1.5.1.5.4.
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Fig. 1.5.1.5.4 SATA to PATA Adapter
The package, made by Soyo, includes the SATA to PATA adapter, 1 SATA cable and a short instructional manual. To connect this to a hard drive, simply connect the 40-pin PATA adapter to the connector on the drive as shown in figure 1.5.1.5.6. Also, 7 jumpers will have to be set according to the instructions shown in the manual.
Fig. 1.5.1.5.5 Converting PATA hard disk to SATA Technology
Then, connect one end of the serial cable to the adapter and the other end to a motherboard or controller card. Finally, connect a power connector to both the hard drive and the SATA adapter. This device can be used to connect a PATA drive to a SATA connector on a motherboard or controller card, connect a SATA drive to a PATA connector on a motherboard or, with the use of two adapter kits, connect a PATA drive to a PATA connector on a motherboard using an SATA cable. Figure 1.5.1.5.7 below shows a comparison of the inside of a computer case with a PATA cable connected to a hard drive and a SATA cable connected to a hard drive.
Fig. 1.5.1.5.6 - Standard PATA cable connection.
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Fig. 1.5.1.5.7 - Its quite easy to distinguish the winner here: SATA takes the gold without a doubt.
1.5.2. SCSI
1.5.2.1. Advantages of SCSI
It's fast -- up to 160 megabytes per second (MBps). It's reliable. It allows you to put multiple devices on one bus. It works on most computer systems
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1.5.2.2. Comparison of SCSI Technologies

Name Asynchronous SCSI Synchronous SCSI Wide SCSI Fast SCSI Fast/Wide SCSI Ultra SCSI Ultra/Wide SCSI Ultra2 SCSI Ultra2/Wide SCSI Ultra3 SCSI Specification
SCSI-1 SCSI-1 SCSI-2 SCSI-2 SCSI-2 SCSI-3 SPI SCSI-3 SPI SCSI-3 SPI-2 SCSI-3 SPI-2 SCSI-3 SPI-3
# of Devices
8 8 16 8 16 8 8 8 16 16
Bus Width
8 bits 8 bits 16 bits 8 bits 16 bits 8 bits 16 bits 8 bits 16 bits 16 bits
Bus Speed
5 MHz 5 MHz 5 MHz 10 MHz 10 MHz 20 MHz 20 MHz 40 MHz 40 MHz 40 MHz
MBps
4 MBps 5 MBps 10 MBps 10 MBps 20 MBps 20 MBps 40 MBps 40 MBps 80 MBps 160 MBps
1.5.2.3. Single - Ended vs. Differential

The set of signals for Single - Ended devices is very different from the signals for Differential devices. For Differential devices all signals consist of two lines denoted +SIGNAL and - SIGNAL, while for Single - Ended devices all signals consist of one line (SIGNAL). Single - Ended (SE) and Differential devices CANNOT be mixed on the same SCSI cable - except for LVD/SE, mentioned above. The designation 'Differential' generally refers to High-Voltage differential, which is mainly used on older, larger systems such as IBM mainframes. This type of SCSI is not common with personal computers.
Single - Ended Cables:

Single - Ended cables connect up to eight drivers and receivers. A 50 conductor flat cable or 25 signal twisted-pair cable should be used. The maximum cable length shall be 6 meters (primarily for connection within a cabinet). A stub length of no more than 0.1 meters is allowed.
Differential Cables:
Differential cables connect up to eight Differential drivers and receivers. A 50 - conductor cable or 25 - signal twisted - pair cable shall be used. The maximum cable length shall be 25 meters (primarily for connection outside of a cabinet). A stub length of no more than 0.2 meters is allowed.
Low-Voltage (LVD) Differential Cables:

LVD SCSI cables are similar to high-end SE cables, however they must meet more stringent requirements than SE cables. An internal LVD ribbon cable will be a twisted-pair type cable, rather than the flat ribbon cable that is used for SE type SCSI. If you want to combine SE and LVD devices on one SCSI cable, you must use the higher-quality LVD cable in order for the LVD devices to work.
Differential:
Allows up to 10 MB per sec., and cable lengths up to 25 meters (about 82.5 feet). Requires more powerful drivers than single-ended SCSI. Ideal impedance match is 122 Ohms.
Impedance Requirements
IDEAL characteristic impedance:
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- Single - Ended cables: 132 ohms - Differential cables: 122 ohms However, cables with such high characteristic impedance are not usually available. As a result, the SCSI standard requires the following: * For unshielded flat or twisted - pair cables: 100 ohms +/ - 10% * For shielded cables: 90 ohms or greater Somewhat lower characteristic impedance is acceptable since few cable types meet the above requirements. Trade - offs in shielding effectiveness, characteristic impedance, cable length, number of loads, transfer rates, and cost, can be made to some limited degree. Note: To minimize discontinuities and signal reflections, cables of different impedances should not be used in the same bus.
1.5.2.4. SCSI Devices that do no work together

The SCSI standard contains various alternatives, which are mutually exclusive within a system (or a bus).
These mutually exclusive alternatives are:

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Single - ended or differential Termination power supplied by the cable or not Parity implemented or not "Hard" RESET or "Soft" RESET Reservation queuing implemented or not
This means that the two devices you connect with a SCSI cable must be compatible, or of the same type, in terms of each of the five features listed above. For instance, both devices should be differential or both should be single - ended; at the same time, both should have a "hard" RESET or a "soft" RESET and so on...for each of the five features above.
1.5.2.5. SCSI Termination

Termination simply means that each end of the SCSI bus is closed, using a resistor circuit. If the bus were left open, electrical signals sent down the bus could reflect back and interfere with communication between SCSI devices and the SCSI controller. Only two terminators are used, one for each end of the SCSI bus. If there is only one series of devices (internal or external), then the SCSI controller is one point of termination and the last device in the series is the other one. If there are both internal and external devices, then the last device on each series must be terminated. Types of SCSI termination can be grouped into two main categories: passive and active. Passive termination is typically used for SCSI systems that run at the standard bus clock speed and have a short distance, less than 3 feet (1 m), between the devices and the SCSI controller. Active termination is used for Fast SCSI systems or systems with devices that are more than 3 ft (1 m) from the SCSI controller. Another factor in the type of termination is the bus type itself. SCSI employs three distinct types of bus signaling. Signal ling is the way that the electrical impulses are sent across the wires. Single-ended (SE) - The most common form of signaling for PCs, single-ended signaling means that the controller generates the signal and pushes it out to all devices on the bus over a single data line. Each device acts as a ground. Consequently, the signal quickly begins to degrade, which limits SE SCSI to a maximum of about 10 ft (3 m). High-voltage differential (HVD) - The preferred method of bus signaling for servers, HVD uses a tandem approach to signaling, with a data high line and a data low line. Each device on the SCSI bus has a signal transceiver. When the controller communicates with the device, devices along the bus receive the signal and retransmit it until it reaches the target device. This allows for much greater distances between the controller and the device, up to 80 ft (25 m). Low-voltage differential (LVD) - A variation on the HVD signaling method, LVD works in much the same way. The big difference is that the transceivers are smaller and built into the SCSI adapter of each device. This makes LVD SCSI devices more affordable and allows LVD to use less electricity to communicate. The downside to LVD is that the maximum distance is half of HVD -- 40 ft (12 m).
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Both HVD and LVD normally use passive terminators, even though the distance between devices and the controller can be much greater than 3 ft (1 m). This is because the transceivers ensure that the signal is strong from one end of the bus to the other.
1.5.2.6. Adaptec Ultra320 SCSI

Want lighting-fast data processing speed for your server or PC?
Consider Ultra320 SCSI from Adaptec Ultra320 SCSI is a PCI-X to SCSI solution, and twice as fast as Ultra160, featuring a sustained data processing rate of 320 MB/s in a single-channel configuration, or up to 640 MB/s, dual channel. Adaptec, the driving force behind SCSI and industry leader in direct attached storage, has the technology you need today to migrate to Ultra320 SCSI, when the technology becomes commercially available
A Smooth, No Risk Transition

Adaptec has adopted the industries current SPI-4 standards guidelines and is partnering with the industries best server and disk drive manufactures, like ServerWorks and Seagate, to ensure your smooth transition to Ultra320. Adaptec also offers a new chip that is pin-for-pin compatible with Ultra320 and provides outstanding performance and flexibility for server and high-end workstations. We can help you design and prepare for Ultra320 today, so that when the technology becomes available, you can plug in and get your data humming at Ultra-fast speeds in no time.
True Ultra320 SCSI

Others claim to have Ultra320 technology today, but its really nothing more than Ultra160 with packetization.
1.5.2.8. SCSI Controllers

QLOGIC SCSI Controllers
QLogic's Parallel SCSI controllers deliver the ultimate in SCSI performance and reliability. Since 1987, when QLogic introduced the industry's very first SCSI processor, we have led the way in SCSI innovation. Our line consists of a complete product line covering the range of Ultra through the industry's first 66MHz Ultra3 products.
Bus Type
PCI PCI PCI PCI PCI
Bus Speed
66/33 33 33 33 33
I/0 data Rate

160MB 160MB 160MB 40MB 40MB
Ports
2 2 1 1 1
Model
ISP12160A ISP12160 ISP10160 ISP1040C ISP1040B
1.5.3. Fiber Channel

1.5.3.1. Introduction
There are two popular methods for connecting storage arrays to servers for block-level access to storage Direct Attached Storage (DAS) and Storage Area Networking (SAN). Both use the SCSI protocol and appear as local storage to servers. These two methods present contrasting storage architectures. The most common architecture or method remains DAS, which uses a direct connection between a server and its dedicated SCSI storage system. These connections typically use parallel SCSI technology, which is used internally for disks as well. DAS is simple to deploy yet becomes increasingly difficult to manage as the numbers of DAS systems grow. A newer method places fiber channel (FC) technology and FC switches between servers and storage to create a Storage Area Network (SAN). The connectivity the switches provide allows the connection of more than one
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server to a storage system. This reduces the number of storage systems required but substantially increases complexity and cost due to the switches. Not surprisingly, both methods provide an almost mutually exclusive set of benefits, but an intermediate solution DAS supporting multiple servers using FC without switches becomes a sensible and desired alternative. Fortunately, innovative FC-based DAS solutions are now available to fill the void between traditional SCSI-based DAS and FC-based SAN. This white paper explores how FC DAS solutions apply the benefits of fiber channel to reduce SCSI storage costs without requiring SAN switches.
1.5.3.2. Advantages of Fiber Channel

Fiber Channel is an open-standard technology that provides reliable and fast communications at high speeds. It is most commonly used to network servers and storage using specialized switches into SANs. FC DAS solutions use fiber channel and therefore share many of its benefits, such as:
Reduced Costs
SCSI DAS storage systems are available in a broad range of configurations and prices. Even so, there are two general types based on where their controllers reside. Internal RAID types are DAS systems that require RAID controllers to be installed inside their server. DAS systems with RAID controllers outside the server are external RAID types. In any event, SCSI DAS storage systems can cost up to $10,000 each or more depending on their configuration. Storage costs are reduced significantly by consolidating the purchase of multiple SCSI DAS storage systems into a FC DAS storage solution. Four external RAID systems can cost the same or more as an FC DAS solution, without the added benefits that fiber channel provides. Moreover, the Total Costs of Ownership (TCO) for the FC DAS solution will be far less than external RAID and internal RAID in some cases due to the far greater management and maintenance costs of supporting multiple storage systems instead of a consolidated one.
Faster Performance
Fiber Channel is a newer and faster technology than SCSI. As such, storage systems utilizing FC technology are generally more advanced and feature rich than those utilizing SCSI. This can result in a FC DAS storage solution providing much faster performance. FC DAS storage solutions often provide performance similar to several SCSIbased storage systems combined. This results in greatly improve performance for every server with FC DAS storage solutions.
Better Scalability
Consolidating the storage requirements of several servers will surely increase the storage capacity requirements of the storage system in use. Fortunately, this is another area in which FC DAS storage solutions are far superior to internal RAID and external RAID alternatives. Each fiber channel disk connection supports a far greater number of disks than SCSI can, so FC DAS storage solutions often scale to extremely large storage capacities. It is unlikely servers connected to a FC DAS storage solution will out-grow the supported storage capacity, unless their requirements are highly unusual.
Improved Utilization
The storage consolidation provided by a FC DAS storage solution provides far superior storage utilization. FC DAS storage solutions allow adding capacity one disk at a time and allocating the new storage capacity to one or multiple servers. Increasing storage capacities when using internal RAID or external RAID requires adding one or more disks per system. For example, adding storage capacity to four servers would require a minimum of four disks when using internal RAID or external RAID one for each storage system. FC DAS storage solutions can provision storage to servers as needed, so it could require as little as one disk to increase the storage available to four servers. An even more basic aspect of storage utilization involves the unusable disk capacity required for RAID protection and spare disks. With internal RAID and external RAID, each includes an independent set of disks configured for RAID protection. Using RAID 5 protection results in one disk lost to parity overhead and potentially one additional disk for use as a spare. If there are four such systems in use, each is wasting two disks each for a total of eight disks.
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A FC DAS storage solution would provide storage to all four servers using one set of disks configured for similar RAID 5 protection and one spare disk. The number of disks made unusable for user storage is reduced by 75% in this example. Moreover, storage capacity is more precisely allocated using FC DAS storage solutions since any portion of the added capacity can be allocated to any server. The alternative is to add storage to internal RAID or external RAID in exact increments of one disk per server. The efficiency and advantages of an FC DAS storage solution grows as the number of servers increase.
More Dependability
The common measure of dependability for storage systems is Reliability, Availability and Serviceability (RAS). Reliability reflects how infrequently the storage system will experience a component failure, regardless of the effects of that failure. Availability describes the likelihood that the storage system will remain usable over time. Serviceability describes the ability to perform maintenance on the storage system without removing it from service. Together with uptime and downtime ratings, they provide common factors for comparing products.
1.5.3.3. Comparing FC DAS Storage Solutions

There are many factors that are important to consider when comparing FC DAS storage represent solutions, though there is no perfect criteria list. The following questions and suggestions are a basic set of guidelines, so be sure to add criteria important to each environment. The comparison checklist at the end of this document can help with summarizing comparison ratings of FC DAS storage solutions.
Number of Host Ports

Identify FC storage systems that provide multiple FC host ports without requiring external FC switches or other hardware options. FC storage systems with at least eight built-in FC host ports enable a transition from SCSI storage to FC storage without increasing costs.
Supported Platforms
Confirm that the FC storage system under consideration can support multiple operating systems simultaneously and can do so without requiring expensive software options. Also, ensure all features are available for every supported server platform and operating system.
Sufficient Performance
Sharing an FC storage system among servers will result in sharing its performance as well. Fortunately, FC storage systems are now available where the performance provided is greater than the performance provided by several SCSI storage systems combined. Look for these for best results.
Dependability
Reliability, availability and serviceability (RAS) become critical with FC storage systems since any disruption can affect multiple servers at once. Ask for documentation to support any RAS claims and avoid products without proof of five 9s (99.999 %) uptime or better.
Management Software
A comprehensive storage management suite greatly simplifies storage set-up, configuration and monitoring. Ideal FC storage systems offer software that supports all popular server operating systems at no cost or low cost. The availability of multi-pathing and load balancing software is a plus.
Total System Price

Watch out for FC storage solutions requiring expensive service and maintenance agreements. Such contracts can increase the total system price of an FC storage system to levels that make these solutions impractical.
Scalability
Exactly what is required to scale the FC storage system? Many require substantial hardware and software upgrades as they scale, which creates costly barriers in the future. This is rather common for product families that have many outwardly similar models.
UA - Network Attached Storage
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2. Network Attached Storage

2.1 Introduction to NAS
Network attached storage (NAS) has come a long way from the early 1990s, having found their way into the enterprise as companies look for alternatives to costly and challenging management of direct-attached storage (DAS). The NAS market includes products ranging from low-end workgroup servers with limited features and few expansion capabilities to enterprise solutions that are scalable, manageable, and expandable. NAS products have also become the perfect complement to highly capable storage area networks (SAN). The integration of NAS and SAN has been a huge development in the networked storage world, offering customers flexible solutions that allow them to stretch their storage dollars. Networked storage was developed to address the challenges inherent in a server based infrastructure such as direct attached storage. Network attached storage is a special purpose device, comprised of both hard disks and management software, which is 100% dedicated to serving files over a network. As discussed earlier, a server has the dual functions of file sharing and application serving in the DAS model, potentially causing network slowdowns. NAS is an ideal choice for organizations looking for a simple and cost-effective way to achieve fast data access for multiple clients at the file level. Implementers of NAS benefit from performance and productivity gains. First popularized as an entry-level or midrange solution, NAS still has its largest install base in the small to medium sized business sector. Yet the hallmarks of NAS - simplicity and value - are equally applicable for the enterprise market. Smaller companies find NAS to be a plug and play solution that is easy to install, deploy and manage, with or without IT staff at hand. Thanks to advances in disk drive technology, they also benefit from a lower cost of entry. In recent years, NAS has developed more sophisticated functionality, leading to its growing adoption in enterprise departments and workgroups. It is not uncommon for NAS to go head to head with storage area networks in the purchasing decision, or become part of a NAS/SAN convergence scheme. High reliability features such as RAID and hot swappable drives and components are standard even in lower end NAS systems, while midrange offerings provide enterprise data protection features such as replication and mirroring for business continuance. NAS also makes sense for enterprises looking to consolidate their direct-attached storage resources for better utilization. Since resources cannot be shared beyond a single server in DAS, systems may be using as little as half of their full capacity. With NAS, the utilization rate is high since storage is shared across multiple servers. The perception of value in enterprise IT infrastructures has also shifted over the years. A business and ROI case must be made to justify technology investments. Considering the downsizing of IT budgets in recent years, this is no easy task. NAS is an attractive investment that provides tremendous value, considering that the main alternatives are adding new servers, which is an expensive proposition, or expanding the capacity of existing servers, a long and arduous process that is usually more trouble than it's worth. NAS systems can provide many terabytes of storage in high density form factors, making efficient use of data center space. As the volume of digital information continues to grow, organizations with high scalability requirements will find it much more costeffective to expand upon NAS than DAS. Multiple NAS systems can also be centrally managed, conserving time and resources. Another important consideration for a medium sized business or large enterprise is heterogeneous data sharing. With DAS, each server is running its own operating platform, so there is no common storage in an environment that may include a mix of Windows, Mac and Linux workstations. NAS systems can integrate into any environment and serve files across all operating platforms. On the network, a NAS system appears like a native file server to each of its different clients. That means that files are saved on the NAS system, as well as retrieved from the NAS system, in their native file formats. NAS is also based on industry standard network protocols such as TCP/IP, FC and CIFS.
2.2. Advantages of NAS:

Plug-and-play functionality: NAS servers are designed to attach onto a LAN, find their IP addresses, and then appear on the network as an additional drive. It is a very fast, reliable solution that costs less: The unnecessary operating system overhead is removed from NAS appliances, reducing the CPU power necessary to store and retrieve data. Protocol support: NAS boxes support multiple network file system protocols, such as NFS for UNIX, Common Internet File System (CIFS) for Windows and Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) for the Web. Lower maintenance costs
www.wilshiresoft.com info@wilshiresoft.com Wilshire Software Technologies Ph: 2761-2214 / 6677-2214 / 6452-6173 Rev. Dt: 15-Oct-08 Version: 3
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Faster data response times and application speeds Higher Availability and Reliability Y2K compliance Enhanced Migration of existing data Scalability
2.3. What is Filer?

NAS device known as filers, focus all of their processing power solely on file services and file storage. As integrated storage devices, filers are optimized for use as dedicated file servers. They are attached directly to a network, usually to a LAN, to provide file-level access to data. Filers help you keep administrative costs down because they are easy to set up and manage, and they are platform-independent. NAS filers can be located anywhere on a network, so you have the freedom to place them close to where their storage services are needed. One of the chief benefits of filers is that they relieve your expensive generalpurpose servers of many file management operations. General-purpose servers often get bogged down with CPU-intensive activities, and thus cant handle file management tasks as effectively as filers. NAS filers not only improve file-serving performance but also leave your general-purpose servers with more bandwidth to handle critical business operations.
Fig. 2.2 - A basic Configuration for NAS Filer on LAN
Analysts at International Data Corporation (IDC) recommend NAS to help IT managers handle storage capacity demand, which the analysts except will increase more that 10 times by 2003. says IDC, Network-attached storage (NAS) is the preferred implementation for serving filers for any organization currently using or planning on deploying general-purpose file servers. Users report that better performance, significantly lower operational costs, and improved client/user satisfaction typically results from installing and using specialized NAS appliance platforms.
2.4. Strong standards for Network Attached Storage (NAS)

In contrast, network standards are strong standards that are driven by system considerations. There are two true network standards for accessing remote data that have been broadly implemented by virtually all UNIX and Windows NT system vendors. Developed and put into the public domain by Sun Microsystems, Network File System (NFS) is the defacto standard for UNIX. Developed by IBM and Microsoft, Common Internet File System (CIFS) is the standard for all flavors of the Windows operating system. As a result of these broadly accepted standards for network data access, storage devices that serve data directly over a network (called Network Attached Storage or NAS devices) are far easier to connect and manage than DAS devices. Also, NAS devices support true file sharing between NFS and CIFS computers, which together account for the vast majority of all computers sold.
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Fig. 2.3 Configuration of NAS on UNIX and Win
2.5. Network Attached Storage versus Storage Area Network

A SAN comprises an entire network, while a NAS device is essentially just a file server. The NAS solution transports files over the LAN, while the SAN moves entire blocks of data over a separate, dedicated network. The key difference is that in a SAN the file system is on the server side of the network, while in NAS architecture the network is located between the server and the file system.
Storage Type Network Attached Storage Connection

Storage devices connected to Ethernet LAN and shared by all other devices on LAN. Easy to install In short run, comparatively cheaper than using servers for the task of setting up a SAN Takes file sharing burden off general purpose servers CPU
Storage Area Network

Storage devices on separate Fiber Cannel loop, connected via a switch or hub to server devices on the LAN. Alleviates both CPU overhead and LAN bottleneck Offers opportunities for storage consolidation and improved utilization Storage management solutions can allow for less management headcount, and more comprehensive view Scalability is virtually infinite Expensive to implement Complicated to configure Interoperability can be a concern
Pros
Cons
Doesnt alleviate LAN bandwidth issues Not appropriate for block level data storage applications
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Major Storage System Competitors
Network Appliance EMC Auspex HP-Compaq IBM Procom Quantum-DSS Maxtor Spinnaker Connex Procom Technology Tricod Systems BlueArc Opanasas
EMC IBM Sun Hitachi Data Systems (HDS) HP-Compaq Dell TrueSAN XIOTech Corporation
Emerging players in the NAS/SAN landscape can be broadly categorized as developing systems that can potentially scale to thousands of Terabits, far exceeding anything available today. This scalability, however, comes at the expense of available features. Network Appliance and EMC, on the other hand, have the featurerich software capabilities for their platforms but do not yet have the scalability that some of the emerging companies claim to offer.
2.6. NAS Plus Tape Based Data Protection

In environments where the amount of data held locally is increasing rapidly and the need for the fastest time to recovery in case of data loss or catastrophic failure, a combination NAS and tape library solution looks increasingly attractive. The NAS device acts effectively as a cache for the most recent data and provides almost immediate time to that data. This may prove invaluable to a local retail store or brand office that aim to achieve high levels of data availability. As the NAS technology is made up of proven components, and is plug and play, the ease of installation and ease of use are big plus points for the deployment and ongoing use of such a solution. The ability to automate the backup process effectively removes the issue of human error and concerns over the non-technical nature of local personnel. The provision of a complete data protection solution at a local level is very cost effective compared to the more centralized options. A NAS / tape automation solution also provides the benefits of using hard disks without the cost and complexity of a fully disk-based solution. The scalable nature of the NAS / tape automation offerings means that the initial investment is largely protected larger drives can be added, for example. NAS / tape automation is a good solution for those who value the time that can be lost when looking to recover from data loss as well as the value of the data itself.
2.7. Streamlined Architecture

NAS servers address this problem by streamlining file server configurations and operations, stripping away everything that is not needed to store and distribute data. Typically, a general file server would involve a reduced instruction-set computing (RISC) chip-based server for Unix systems or an Intel Corp. PC-based server for Windows NT networks, with a disk drive storage array attached to the server. Much of the computing power of general servers is wasted in file server operations, which makes it a very poor investment. According to a study conducted by Carnegie Mellon University most servers require 25% of available CPU cycles for file I/O. Being a file server has everything to do with the [input/output] data path, not computing power. The general-purpose flexibility of such servers extends all the way down to the operating system. A modern multitasking operating system can have 6 million lines of code, and it provides many functions that are not needed for file services. A stripped-down file-serving-specific program is a fraction of the size and runs much faster.
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Networked file systems originally gained popularity after Sun Microsystems' Network File System (NFS) was placed in the public domain and most UNIX-based systems adopted the protocol for networked file access. Today, in some circles, NAS systems may still be referred to as NFS servers, even though products like E Disk NAS support multiple protocols including Microsoft's Windows SMB/CIFS Common Internet File system, HTTP, and FTP. Keeping files on a server in a format that is accessible by different users on different types of computers lets users share data and integrate various types of computers on a network. This is a key benefit for NAS systems. Because NAS systems use open, industry standard protocols, dissimilar clients running various operating systems can access the same data. So it does not matter if there are Windows users or UNIX users on the network. Both can utilize the NAS device safely and securely.
2.8. NAS Characteristics

Simplicity The installation and usage of a NAS device is, quite literally, a plug and play operation. NAS is a well understood and very mature implementation such that the addition of NAS to a network is considered to be a lower data risk proposition (vs. a tape only solution). This ease-of-use results in fewer operator errors and reductions in mis-configuration and mis-management. High-Availability Many NAS systems have built-in, fault tolerant capabilities or clustering functions to provide highly available solutions. Some of the solutions utilize fault tolerant RAID storage systems in addition to the fault tolerance in the NAS control function. Scalability NAS systems scale easily in both capacity and performance. Connectivity NAS typically allows for multiple network connections. This enables concurrent support of multiple networks and allows more users to be connected to a common storage element. Data Sharing One of the basic functions of NAS is to allow data sharing via its implementation of a remote file system. Users on different client systems can have access to the same file on NAS with the access serialization. However, serialization may add risk because of cross-platform locks and the variability in application responsiveness. Some NAS systems provide a translation mechanism to allow heterogeneous sharing for both NFS (UNIX operating system) and CIFS Windows NT/2000 operating system) implementations. Storage Management With NAS, storage management is centralized for that particular NAS device which may be supporting a large number of application systems. The administration of NAS system management is simple and handles all the storage devices connected. This provides a cost advantage by allowing more capacity to be managed per administrator. Integrated Backup The backup of a NAS device is a common feature of popular backup software. With the automated procedures and available software, backup risks are greatly reduced with NAS solutions. Some backup solutions may consume bandwidth of the NAS or may consume the local area network if utilized. As with any storage, understanding and planning is important. Infrastructures NAS leverages existing networks and network administration skills.
2.9. NAS Applications and Benefits

NAS applications tend to be most efficient for file-sharing taskssuch as NFS in UNIX and CIFS in Windows NT environmentswhere network-based locking at the file level provides a high level of concurrent access protection. NAS facilities can also be optimized to deliver file information to many clients with file-level protection. Two common applications that utilize the effectiveness of NAS include hosting home directories and providing a data store for static Web pages that are accessed by many different Web servers. In certain situations, organizations can deploy NAS solutions in a limited manner for database applications. These situations are usually limited to applications where the majority of data access is typically read-only, the databases are small, access volume is low, and predictable performance is not mandatory. In this type of situation, NAS solutions can help reduce overall storage costs.
2.10. Business Benefits of NAS Gateways

There are direct technological benefits provided by decoupled NAS solutions; however, significant business benefits can also be realized through their use. Some of the most significant include: Enhanced flexibility in how and where storage resources are deployed within the enterprise.
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Higher overall storage resource utilization which leads to decreased costs, since enterprise storage needs can be met with fewer, and sometimes less expensive, storage assets. Improved storage management capabilities and processes as all of an organizations storage assets can be placed under centralized, automated control. The ability to more effectively and flexibly scale storage resources to meet the demands of business processes and related applications. Potentially lower ongoing costs through enhanced resource utilization and reduction in the number of discrete storage management activities. Decoupled NAS offering an effective model/methodology for storage consolidation initiatives across the enterprise.
2.11. Drawback
Bottlenecks: The major issue that NAS does not address is the LAN bandwidth requirements. The fact that NAS appliances are connected directly to the messaging network can contribute to its congestion and create bottlenecks.
2.12. File Storm NAS:

Easy To Add File Storm Series devices can be added to the network in a matter of minutes, without the need to bring the network down. Increases Efficiency of Network Servers Because the File Storm Series is designed specifically to serve files you can offload high-bandwidth, fileserving tasks and allow the Network Server to focus on critical business tasks such as application handling and email. Facilitates Sharing of Data The File Storm Series allows you to connect to multiple operating systems and share data among disparate clients and servers. The File Storm Series supports both the UNIX Network File System (NFS) protocol and the Microsoft Common Internet File System (CIFS) in order to facilitate cross-platform data sharing Minimizes Staffing Costs Because of the File Storm Series simplified file serving nature the management and maintenance required is negligible compared with network server Direct Attached Storage. Easy Management: Browser-based Java, Unix Shell, Telnet, Windows GUI and Command Line Interface. Secure: 128-bit Kerberos Encryption; By-Directional ACL Built-In Tools
Snapshot: 250 snapshots per volume. Backup: Native utility for use over SAN, LAN, WAN and Internet. Replication: Native utility for use over SAN, LAN, WAN and Internet. Unix Management: Over 300 CLI tools, Unix Shell.
Manage 3rd Party Storage: Turn your legacy storage into a NAS regardless of the manufacturer File Storm NAS appliances are Cluster Capable!
2.13 Benefits of Low end and workgroup NAS storage

Administrator
Extreme ease of Installation No client software Uses existing security features within NetWare, and NT. Remote Management
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Low cost of acquisition & virtually no maintenance
User
User experience is exactly the same as accessing a standard file server Supports multiple network operating environments and various protocols at the same time
Security
NAS can include RAID functionality for security of data Existing client back up software will work with a NAS device
2.14. AS: Think Network Users

NAS is network-centric. Typically used for client storage consolidation on a LAN, NAS is a preferred storage capacity solution for enabling clients to access files quickly and directly. This eliminates the bottlenecks users often encounter when accessing files from a general-purpose server. NAS provides security and performs all file and storage services through standard network protocols, using TCP/IP for data transfer, Ethernet and Gigabit Ethernet for media access, and CIFS, http, and NFS for remote file service. In addition, NAS can serve both UNIX and Microsoft Windows users seamlessly, sharing the same data between the different architectures. For client users, NAS is the technology of choice for providing storage with unencumbered access to files. Although NAS trades some performance for manageability and simplicity, it is by no means a lazy technology. Gigabit Ethernet allows NAS to scale to high performance and low latency, making it possible to support a myriad of clients through a single interface. Many NAS devices support multiple interfaces and can support multiple networks at the same time. As networks evolve, gain speed, and achieve a latency (connection speed between nodes) that approaches locally attached latency, NAS will become a real option for applications that demand high performance.
2.15. Ns: Think Back-End/Computer Room Storage Needs

A SAN is data-centric -- a network dedicated to storage of data. Unlike NAS, a SAN is separate from the traditional LAN or messaging network. Therefore, a SAN is able to avoid standard network traffic, which often inhibits performance. Fiber channel-based SANs further enhance performance and decrease latency by combining the advantages of I/O channels with a distinct, dedicated network. SANs employ gateways, switches, and routers to facilitate data movement between heterogeneous server and storage environments. This allows you to bring both network connectivity and the potential for semi-remote storage (up to 10 km distances are feasible) to your storage management efforts. SAN architecture is optimal for transferring storage blocks. Inside the computer room, a SAN is often the preferred choice for addressing issues of bandwidth and data accessibility as well as for handling consolidations. Due to their fundamentally different technologies and purposes, you need not choose between NAS and SAN. Either or both can be used to address your storage needs. In fact, in the future, the lines between the two may blur a bit according to some analysts. For example, down the road you may choose to back up your NAS devices with your SAN, or attach your NAS devices directly to your SAN to allow immediate, non-bottlenecked access to storage.
2.16 NAS Solutions

2.16.1 NetApp NAS Solution
Solution
Network-attached storage (NAS) is the most mature networked storage solution, and the only type of networked storage that allows data sharing by connected host systems. Originally deployed in data sharing environments, NetApp NAS solutions have become a preferred solution for enterprise applications and database environments where automated performance tuning and sophisticated data management capabilities can reduce costs, improve data availability, and simplify operations.
Benefits
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Network Appliance NAS appliances deliver the lowest total cost of ownership of any storage approach, together with enterprise-level performance, scalability, and availability.
Problems Solved
Direct-attached storage works well in environments with an individual server or a limited number of servers, but the situation rapidly becomes unmanageable if there are dozens of servers or significant data growth. Storage for each server must be managed separately and cannot be shared. Performance and scalability are often limited, and storage resources cannot be efficiently allocated. The data management needs of today's enterprise IT environments are typically much better served by a networked storage approach. NAS has considerable advantages over direct-attached storage, including improved scalability, reliability, availability, and performance. In addition NetApp NAS solutions provide true heterogeneous data sharing and deliver unparalleled ease of use, enabling IT organizations to automate and greatly simplify their data management operations.
Product Description
NAS was initially designed for data sharing in a LAN environment and incorporates file system capabilities into the storage device. In a NAS environment, servers are connected to a storage system by a standard Ethernet network and use standard file access protocols such as NFS and CIFS to make storage requests. Local file system calls from the clients are redirected to the NAS device, which provides shared file storage for all clients. If the clients are desktop systems, the NAS device provides "server less" file serving. If the clients are server systems, the NAS device offloads the data management overhead from the servers. The first NAS devices were general-purpose file servers. However, NetApp redefined NAS storage with its "filer" appliancesspecial-purpose storage systems that combine high performance, exceptional reliability, and unsurpassed ease of use. The key to these capabilities is the combination of modular hardware architecture with the NetApp Data ONTAP storage operating system and Write Anywhere File Layout (WAFL) software, which enable the industry's most powerful data management features.
2.16.1.1 NetApp Filers Product Comparison

NetApp F250 - Filer for Remote Office
The FAS250 is particularly suitable for storage consolidation in Windows and Unix environments. As a result of the combination of the NFS (Unix networks) and CIFS (Windows networks) protocols, FAS250 is a universal, affordable storage platform. The supplied snapshot feature set supports efficient backup and user-initiated restore options. Storage capacity is online scalable from 360 GB to 2 TB and therefore provides solid investment protection. Without the need for data migration the FAS250 can be upgraded to the next larger NAS storage systems of the F800 and FAS series (up to 64 TB). The filer head of the FAS250 is integrated in the disk shelf and all components can be mounted in 19-inch racks. The new FAS Filer series features effective storage management functions such as Snapshot, SnapMirror, SnapManager and DFM (Data Fabric Manager) and also supports the NFS, CIFS, FTP, HTTP and iSCSI protocols.
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NetApp F270 and F270c Midrange Filers for NAS or SAN

This midrange Network Attached Storage system offers an entry-level SAN solution while providing strong price/performance for NAS and iSCSI infrastructures. Optional clustering capability provides high availability using an active/active cluster over the backplane, for a no-single-point-of-failure solution. The storage capacity is online scalable up to 6 TB and therefore provides solid investment protection. Without the need for data migration the FAS270 and FAS270c can be upgraded to the next larger NAS storage systems of the F800 and FAS series (up to 64 TB). The filer head of the FAS270/270c is integrated in the disk shelf and all components can be mounted in 19-inch racks. The new FAS Filer series features effective storage management functions such as Snapshot, SnapMirror, SnapManager and DFM (Data Fabric Manager) and also supports the NFS, CIFS, FTP, HTTP and iSCSI protocols.
NetApp F920 and F920c Midsize Enterprise Structure

The FAS920/920c enterprise filer series is designed for medium sized enterprises. Their storage capacity of up to 6 TB provides data consolidation in heterogeneous IT environments at all application levels. The model also offers the option of running the systems in a cluster configuration with up to 12 TB. This enhancement of data consolidation at all application levels goes hand in hand with a fail-safety that is once more noticeably increased.
NetApp F940 and F940c Unify Enterprise Data Storage

The flexibility and performance of the FAS940 Filer brings features to a broad range of Enterprise applications, including CRM (Customer Relationship Management), ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning), DSS (Digital Signature Standard), massive home directory consolidation and WEB serving. The FAS940 can manage 12 TB of data in one system, in a cluster configuration up to 24 TB. The Filer is configured with the Data ONTAP Software, a highly optimized and scalable operating system that enables them to interoperate easily and facilitates administration.
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NetApp F960 and F960c Enterprise Class Filer

FAS960 is a high performance filer in the NAS market. It is designed to accommodate thousands of independent users and large, high bandwidth applications. With the capability of managing 24 TB of data in one system and 16 TB in one file system, the FAS960 meets the storage demands of nearly any enterprise. In a cluster configuration it is possible to use up to 48 TB in one system without a single point of failure. The FAS960 delivers one of the lowest total costs of ownership (TCO) and highest returns on investment (ROI) in the industry.
NetApp F980 and F980c Powerful Enterprise Filer

The FAS980 is our highest-performance Filer in the NAS market. It is designed to accommodate thousands of independent users and large, high bandwidth applications. With the capability of managing 32 TB of data in one system and 16 TB in one file system, the FAS980 can meet the storage demands of nearly any enterprise. In a cluster configuration is it possible to use up to 64 TB in one system without a single point of failure. The FAS980 delivers one of the lowest total costs of ownership (TCO) and highest returns on investment (ROI) in the industry.
NetApp Nearstore R200

NearStore perfectly complements and improves existing tape backup processes by inserting economical and easy-to-use disk based storage between application storage and tape libraries, in a two-stage backup configuration. Software that utilizes incremental block transfers to backup data to NearStore like SnapVault provides additional benefits. NearStore R200 is offered in configurations with 8 TB and scalability in 8 TB steps up to 96 TB.
Network Appliance has dramatically enhanced how storage networks are deployed, enabling customers with large capacity environment to simplify, share and scale their critical storage networking infrastructures
2.16.2. NAS by AUSPEX

The Auspex NS3000XR Series
The NS3000XR enhances the data protection capabilities of the entry-level NS3010 by providing two independent data paths to every disk array through redundant RAID controllers and dual Fiber-channel host bus adapters. If one path is blocked, the XR automatically redirects a service request to the open path, ensuring that all data on all disks remains available to end-users. This Fiber-based strategy adds vital fault tolerance for any kind of missioncritical enterprise information.
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Fig 2.15.2 NAS Box of Auspex NS3000XR Series
Host Processor
Standard Solaris Platform UltraSPARC-IIi, 300MHz 512MB ECC System Memory PCI expansion Dual, redundant root drives No Direct Involvement in Data Delivery Full-featured Mgmt Environment Coordinates and Monitors I/O Nodes Compute power can be leveraged for Enterprise System and Network Mgmt
File System And Network Processors

Dual 933 MHz Pentium III 3 GB ECC Memory for System Cache
5 Concurrent High Speed Busses

1GB/sec Pentium Pro processor bus 2GB/sec Memory Bus Dual 512MB/sec Front side bus 4 slot 33MHz 64bit Primary PCI Bus 2 slot 66MHz 64bit Secondary PCI Bus
Network Interfaces
10/100 Ethernet (4 ports per device) (up to 2) Gigabit Ethernet (up to 2) ATM OC-12 (up to 1 - XR systems Only)
Network Software
EtherBand (High Speed Trunking for Fast Ethernet)
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NetGuard (NIC Failover for GB and Fast Ethernet) Implementation of Virtual IP Support
Raid Cluster Controllers

Up to 7.5 TB Disk (with 73GB Drives) Full Environmental Monitoring No Single Point of Failure within the RCC Dual Active-Active Redundant RAID Controllers Dual Hubs with Dual Fiber Loops Dual Redundant Power Support for rolling firmware upgrades Rack Mountable RAID 0,1,5 and 0+1 266MHz Pentium II RAID Processor 256MB Battery backed DRAMM 800 MB/sec PC-133 compatible memory interface 4 Ultra-160 Channels to LPDAs shared by each Redundant RAID Controller Connected to I/O Node II with 100MB/sec FC HBAs Dual JNI Fiber Channel Host Bust Adapters with 1Gbs throughput (each) with load balancing and Failover
Low Profile Disk Array (LPDA)

Hot swap drives Full environmental monitoring Split bus (6 or 7 drives per channel) or open bus (13 drives per channel) operation
Power Distribution Unit

30 AMP 2U Rack Mountable Included with Auspex Cabinet Support for up to 12 Dual AC Components Support for Dual Power Cords
2.16.3. NAS by EMC

EMC Celerra NSX NAS Gateway
Bring data center NAS to your SAN with the industrys most powerful, scalable NAS gateway
With Celerra NSX, you can add advanced, data center-class NAS capabilities to your new or existing EMC SAN environment. Now you can consolidate hundreds of file servers and NAS applications-all on one consolidated platform thats easy to configure, manage, and use. Celerra NSX is the right choice when you need to lower your costs, simplify your operation, and manage growth. Celerra NSX supports both EMC Symmetrix DMX and/or EMC CLARiiON CX networked storage systems-letting you create an extremely efficient, scalable NAS gateway-to-SAN solution.
Scale performance, availability, connectivity, and capacity

Celerra NSX provides the scalable performance; availability, connectivity, and capacity you need to bring NAS to the data center-to take on even the largest consolidation challenges. An innovative architecture based on XBlade 60 server technology-an EMC-designed and built Intel-based blade server platform-lets you scale from
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approximately 135,000 NFS operations per second to a blistering 300,000 operations per second. Scale from 4 to 8 clustered X-Blades, increasing your usable capacity from 48 to 112 terabytes. Unmatched availability ensures non-stop access to vital data and applications. Celerra NSX features advanced N+1 clustering to keep availability at its highest. Dual power and dual control stations with redundant Ethernet connections further enhance availability, reliability, and serviceability-as does a dual-managed UPS (uninterruptible power supply). Expand on the fly by adding additional X-Blades-without operational delays or disruption. Its just another way that Celerra NSX protects your investment.
Scalable management: Simplify installation, management, and placement

Celerra NSX makes it easy to leverage the powerful capabilities of data center-class NAS. Automated SAN network configuration for EMC CLARiiON CX-based systems simplifies gateway installation. Centralized control lets you manage, monitor, and analyze trends for multiple systems. And policy-based management automates file movement and archiving across storage tiers.
Virtual Filesystem Technology: Automate filesystem provisioning and simplify access

With EMC Celerra Automated Volume Management (AVM) software, you can automatically optimize your NAS solution for specific workloads. Now you can perform single-click volume and filesystem configurations to optimize performance and capabilities. With Celerra NSX you also benefit from enhanced features that present one logical view of multiple, independent filesystems for a clear picture of your entire environment-simplifying consolidation and management of a large number of filesystems.
The right solution for enterprise-level challenges

Celerra NSX brings you the high capacity and performance you need for high-end NAS consolidations and capacity-intensive applications. Enhanced archiving capabilities through integration with the EMC Centera platform, provides transparent file archiving and retrieval. New security features-including anti-virus protection/notification, LDAP authentication, and file-level retention capabilities-keep your enterprise safe and secure at all times.
Scalable management capabilities

Celerra NSX includes powerful Celerra Manager Software that simplifies and speeds management-with predictive monitoring, iSCSI wizards, and more. And with Celerra NSX, you can scale your management capabilities seamlessly to confidently meet future challenges-without adding costs.
2.16.4. EMC NS Series/Gateway NAS Solution

Flexible, easy-to-use gateway NAS solutions
EMC NS Series/Gateway systems enable you to consolidate SAN and NAS storage with a single, highly available, easily managed networked storage solution. Add enterprise-level file sharing capabilities to a SANconnected EMC CLARiiON CX or EMC Symmetrix DMX networked storage system to consolidate and optimize your storage-and get the most from your investment. The EMC NS Series/Gateway offers single, dual, and quad Data Mover models, as well as simple upgrades. All models provide extensive iSCSI support and iSCSI wizardsproviding a simple, cost-effective way to consolidate your file servers and application storage. A choice of gateways EMC NS Series/Gateway solutions let you choose the price, performance, and capabilities you need: The EMC NS500G entry-level gateway delivers high performance, high availability, and simple management-at an exceptional price. The EMC NS700G offers increased performance and capacity along with the ultimate in flexibility. The EMC NS704G NAS gateway offers advanced clustering, scalability of up to four Data Movers, and exceptional performance-up to three times that of the NS700G-a level of performance formerly available only on high-end NAS systems.
Flexible NAS solutions
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The main benefit of NAS gateways is clear-you can leverage your current investment in storage while adding new capabilities and improving consolidation. NS Series/Gateway solutions are compatible with CLARiiON CX or Symmetrix DMX storage, ensuring a seamless, integrated solution.
Simple web-based management

EMC NS Series/Gateway solutions include intuitive software that puts advanced capabilities at your fingertipswhile making them extremely easy to use. Manage your NS Series/Gateway as a stand-alone system or as part of your entire infrastructure-all from one simple, web-based console. Use wizards, intuitive GUIs, and other enhancements to monitor, manage, and simplify your NAS environment.
Virtual File system Technology

Take the complexity out of provisioning with this innovative capability, which simplifies consolidation and management of multiple file systems. With EMC Celerra Automated Volume Management software, one-click volume and file system configuration lets you optimize your environment for specific workloads.
2.16.5. NAS by SUN

To protect your data and keep your business running smoothly, the Sun StorEdge 5000 Family of NAS Appliances combines file system journaling, checkpointing (file copy), remote mirroring (file replication), remote monitoring, clustering*, and fault-tolerant backend RAID arrays to deliver very high levels of availability and performance in almost any open, file-based environment. Each of these filers is a great value and includes CIFS and NFS licenses and checkpointing (file copy) software, is easy to operate and effortless to manage, and installs in less than 15 minutes, thanks to a highly intuitive wizard. The Sun StorEdge 5210 NAS Appliance scales easily to 6TB of RAID 5-protected SCSI-based storage capacity with hot sparing. The Sun StorEdge 5310 NAS Appliance easily scales to 65 TB of raw FC or 179 TB of raw SATA* RAID-protected storage.
2.16.6. Sun StorEdge N8400 and N8600 filers

Sun Microsystems has introduced the Sun StorEdge N8400 and N8600 filers. The Sun StorEdge N8000 filer series has grown from 200GB to over 10TB of usable capacity in a standalone configuration. Sun customers can now add robust NAS storage to their end-to-end Sun infrastructure and achieve a low cost of ownership with single-vendor support across the enterprise. Sun also announced that the Sun StorEdge N8400 and N8600 filers have successfully completed the Oracle Storage Compatibility Program (OSCP) NAS test suite for Oracle database environments. With OSCP qualification awarded in February to the Sun StorEdge N8200 filer, the entire filer series, has now been qualified for seamless integration with datacenters running Oracle databases. Sun's highly reliable filers are optimized for peak network file system performance. Hardware RAID 5 and built-in component redundancy help provide data protection and high uptime. In addition, support for NFS and CIFS protocols helps enable customers to consolidate storage and provides file sharing for Solaris and Microsoft Windows clients, as well as other UNIX clients. "The Sun StorEdge N8400 and N8600 filers present a good opportunity for channel providers to provide a full line of high-performance NAS products for UNIX and Windows NT environments"
High Storage Densities and Scalability

The StorEdge N8600 Filer is made for storage service providers and other customers with limited floor space and rapidly expanding storage needs. The N8600, the highest-capacity appliance in the StorEdge N8000 Series, scales to 10 TB of storage capacity. Simple to set up and manage, the filer comes with the operating environment and management software preinstalled and tuned for optimization. Hardware RAID 5 and built-in component redundancy help provide data protection and high uptime. Support for NFS and CIFS protocols enables storage consolidation, and provides file sharing for Solaris and Windows clients, as well as other Unix clients. The series also includes the N8400, a midrange NAS appliance that scales to 4 TB.
2.16.7. Sun StorEdge 5310 NAS Appliance

The Sun StorEdge 5310 NAS Appliance is the newest addition to the Sun StorEdge 5000 NAS Appliance family. Designed for multiprotocol IT environments seeking to consolidate storage, the Sun StorEdge 5310 NAS
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Appliance supports UNIX and Microsoft Windows, simplifying file sharing between disparate platforms. To protect your data and keep your business running smoothly, the Sun StorEdge 5310 NAS Appliance combines advanced business-continuity functions such as file system journaling, checkpointing, remote mirroring, clustering*, and full system redundancy with a full 2-gigabit Fiber Channel (FC) RAID array to deliver very high levels of availability and performance in almost any open environment. Available in single and dual clustered NAS server configurations, the Sun StorEdge 5310 NAS Appliance provides quick deployment, simple manageability, seamless integration, and flexible policy-based services. The Sun StorEdge 5310 NAS Appliance is easy to operate and effortless to manage, and installs in less than 15 minutes, thanks to its highly intuitive wizard. Designed to grow along with your business, this powerful NAS appliance can easily be scaled to 65 terabytes of raw FC or 179 terabytes of raw SATA* RAID-protected storage.
Key Features
Easy Storage Platform to Deploy and Manage. Cross-Protocol Client Support and Management. Journaled File System with Checkpoint Capability. Remote Replication/Data Mirroring and Remote Monitoring. Clustering Capability*. Sun StorEdge Compliance Archiving Software Investment Protection with Common Storage Modules.
Specification
Processor : CPU: One 3.06-GHz Intel Xeon processor with 512 KB of Level 2 cache Number of Slots : 4 GB in 6 DIMM slots, registered DDR-266 ECC SDRAM Fiber channel : 1 or 2 dual-port 2-Gb Fiber Channel (FC) HBAs Capacity : Scales to 65 TB of FC or 179 TB of SATA RAID-protected storage* Mass Storage: Max. Exp. Units: Up to 28 (7 per RAID Expansion Unit)
Simplicity
The affordable, plug-and-play Sun StorEdge 5310 NAS Appliance provides simple manageability, quick deployment, seamless integration of UNIX and Windows, effortless configuration, and flexible policy-based data services to match your unique IT requirements. The Sun StorEdge 5310 NAS Appliance is easy to operate, effortless to manage, and installs in less than 15 minutes, thanks to its highly intuitive wizard.
Multi-Protocol
The highly flexible Sun StorEdge 5310 NAS Appliance supports Common Information File System (CIFS), NFS, and FTP protocols, cross-protocol file sharing and cross-protocol file locking.
Availability and Reliability

The rock-solid Sun StorEdge 5310 NAS Appliance provides such advanced business-continuity functions as file system journaling, checkpointing, remote mirroring, clustering, and full system redundancy.
Security and Compliance

The safe and secure Sun StorEdge 5310 NAS Appliance provides access rights and protection by individual user, department, workgroup, or group. Sun StorEdge Compliance Archiving Software helps businesses address the most stringent requirements for electronic storage media retention and protection.
High Performance
The Sun StorEdge 5310 NAS Appliance is a powerful NAS filer with fully optimized NAS heads and a full 2 gigabits of FC RAID backend array for fast response times critical to computational or content-creation applications, including technical computing and oil and gas exploration.
Scalability
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Designed to grow along with your business, the powerful Sun StorEdge 5310 NAS Appliance is easily expandable and highly scalable. Non-disruptively add storage capacity as you grow this appliance to as much as 65 terabytes of RAID-protected storage.
2.16.8. NAS by ADIC

ADIC's data management software provides enterprise-scale access and protection for critical digital assets throughout their lifetime. It also provides unified data across a wide range of server/OS platforms. Used in 1000 organizations worldwide, the StorNext solution enables organizations to access, protect, and retain multiples classes of data on various storage media based on their value to the business. ADIC's StorNext software and AMASS for UNIX software products manage some of the largest and most challenging open systems data storage environments. As data increases in both volume and value, effective organizations need advanced storage technologies. The ADIC-Network Appliance Certified backup Solution provides reliable and adaptable backup. ADIC storage networking libraries provide certified data protection solutions for all models of Network Appliance dedicated file servers, also known as filers, using SAN technology. Using SAN technology behind a NAS network provides greater efficiency, cost savings, and reliability. With the ADIC-Network Appliance jointly certified solution, these benefits are made possible.
2.16.8.1. Benefits of Using a SAN Behind a NAS Storage Network

The Network Attach Storage (NAS) market has grown in recent years, increasing the demand for creating comprehensive data protection solutions. Until recently, the primary demand was met by connecting tape devices into NAS devices through the standard SCSI interface. This has worked well for situations where there is a limited amount of data stored on a single NAS device. However, NAS systems have expanded within corporate environments both in number and in size. This growth can be attributed to the limitations IT directors have encountered when purchasing small, stand-alone autochanger tape devices. Todays high-data growth environment demands a more comprehensive and consolidated storage system for data and resources. IT directors are demanding larger centralized storage. This trend has led to a rise in the number of large NAS deices that need to be protected. In this environment, it is critical that automated data protection services are provided. To meet these needs, a point-to-point SCSI solution is no longer appropriate. The capabilities of an SCSI solution are exceeded by the demands of NAS in the enterprise data center. Over time, these trends have shaped the practice of deploying Storage Area Networks, or SANs. This is done by leveraging Fiber Channel technologies. Thanks to NAS vendors, SAN connectivity technology has been recognized as providing a standardized mechanism for Fiber Channel connectivity on the back ends of NAS systems. Backup software vendors also utilize these solutions with NDMP protocols and SAN resource sharing practices that have become commonplace in non-NAS data storage environments. SAN technology allows IT directors to consolidate and automate data protection operations from multiple NAS systems. The result is reduced management expense through automation, reduced equipment expense through consolidation, and increased reliability through simplification.
2.16.8.2. ADIC / Network Appliance Solution Overview

ADIC has extended the benefits of SAN consolidation of enterprise backup by launching a joint certification initiative with Network Appliance. The result is a fully qualified, jointly certified solution. This solution allows customers to consolidate backup operations from multiple Network Appliance filers into one tape library. Customers no longer have to attach a tape library directly to each filer because all filers are visible to all tape devices in the SAN. Additionally, this solution takes advantage of ADICs clear technical advantages in storage networking support. ADIC provides a streamlined backup solution that is easier to manage, more cost effective, and more flexible than traditional, direct attached configurations. ADIC and Network Appliance are also offering their customers a solution that takes advantage of both the NAS and SAN environments.
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Fig. 2.15.8.2 NAS Configuration behind SAN
2.16.8.3. Benefits for ADIC-Network Appliance NAS backup solution to an enterprise:

Cost-efficient tape sharing: Save time and money through dynamic tape sharing and optimal utilization of tape resources with Data ONTAP and NDMP software applications. Increased flexibility: The ADIC-Network Appliance NAS Certified Backup Solution provides backup configuration combinations of up to 64 tape devices in as many as 16 different media changers and up to 15 Network Appliance filers on a 16-port fabric switch. FC attached tape devices may be dynamically added, removed, or replaced on the filers, whereas SCSI attached drives require rebooting of the filer. Greater adaptability and efficiency: When backing up a NAS system, the ADIC-Network Appliance NAS Certified Backup Solution supports distances of up to 500 meters between elements for configurations when connecting data and centralized tape libraries. Decrease in network bandwidth requirements: By taking advantage of the inherent efficiencies of a SAN bandwidth, requirements become smaller and performance remains high. Backup reliability: The ADIC-Network Appliance NAS Certified Backup Solution ensures dependable backup through hot-swappable tape drives. Outstanding availability: by implementing backup tape library configuration changes behind the NAS, the ADIC-Network Appliance NAS Certified Backup Solution increases Network Appliance Filer availability. Increased backup efficiency: Time and money are saved by having up to 8 concurrent backups to shared tape devices.
2.17. StorNext Storage Manager

With user-defined, automated policies, StorNext Storage Manager (StorNext SM) enables organizations to access, protect, and retain multiple classes of data on storage media appropriate to their relative business value. These policies determine where data will be stored (on RAID, ATA disk, or tape) over time, and whether additional protection steps, such as file replication or vaulting, are needed. Plus, StorNext SM unifies data and storage technologies to enable centralized management and improve storage utilization over the lifetime of the data. The result is a reliable, automated system that: Frees up staff time Optimizes storage resource utilization Protects data integrity Increases data safety IT management time is valuable and limited. Qualified IT professionals are difficult to find and retain. With limited staff sizes and budgets, IT managers need to free up time currently spent on manual and complex storage
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tasks. By taking advantage of the simple, centralized and automated control that StorNext SM provides, IT managers can fully support enterprise data access and protection needs. All data is "critical" when it's needed. Enterprises want to know that their critical data is always accessible with reliable data integrity-despite any resource constraints. Through user-defined policies, StorNext SM balances access needs with available capacity by storing critical data on high-performance media and lower priority data on slower media. For data integrity, StorNext SM provides vital data protection options, such as versioning, file replication, and media copy. Data growth continues to soar. As data volumes grow, the pressure on enterprises to better utilize storage resources is increasing. By using StorNext SM's policies to manage data movement between disk and tape systems, based on Quality of Service (QOS) levels needed over time, enterprises can plan out the life cycles of different data classes. The result is a system that scales easily, and allows you to handle growing volumes of data with maximum flexibility and minimal disruption.
Fig. 2.16 - Policies of StorNext Storage Manager
2.17.1. Benefits of StorNext Storage Manager

Allows Solaris, IRIX, Windows, and Linux clients to access SAN files and devices simultaneously. Improves data movement by choosing the optimal resource across shared libraries/drives Maximizes the available disk space by relocating files from disk to tape Improves system performance on large file reads Ensures extremely fast file system recovery and failover Ensures high availability Allows users to manage their data according to their own policies Provides instant recovery of deleted files Ensures data integrity during the life cycle of the data Allows rollback to previous versions and maintains a change history Duplicates data without disk staging, protects enterprise storage investments by enabling seamless data transition to new tape drive formats Ensures long-term accessibility to data through a published format Manages data stored outside of library or off-site
2.16.2. Features of StorNext Storage Manager
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High-Performance Data Access

Support for heterogeneous SAN clients and data Control of media, drive and library functions File truncation Partial file retrieval Robust file system journaling Failover
Long-Term Data Management and Protection

Automated real-time policy engine Trashcan (undelete) Multiple copy file replication Versioning Media-to-media direct copy Self-describing tape format Vaulting
UA - Storage Area Network
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3. Storage Area Network

Introduction of SAN
A Storage Area Network (SAN) is an independent network for storage subsystems, free from the rest of the computer network. In effect, a SAN removes the storage from the servers; thus liberating the storage devices from the ownership of the servers. In such a setup where no server has ownership of storage subsystems, any server can gain access to any storage device. In other words, any user can gain access to any storage device of the SAN, regardless of the physical location of the storage or the user. In addition to offering any-to-any connections, a SAN creates a scaleable environment. Since storage and servers are independent from each other, storage devices or servers can be added or removed from their respective networks without affecting each other. Storage devices can be added to the SAN without any worry about a server's configurations. Isolating the potential disruptions of the servers from those of the storage reduces potential for interruptions. SAN (Storage Area Networking) is designed around and encapsulated SCSI protocol. The most popular physical connections are based on high-speed Optical and Copper Fiber interconnects and can be shared via a hub or switched, much like the more common networking protocols. In this type of system data is transferred over a storage loop to the various peripheral devices on the SAN. This is essentially a private network whose bandwidth is 100MB/sec and that can support up to 128 devices. There is also a switching technology available that will allow over 15 million devices to be addressed and configured within a single switched fabric network, but the full specifications for this standard have not yet been formalized. The storage medium for SAN is based on SCSI disk and tape drives or on the newer Fiber Channel interface drives now entering the market.
Fig. 3 Basic SAN configuration
The creation of an independent SAN further enhances the workflow of information among storage devices and other systems on the network. Additionally, moving storage-related functions and storage-to-storage data traffic to the SAN relieves the front end of the network, the Local Area Network (LAN), of time consuming burdens such as restore and backup. SAN's are often contrasted with NAS's, but NAS is actually under the "storage network" umbrella. The major difference is that the SAN is channel attached, and the NAS is network attached. NAS -Primarily designed to provide access at the file level. Organizations working on LANs consider NAS the most economical addition to storage. DAS or SAN - Optimized for high-volume block-orientated data transfers. Storage Management Solutions
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Traditionally, computers are directly connected to storage devices. Only the computer with the physical connection to those storage devices can retrieve data stored on those devices. A SAN allows any computer to access any storage device as long as both are connected to the SAN. A SAN is usually built using Fiber-Channel technology. This technology allows devices to be connected to each other over distances of up to 10 Kilometers. Devices connected using Fiber Channel can be setup in point-topoint, loop, or switch topology.
3.1. Advantages of Storage Area Networks (SANs)

Fault-tolerance - in a SAN environment, if a server were to fail, access to the data can still be accomplished because other servers will have access to that data through the SAN. Disaster Recovery - provides a higher data transfer rate than conventional LAN/WAN technology, and over greater distances, allowing backups or recovery to/from remote locations to be done during a relatively short window of time. Network Performance Enhancement - data traffic does not traditionally travel over the LAN twice, reducing the network traffic in half. Scalability - SAN technology breaks the physical distance limitation by allowing you to locate your storage miles away as opposed to only a few feet. Manageability - Storage Management in a SAN environment allows off-loading the responsibility of maintaining the storage devices to dedicated groups. Data Transfer Performance - SANs allow data transfer rates of up to 100 MB/s full duplex and initiatives are underway to further increase this throughput. Cost Effectiveness - SAN technology allows the total capacity of storage to be allocated where it is needed. Storage Pool - a storage pool can be accessed via a SAN, which reduces the total extra storage needed for projected growth. Higher bandwidth and greater performance Modular scalability allowing for pay-as-you-grow expenditures Maximized hardware utilization High availability and fault tolerance for expanded business continuance Manageability Ease of integration into existing infrastructure Better access to information by sharing data across the enterprise Freedom from vendor dependence through the use of heterogeneous hardware and software
3.2. Advantages of SAN over DAS

The most effective SANs provide a wide range of benefits and advantages over DAS, including: More effective utilization of storage resources through centralized access Simplified, centralized management of storage, reducing administrative workload to save time and money Increased flexibility and scalability through any-to-any storage and server connectivity Improved throughput performance to shorten data backup and recovery time Reduced LAN congestion due to removal of backups from production network Higher data availability for business continuance through a resilient network design Excellent scalability and investment protection allowing you to easily add more storage as your business needs demand Superior security for storage environments Non-disruptive business operations when you add or re-deploy storage resources Proven short- and long-term return on investment (ROI
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3.3. Todays SAN Topologies

Many of todays SAN topologies are fairly simple. However, SAN topologies are providing increased performance, distance, and connectivity while creating a first generation SAN platform. Existing storage management applications can be ported onto these SAN configurations since Fiber Channel networks encapsulate the legacy SCSI protocol. As a result, SAN-attached devices appear to be SCSI devices. Most early SAN configurations fit into one of the following topologies:
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The most complex topologies use one more Fiber Channel switches with multiple storage management applications. These configurations are made possible by using a technique commonly called zoning in which the Fiber Channel network is partitioned to create multiple, smaller virtual SAN topologies. By doing this, the Fiber Channel network looks like a simple SAN configuration to the host storage management application. Zoning techniques and tools vary widely at this point, but are available from virtually every Fiber Channel vendor.
3.4. Difference between SAN and LAN

Storage versus Network Protocol: A LAN uses network protocols that send smaller "chunks" of data with increased communication overhead, reducing bandwidth. A SAN uses storage protocols (SCSI), giving it the ability to transmit larger "chunks" of data with reduced overhead and higher bandwidth. Server Captive Storage: LAN-based systems connect servers to clients, with each server owning and controlling access to its own storage resources, limiting accessibility. Any added storage is attached directly to a server, and not shared over the LAN. A SAN allows storage resources to be added directly to the network, without being tied to a specific server, allowing any server to access storage resources anywhere on the SAN.
3.5. Difference between SAN and NAS

Storage Area Networks (SAN) and Network-attached storage (NAS) are both storage technologies attached to a network, and represent the convergence of storage and networking technologies. A SAN is a dedicated network of storage devices and host systems, separate and distinct from a company's LAN/WAN. SANs are designed to handle large amounts of data traffic between servers and storage devices, and keep the bandwidth-intensive backup traffic separate from the normal LAN/WAN traffic. Other benefits of a SAN include improved connectivity from servers to storage devices, and centralized data management A NAS is a specialized file server, connected to the network. It uses traditional LAN protocols such as Ethernet and TCP/IP, preventing the device from being confined by the limitations of SCSI technology. NAS products, such as Network Appliance Filers and Auspex servers are storage devices, and are attached directly to the messaging or public network. NAS products tend to be optimized for file serving purposes only. Each approach has its merits, but the general consensus is that SANs represent the future of storage connectivity. NAS devices will continue to perform their specific functions, but trends indicate that data-centric organizations are migrating towards the SAN model.
3.6. How do I manage a SAN?

There are two basic methods for SAN management:
SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol): SNMP is based on TCP/IP and offers basic alert management, allowing a node to alert the management system of failures of any system component. However SNMP does not offer proactive management and lacks security. Proprietary Management Protocol: There are a number of manufacturers that provide SAN management software (see SAN Management). Running management software typically requires a separate terminal (typically an NT server) connected to the SAN. Connecting this terminal to a SAN enables additional capabilities, such as zoning (security), mapping, masking, as well as backup and restores functions, and fault management.
3.7. What is a SAN Manager?

A SAN Manager is proprietary Storage Area Network management software, allowing central management of Fiber Channel hosts and storage devices. A SAN Manager enables systems to utilize a common pool of storage devices on a SAN, enabling SAN administrators to take full advantage of storage assets, and reduce costs by leveraging existing this equipment more efficiently.
3.8. When should I use a Switch vs. a Hub?

Hubs: Hubs used in small, entry-level environments and systems. They typically cost less than switches, but also offer a lower throughput rate than switches.
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Switches: Used in data-intensive, high-bandwidth applications such as backup, video editing, and document scanning. Due to the redundant data paths and superior manageability, switches are used in with large amounts of data in high-availability environments Are there reasons to use Switches instead of Hubs in a SAN? Switches provide several advantages in a SAN environment: Failover Capabilities: If a single switch fails in a Switched Fabric environment, other switches in the fabric remains operational. A Hub-based environment typically fails if a single hub on the loop fails. Increased Manageability: Switches support the Fiber Channel Switch (FC-SW) standard, making addressing independent of the subsystem's location on the fabric, and provides superior fault isolation along with high availability. FC-SW also allows host to better identify subsystems connected to the switch. Superior Performance: Switches facilitate "multiple-transmission data flow", in which each fabric connection can simultaneously maintain a 100MB/sec throughput. A hub offers a single data flow with an aggregate throughput of 100MB/sec. Scalability: Interconnection switches provide thousands of connections without degrading bandwidth. A hub-based loop is limited to 126 devices. Availability: Switches support the online addition of subsystems (servers or storage) without requiring re-initialization or shutdown. Hubs require a Loop Initialization (LIP) to reacquire subsystem addresses every time a change occurs on the loop. A LIP typically takes 0.5 seconds and can disable a tape system during the backup process.
3.9. TruTechnology
Most SAN storage area network solutions utilize Fiber Channel technology, which provides higher speeds and greater distances. SCSI devices, however, can function on a SAN by utilizing a SCSI to Fiber Bridge.
3.9.1. TruFiber
We call INLINE Corporation's Fiber Channel storage TruFiber because they feature Fiber Channel technology from the host connections, through the controllers, to the drives. Many other Fiber Channel storage providers take you down to slower SCSI, even in their high-end solutions. With INLINE TruFiber you know you are getting Fiber Channel throughout.
3.9.2. TruCache
When it comes to performance, the single most important factor for any storage system is how well it makes use of higher speed cache memory to enhance disk IO operations. Cache is used to increase the speed of read and write operations as well as allow dual operation writes in applications such as mirroring. While the use of cache provides an incredible performance gain, there is also an incredible risk associated with it. File system corruption and lost data can result if the cache is not managed and maintained properly. For this reason, INLINE Corporation utilizes our TruCache technology in high availability, redundant controller configurations. When you deploy a dual controller system from INLINE, you are assured cache integrity because the system simultaneously mirrors all cache and maintains complete coherency. In fact, INLINE Corporation differentiates itself from most other vendors by offering independent paths from two different controllers to the same disk simultaneously, while supporting reads and writes from both controllers. TruCache insures high-performance and data integrity when you operate in an Active/Active (multi-controller) mode of operation.
3.9.3. TruMap
When offering multiple ports to hardware RAID controllers, one often-overlooked feature is port control. On the SanFoundation and MorStor product lines you have up to 128 two-gigabit host connections. Flexibility in mapping the ports on each controller makes management infinitely easier. TruMap gives you the ability to map each port on a controller using one of three methods: One-to-One, One-to-Any, or Any-to-One. You can choose the appropriate mapping scheme based on your needs such as security purposes, bandwidth provisioning (QoS), Functions and Network segregation. This allows you to maintain bandwidth for mission critical and sensitive applications as well as insure minimum or maximum data rates to a specific LUN.
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3.9.4. TruMask
Network security has never been more important than it is now. Because today's storage implementations are often on a network, in addition to being directly attached, storage arrays must have their own level of security to insure data integrity and privacy. To answer this need, INLINE Corporation utilizes our TruMask option to protect your valuable data. TruMask gives you control over which arrays, and even LUNs, can be viewed by individual hosts and storage management applications. Because TruMask works down at the LUN level you have the ability to mix different data security classifications within a single array. When TruMask is invoked, the storage array looks at each computer connected and instantaneously determines which LUNs a computer can see as well as access. TruMask is a key component in successful SAN installation.
3.9.5. TruSwap
Today's data storage solutions need to be not only highly available and highly reliable but they also need to be easily maintained. INLINE Corporation, realizing this need, has designed all of our data storage arrays to be truly user friendly, even when it comes to maintenance. Our TruSwap technology allows hot-swap removal and replacement of components while the array is operational. During normal operation, an INLINE array can be serviced and maintained without ever shutting down the array and interrupting data access to the users. Every component involved in data integrity is hot swappable and can be removed and replaced in less than 5 minutes. INLINE solutions are quite different from other arrays because they do not require special tools, complex cabling, a specially trained engineer and worst of all - downtime. Most of the servicing can be performed quickly and easily by untrained personnel. With INLINE Corporation's TruSwap you stay online while you replace the necessary component in less than 5 minutes.
3.10. Features of a SAN

Backup Capacity: Increasing data storage requirements and the need for 100% availability of applications have overwhelmed SCSI backups across the LAN. Capacity Growth: Both IDC and Gartner Group estimate that data is growing at a rate of over 88% annually. To put this in perspective a 750GB enterprise in 2000 will require 5TB in 2003. System Flexibility/Cost: A SAN is a storage-centric network, providing easy scalability, allowing servers and storage to be added independently of each other. Additional devices, including disk arrays and tape backup devices can be added to the SAN without disrupting servers or the network. Availability/Performance: The use of storage data transmission protocol, including SCSI, permits the transfer of large amounts of data with limited latency and overhead.
3.11. SANs : High Availability for Block-Level Data Transfer

A storage area network, or SAN, is a dedicated, high performance storage network that transfers data between servers and storage devices, separate from the local area network. With their high degree of sophistication, management complexity and cost, SANs are traditionally implemented for mission-critical applications in the enterprise space. In a SAN infrastructure, storage devices such as NAS, DAS, RAID arrays or tape libraries are connected to servers using Fiber Channel. Fiber Channel is a highly reliable, gigabit interconnect technology that enables simultaneous communication among workstations, mainframes, servers, data storage systems and other peripherals. Without the distance and bandwidth limitations of SCSI, Fiber Channel is ideal for moving large volumes of data across long distances quickly and reliably. In contrast to DAS or NAS, which is optimized for data sharing at the file level, the strength of SANs lies in its ability to move large blocks of data. This is especially important for bandwidth-intensive applications such as database, imaging and transaction processing. The distributed architecture of a SAN also enables it to offer higher levels of performance and availability than any other storage medium today. By dynamically balancing loads across the network, SANs provide fast data transfer while reducing I/O latency and server workload. The benefit is that large numbers of users can simultaneously access data without creating bottlenecks on the local area network and servers. SANs are the best way to ensure predictable performance and 24x7 data availability and reliability. The importance of this is obvious for companies that conduct business on the web and require high volume transaction processing. Another example would be contractors that are bound to service-level agreements (SLAs) and must maintain certain performance levels when delivering IT services. SANs have built in a wide variety of failover and fault tolerance features to ensure maximum uptime. They also offer excellent scalability for large
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enterprises that anticipate significant growth in information storage requirements. And unlike direct-attached storage, excess capacity in SANs can be pooled, resulting in a very high utilization of resources.
3.12. Server-Free Backup and Restore

Backup and Restore are one of the major headaches for most IT departments today. Constantly increasing storage and bandwidth requirements result in increases in backup time that often exceed the capability of available systems to move critical data to a backup device. In the event of data loss, restoring data from system backup can be a major issue, due not only to the excessive time to restore data, but also due to the compromises made in the backup process that can result in inconsistent or incomplete file sets. With the advent of Fiber Channel SANs, new methods of managing data are possible. LAN-Free backup allows multiple servers to directly access and share multiple tape libraries without transporting data over the LAN. This dramatically decreases server and network loads and can greatly increase device utilization of backup storage devices. Predicated on LAN-Free backup, Server-Free backup expands on these capabilities by using the Storage Router to take over data movement operations on the SAN, under control of a backup server. This has immediate benefits, resulting in less server utilization and greater backup bandwidth. Traditional backup applications copy data into the server, building a memory image of the data to be backed up, and then transfer that image to the backup device. In Server-Free backup, the server only has to build a list of devices and blocks related to each file, by accessing the operating systems file allocation tables. This list is then transferred to the data mover device, which then performs the actual data movement. The benefits are obvious, as the server no longer has the memory usage and double copies of data across the systems busses and storage interfaces. Processor workload is also substantially reduced, as management of the data movement and file system conversions are simplified.
3.13. Backup Architecture Comparison

Regardless of the backup architecture used, all backup methods are supported. This includes file and image backup and restores. Additionally, compatibility between backup sets is maintained, so that tapes created by one backup architecture can be read by any of the other methods in use. The key to Server-Free Backup is a Data Mover device. The data mover devices must play several roles in fulfilling the functions required. The device responsible for moving the data on the SAN must have several key characteristics. In addition to being an addressable device, it must be able to act as both an initiator and target device, to receive data and commands, as well as to read and write data to and from disk and tape. A Storage Router, when used as a connection point for tape libraries, is the ideal candidate for acting ads a Data Mover, not only providing the base capabilities required, but also providing intrinsic segmentation of data transported on the SAN.
3.14. SAN approach for connecting storage to your servers/network?

Fault Tolerance
Each server in a traditional network can be considered an island of data. If the server is unavailable, then access to the data on that server is not possible. In traditional networks, most storage devices are physically connected to servers using a SCSI connection. SCSI, an acronym for Small Computer Standard Interface, is a hardware interface that enables a single expansion board in a computer to connect multiple peripheral devices (disk drives, CD ROMs, Tape Drives, etc.). Since access to data attached in this method is only available if the server is operating, a potential for a single point of failure exists. In a SAN environment, if a server were to fail, access to the data can still be accomplished, because other servers will have access to that data through the SAN. In LAN/WAN environments, completely fault-tolerant access to data requires mirrored servers. This is a costly proposition to many organizations. Also, a mirror server approach places a large amount of traffic on the network, or requires a proprietary approach for data replication.
Disaster Recovery
SANs allow greater flexibility in Disaster Recovery. They provide a higher data transfer rate over greater distances than conventional LAN/WAN technology. Therefore, backups or recovery to/from remote locations can be done during a relatively short window of time. Since storage devices are accessible by any server attached to
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the SAN, a secondary data center could immediately recover from a failure should a primary data center go offline.
Network Performance Enhancement

Gaining access to data in a network without SAN attached storage requires data transfer over a traditional network. Many applications today are created in multi-tier configurations. Take the example of a corporate intranet in which a user can request access to data. The server takes this request and accesses the data via a network attached CD-ROM tower where the data is actually stored. When the data request is complete, the data would have traveled over the network twice. This puts double the traffic load on the network; first when it is transferred from the CD-ROM to the server, and again when the server sends the data to the user who requested it. This increased traffic may lead to poor network performance. If the CD-ROM tower were connected to a SAN, the data would travel over the network only once. A SAN would allow off-loading of the traffic between servers and the Network Attached Storage (in this case, the CD ROM tower is the NAS device). Since the data travel between server and storage device is no longer seen on the same network as the general user population, the data traffic does not travel twice over the LAN. This reduces the network traffic in half, an immediate benefit to users who travel the LAN.
Scalability
In today's computing environments, the demand for large amounts of high-speed storage is increasing at phenomenal rates. This demand brings new problems to IT departments. Of major concern is the physical location of the storage devices. The traditional connection of storage is through SCSI connections. However SCSI has physical distance limitations that could make it impossible to connect the necessary storage devices to the servers. SAN technology breaks this physical distance limitation by allowing you to locate your storage miles away as opposed to only a few feet.
Manageability
Many organizations have groups whose tasks are dedicated to specific functions. It is common to find NT Administrators, Novell Administrators or Unix Administrators all in the same company. All of these Administrators have two things in common: they all use a network to communicate to the clients they serve and they all require disk storage. For an organization's networking needs, you will often find a Network Manager or Network Group. They maintain the installed base of hubs, switches and routers. The Network Manager ensures the network is operating effectively and makes plans for future growth. Few organizations have groups whose responsibilities include managing the storage resources. It is ironic that a company's most crucial resource, data storage, generally may have no formal group to manage it effectively. As is, each type of system administrator is required to monitor the storage attached to their servers, perform backups and plan for growth. Storage Management in a SAN environment could offload the responsibility of maintaining the storage devices to a dedicated group. This group can perform backups over the SAN, alleviating LAN/WAN traffic for all type of servers. The group could allocate disk space to any server regardless of the type. The SAN managers could actively monitor the storage systems of all platforms and take immediate corrective action, whenever needed.
Data Transfer Performance

Current SCSI specifications only allow for data throughput rates of up to 160 MB/s. SANs allow for data transfer rates of up to 100 MB/s full duplex. This means that the effective transfer rate between devices can reach 200 MB/s (100 MB/s in each direction). Parallel connections can be used in SANs to increase performance. Initiatives are underway to further increase this throughput. This is truly the next generation data transfer mechanism.
Cost Effectiveness
Each server requires its own equipment for storage devices. The storage cost for environments with multiple servers running either the same or different operation systems can be enormous. SAN technology allows an organization to reduce this cost through economies of scale. Multiple servers with different operating systems can access storage in RAID clusters. SAN technology allows the total capacity of storage to be allocated where it is needed. If requirements change, storage can be reallocated from devices with an excess of storage to those with
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too little storage. Storage devices are no longer connected individually to a server; they are connected to the SAN, from which all devices gain access to the data.
Storage Pool
Instead of putting an extra 10GB on each server for growth, a storage pool can be accessed via SAN, which reduces the total extra storage needed for projected growth.
Summary
SANs connect storage devices and provide high-speed, fault tolerant access to data. A SAN is different than a LAN/WAN, in that a LAN/WAN is solely a communications highway. SANs are usually built with Fiber-Channel, and are setup either in a point-to-point, loop, or switch topology.
3.15. Evolution of SANs

Today
Today, SANs can be effectively deployed within an enterprise, without risking loss of infrastructure investment, or compromising the integrity of the stored data. Many top-tier firms have successfully installed SANs, and continue to do so. With any emerging technology, prospective users need to be informed and kept current on specific industry standards and when they will be adopted and approved by industry associations, equipment manufacturers and developers. Several hardware, software and industry consortiums, including SNIA (Storage Network Industry Alliance), FCIA (Fiber Channel Industry Association), and FCA (Fiber Channel Alliance) represent the SAN industry. In order to promote and adopt universal SAN standards, these groups co-develop universal hardware and software protocols. The SAN industry has universally adopted Fiber Channel Arbitrated Loop (FC-AL) as a protocol for exchanging data within switched and non-switched environments. (See "What is Fiber Channel Arbitrated Loop?") As a result of these standards, FC-AL accounts for the majority of implemented SANs today. FC-AL allows more than two devices to communicate through common bandwidth, and allows greater flexibility and support than other topologies. The available bandwidth of the loop is determined by the amount of traffic generated in the loop. Each device in the FC-AL SAN must arbitrate for access to the loop before sending any data. Fiber Channel provides a superset of commands that allows the orderly and efficient transmission of data, and ensures its integrity. Although Switched Fabric SANs have been successfully implemented, they currently do not have a complete set of standards agreed on by the industry. Users looking to invest in SAN technology are advised to implement FCAL topology, at least until standards have been set for Switched protocol. Switch manufacturers are currently releasing products that are FC-AL compatible, and are fabric upgradeable. Despite the delay in producing a fully supportable set of Switched Fabric standards, users can still benefit substantially from the performance gains within SAN architectures by using the FC-AL topology.
The Future
The potential of SAN technology is limitless. Advances in both cabling and Fiber Channel technology occurs on a regular basis. Unlike any other existing data transport mechanisms, fiber-optic technology offers a substantial increase in bandwidth capacity. Fiber-optic cabling transmits data through optical fibers in the form of light. A single hair-thin fiber is capable of supporting 100 trillion bits per second. Currently, SAN backbones can support 1.025Gbps throughput; 2Gbps throughput are going to be available shortly, and exponential leaps will occur in more frequently in the next few years. As bandwidth becomes a commodity, data exchange will be liberated from size constraints, and storage will soon be measured in petabytes (equal to 1000 terabytes). To meet the demand for fiber interfaces, storage vendors are now designing their products with fiber backplanes, controllers and disk modules. Future offerings include "serverless" backup technology, which liberates the traditional server interface from backup libraries, to enable faster backups. Currently, heterogeneous platforms can only share the physical storage space within a SAN. As new standards and technologies emerge, UNIX, NT, and other open systems will enable data sharing through a common file system. Some major vendors in the SAN field are presently developing products designed for 4Gbps throughput.
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3.16. Comparison of SAN with Available Data Protection Technologies

In a SAN environment, storage devices such as Tape Drives and RAID arrays are connected to many kinds of servers via a high-speed interconnection, such as Fiber Channel. This setup allows for any-to-any communication among all devices on the SAN. It also provides alternative paths from server to storage device. In other words, if a particular server is slow or completely unavailable, another server on the SAN can provide access to the storage device. A SAN also makes it possible to mirror data, making multiple copies available. The high-speed interconnection that links servers and storage devices essentially creates a separate, external network that's connected to the LAN but acts as an independent network. There are a number of advantages to SANs and the separate environments they create within a network. SANs allow for the addition of bandwidth without burdening the main LAN. SANs also make it easier to conduct online backups without users feeling the bandwidth pinch. And, when more storage is needed, additional drives do not need to be connected to a specific server; rather, they can simply be added to the storage network and can be accessed from any point. Another reason SANs are making big waves is that all the devices can be centrally managed. Instead of managing the network on a per-device basis, storage can be managed as a single entity, making it easier to deal with storage networks that could potentially consist of dozens or even hundreds of servers and devices.
Fig. 3.16 SAN implementation on LAN
The interconnection of choice in today's SAN is Fiber Channel, which has been used as an alternative to SCSI in creating high-speed links among network devices. Fiber Channel was developed by ANSI in the early 1990s, specifically as a means of transferring large amounts of data very quickly. Fiber Channel is compatible with SCSI, IP, IEEE 802.2, ATM Adaptation Layer for computer data, and Link Encapsulation, and it can be used over copper cabling or fiber-optic cable. Currently, Fiber Channel supports data rates of 133Mbytes/sec, 266Mbytes/sec, 532Mbytes/sec, and 1.0625Gbits/sec. A proposal to bump speeds to 4Gbits/sec is on the drawing board. The technology supports distances of up to 10 kilometers, which makes it a good choice for disaster recovery, as storage devices can be placed offsite. SANs based on Fiber Channel may start out as a group of server systems and storage devices connected by Fiber Channel adapters to a network. As the storage network grows, hubs can be added, and as SANs grow further in size, Fiber Channel switches can be incorporated. Fiber Channel supports several configurations, including point-to-point and switched topologies. In a SAN environment, the Fiber Channel Arbitrated Loop (FCAL) is used most often to create this external, high-speed storage network, due to its inherent ability to deliver any-to-any connectivity among storage devices and servers An FCAL configuration consists of several components, including servers, storage devices, and a Fiber Channel switch or hub. Another component that might be found in an arbitrated loop is a Fiber Channel-to-SCSI bridge, which allows SCSI-based devices to connect into the Fiber Channel-based storage network. This not only preserves the usefulness of SCSI devices but also does it in such a way that several SCSI devices can connect to a server through a single I/O port on the server. This is accomplished through the use of a Fiber Channel Host Bus Adapter (HBA). The HBA is actually a Fiber Channel port. The Fiber Channel-to-SCSI bridge multiplexes several SCSI devices through one HBA.
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The FCAL provides not only a high-speed interconnection among storage devices but also strong reliability. In fact, you can remove several devices from the loop without any interruption to the data flow. The major benefit of SAN is its ability to share devices among many servers at high speeds and across a variety of operating systems. This is particularly true in a centralized Data Center type environment. However, SANs are expensive, difficult to configure and costly to manage. The costs of SAN implementation would make them prohibitive in a geographically diverse, branch office or retail, environment.
3.17. SAN Solutions

3.17.1. SAN Hardware Solutions
3.17.1.1. ADIC SAN Solutions
Traditional Distributed Model
Distributed backup offers high speed and network performance however, since data is stored in isolated systems throughout the network, the cost to manage and scale this model raises as data demands increase.
Fig. 3.17.1.1.1 - Distributed backup becomes costly to manage as data grows.
Traditional Backup over the LAN

Backup over the LAN offers centralized data storage and control. However, network speed and performance decreases as network traffic increases, particularly in organizations that provide 24x7 network data services.
Fig. 3.17.1.2. - Network speed and performance suffer as backup traffic increases.
SAN Backup Includes Best of Both Worlds

ADIC's Open SAN Backup offers all the benefits of traditional modelswith none of the drawbacks. SAN Backup moves large backup data transfers off your LAN, freeing your network for critical business transactions while reducing backup times significantly. Backup data is consolidated in a library of shared tape drives, where you can centralize data control and scale storage easily and economically.
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Fig. 3.17.1.3. - SAN backup protects LAN performance and scales easily and cost-effectively.
3.17.1.2. SAN by SUN

Introducing the SUN StorEdge Open SAN
Simplify your Storage Area Network (SAN) with the Sun StorEdge Open SAN Architecture. The comprehensive, unified SAN architecture scales from the workgroup to the data center and enables you to optimize storage utilization, improve performance, simplify management, and increase availability while lowering TCO. Plus, it's optimized for Sun environments and supports heterogeneous operating systems. The architecture provides a common full-fabric SAN infrastructure combined with high-availability storage products to help ease SAN management and allow you to consolidate storage resources on the network. What's more, the Sun ONE software strategy makes it easier to design, deploy, and manage a massively scalable SAN. And the open SAN management software provides a centralized management platform for viewing and managing the SAN storage environment.
Overview
Storage growth continues to escalate, yet IT departments have to manage more data with constant or declining resources. Sun helps you meet this challenge with a comprehensive set of products and services that eases storage area network (SAN) management and consolidates storage resources on the network. The Sun StorEdge Open SAN architecture delivers on the promise of SANs by simplifying SAN management, optimizing resource utilization, and driving down total cost of ownership (TCO).
Flexibility
The Sun StorEdge Open SAN architecture has flexibility designed in to allow it to meet a wide range of customer requirements. Whether your SAN needs are small or large, simple or more challenging, local or worldwide, the Sun StorEdge Open SAN architecture can support your design today and grow with you in the future.
Manageability
Sun has taken a leadership role in designing, promoting, and adopting open standard based SAN management. Taken together with existing management interfaces and tools, Sun is able to deliver simple to use heterogeneous management software as well as enable third party software vendors to provide additional choice for our customers.
Low Total Cost of Ownership

The Sun StorEdge Open SAN architecture enables storage consolidation, disaster recovery, shared file systems, multi-host high availability, and improved backup and recovery solutions. Solutions built around the Sun StorEdge Open SAN architecture can simplify management, reduce training requirements, improve utilization, increase efficiency and improve reliability. All of these benefits can reduce costs.
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Compatibility
The Sun StorEdge Open SAN architecture has as a particular focus implementing and taking advantage of open standards. Whether through early adoption of management standards, using SCSI and Fiber Channel standards or ensuring that switches interoperate, openness is a key design goal and practice throughout the architecture.
Availability
The Sun StorEdge Open SAN architecture enables extreme levels of availability. From the component level through best practices, the architecture is capable of meeting your availability requirements.
Performance
The Sun StorEdge Open SAN architecture offers very high performance. The architecture supports 1 and 2 GB Fiber Channel today and will incorporate 10 GB Fiber Channel in the future. Trunking capabilities between switches, a high performance shared file system, and load balancing on hosts are some of the means to provide a powerful set of building blocks to construct a SAN capable of world record performance.
3.17.1.3. Features of SUN StorEdge

Variable disk allocation unit (DAU) and I/O schemes 2 Gb infrastructure support. The Sun StorEdge Open SAN architecture supports heterogeneous hosts. Backward compatible with 1 Gb products Brocade or McData operability in a SAN 4.2 environment. Failure Detection and Switchover Failover Support for Explicit LUN Failover (ELF) Heterogeneous load balancing. High-performance SAN file system
3.17.1.4. Benefits of SUN StorEdge

Flexible architecture allows application requirements to dictate SAN design. Allows greater flexibility when creating larger SANs. Flexible configuration optimizes performance for your specific environment helping you to attain the best return on your SAN investments. Allows better storage utilization for data consolidation and large cluster configurations. Sun StorEdge Traffic Manager software reduces system administrator costs by simplifying the process of adding bandwidth to a server. Improved throughput for data-intensive applications offers better utilization of servers. Common building blocks and rules allow customers to build their SAN to best reduce complexity and management costs. Helps lower system management costs by simplifying the process of adding bandwidth to servers. Provides ease-of-management and better return on storage investments Gives customers the ability to choose key SAN components with the confidence that everything will work together. Provides the assurance that your data can be restored regardless of the retention period and the environment in which you need to restore it. This is particularly important in regulatory environments where records may be retained for a number of years. Allow customers to avoid SAN problems and protect system availability. Increases SAN design flexibility and reduces total cost of ownership (TCO) through storage consolidation and data management. No single point of failure. Use Sun Cluster to further improve system availability. Eliminate single point of failure on non-Sun systems.
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Highly scalable performance. Performance can be scaled easily while ensuring availability. Provides enhanced productivity and faster information distribution. Dramatically reduces risk of data loss in the event of an outage and greatly improves mean time to recovery. Improves total cost of ownership (TCO) as large amounts of data can be accessed from lower-cost media. Reduces the cost of server memory and storage capacity. Lowers TCO by consolidating resources simplifying system management and minimizing administrator training.
3.17.2 SAN Management Software Solutions

3.17.2.1. SAN by VERITAS
VERITAS empowers IT personnel with the heterogeneous SAN software solutions needed to meet the storage requirements of applications, departments, external organizations, and individual end-users. The result of more than ten years of storage virtualization expertise, VERITAS solutions allow storage administrators to take full advantage of SAN infrastructures. Our SAN solutions speed recovery of applications and data after a fault and let you quickly and easily manage storage capacity requirements. VERITAS solutions enable storage infrastructure performance to meet application requirements--and ensure the survivability of your data.
Data Protection
VERITAS data protection solutions deliver robust, scalable storage management, backup, and recovery--from the desktop to the data center--for heterogeneous environments. Organizations of every size rely on VERITAS for comprehensive data protection. With our data protection solutions, there's no need to use multiple backup products of UNIX, Windows, and database backup. And you'll never have to rely on end users to copy critical corporate data from desktops and mobile laptops onto a networked file server. VERITAS data protection solutions streamline, scale, and automate backup throughout your organization. VERITAS products safeguard the integrity of all corporate data on all platforms and in all databases. VERITAS is the world's most powerful data protection solution for fast, reliable, enterprise-wide backup and recovery.
Disaster Recovery
Disaster recovery is a business essential. Companies large and small need their data protected, accessible, and uninterrupted in the even of a disaster. VERIAS disaster recovery solutions are based on software products that work together efficiently and seamlessly across all platforms and applications. And our solutions are flexible enough to grow along with your business. As you build your disaster recovery plan, VERITAS can provide you with a layer of protection at every stage.
High Availability
Maintaining high levels of access to information across heterogeneous environments without compromising a quality user experience can challenge any IT organization. VERITAS high availability solutions protect the user experience from servers to storage. IT staff can use VERITAS products to build higher levels of availability throughout the data center, even at levels once thought too expensive, complex to install, or difficult to manage.
The VERITAS VERTEX Initiative

The VERITAS VERTEX Initiative includes a wide range of solutions for use with NetBackup DataCenter that can translate into business success for your corporate IT environment. In today's rapidly changing business environment, IT departments are being challenged to manage more data within shorter time frames. The VERITAS VERTEX Initiative delivers alternate backup methods using frozen-image or "snapshot" technology. It's the future of data protection.
3.17.2.2. Veritas SAN Applications

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Reducing Total Cost of Storage with SANs

SANs reduce costs by providing a better management infrastructure for storage in a centralized data center. Two examples of cost savings due to centralized SANs are peripheral sharing and capacity management.
Peripheral sharing
According to a June, 1999 Dataquest survey, 56% of respondents reported using less than 50% of RAID capacity due to the inability to share the devices among many servers. As a result, they estimate an IT manager in a distributed storage environment can manage only one-third the storage capacity managed in a centralized environment. The most obvious way in which SANs helps reduce costs is by facilitating sharing of sophisticated peripherals between multiple servers. External storage is commonplace in data centers, and sophisticated peripherals are generally used to provide high performance and availability. An enterprise RAID system or automated tape library can be 5 to 10 times more expensive than a single server, making it prohibitively expensive to use a one-to-one devices attach approach. Even with multiple channel controllers in the peripheral, the cost equation is often not attractive. Fiber Channel-based storage networking provides three key features to facilitate peripheral sharing. First, flexible many-to-many connectivity using Fiber Channel hubs and switches improves the fan-out capabilities of a peripheral, allowing multiple servers to be attached to each channel. Second, the increased distance capabilities of fiber optic cables break the distance restrictions of SCSI, allowing servers to be located up to 10Km from the peripheral. Finally, Fiber Channel hubs and switches support improved isolation capabilities, facilitating nondisruptive addition of new peripherals or servers. This avoids unnecessary downtime for tasks such as installing a new I/O card in a server. However, storage management software is also required in combination with Fiber Channel networks to deliver true SAN functionality. Software tools are used to allocate portions of an enterprise RAID to a server in a secure and protected manner, avoiding data corruption and unwanted data access. Storage management software also can also provide dynamic resource sharing, allocating a tape drive in an automated tape library to one of many attached servers during a backup session on an as needed basis.
Capacity Management
With traditional locally attached storage, running of out disk space means that new storage must be physically added to a server either by adding more disks to an attached RAID or adding another I/O card and a new peripheral. This is a highly manual and reactive process, and leads IT managers to deploy large amounts of excess capacity on servers to avoid downtime due to re-configuration or capacity saturation. SANs allow many on-line storage peripherals to be attached to many servers over a FC network. Using tools to monitor disk quotas and free space, administrators can detect when a server is about to run out of space and take action to insure storage is available. Using storage allocation software, free space on any RAID can be allocated to a hot server putting the storage where its needed most. As existing SAN-attached peripherals become saturated, new peripherals can be added to the SAN hubs or switches in a non-disruptive way allowing free space to be allocated as needed.
Increased Availability without Exponential Costs

Delivering high levels of availability without exponential costs is a key requirement for the new internet-driven data center. SANs promise three techniques to achieve this: multi-server availability clusters, virtualization of SAN resources to minimize application disruption, and the automation of manual storage tasks to avoid re-active management.
Virtualization of Physical Storage to Minimize Application Disruption

Minimizing disruptions to applications while storage configurations change is key to achieving near-continuous availability and performance. This can be a challenge, as new storage must be added to keep up with capacity demands, or storage configurations must be changed to optimize performance or improve availability levels. With traditional locally attached storage, external RAID controllers can be used to isolate configuration changes from the host maintaining application uptime. However, downtime still has to be scheduled to add new RAIDs, and map the new storage to applications. External RAID controllers, which comes at a premium to JBOD. As noted, SAN-attached, external storage can be added to Fiber Channel hubs or switches and portions of the new storage can be mapped to one or more servers. The characteristics of Fiber Channel allow these new
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storage peripherals to be added without breaking a SCSI chain. However the server application is still unaware of this new storage since it must be stopped and re-started to access new volumes. Storage virtualization software, such as advanced logical volume managers, can allow an existing application volume to dynamically grow to include the new SAN attached storage. This completes the process of adding new storage to a server without disrupting application up-time. With logical volume management, an application volume can physically exist in one more peripherals or peripheral types. Virtualizing physical storage into logical volumes is key to minimizing disruptions. SANs will also allow a large number of varying types of storage to be available to a server farm. Available storage will vary in terms of cost, performance, location, and availability attributes. By virtualizing physical SAN-attached storage in terms of its attributes, administrators will be able to add and re-configure storage based on its properties rather than performance configuration through device level mapping tools. Allowing administrators to dynamically reconfigure and tune storage while applications are on-line improves application performance and dramatically reduces the likelihood of unplanned downtime. In addition, these attributes allow administrators to set policies that automatically allocated unused storage to servers and applications where necessary.
Reducing the Cost of Availability with Multiple Paths to Storage

Implementing high levels of availability require that server applications recover from failures as quickly as possible. Traditionally server clusters with replicated data sets have been used to ensure that when failover software restarts the application on a new server, an up-to-date copy of the data is readily available and the application can be quickly re-started. Advanced clustering tools allow fail-over between multiple servers, providing more flexible and robust implementations. However this increases the cost of storage, as every server must have a copy of the data locally attached. Fiber Channel networks facilitate many-to-many connectivity between multiple servers and multiple peripherals. This means that each server can have a physical path to the storage of each server in an availability cluster. When an application fail-over occurs, a path from the new server can be provisioned to the failed servers data, and the application can be re-started. Since the storage does not need to be replicated behind each server, it is possible to implement increasing levels of availability without significantly increasing storage costs.
Automation of Manual Tasks using Policies

Several of the examples already discussed demonstrate how storage management tools, combined with SANattached storage, can lower the administrative cost of application availability. Increasing the automation of these tasks will keep a lid on management costs. Policy management refers to the use of a policy administration tool, in which an IT manager assigns high level rules to storage management applications and storage resources, as well as to policy agents which enforce those rules. For example, a capacity management application could define that 50% of all new storage added to a SAN is allocated to a hot application. The policy agents running on the SAN would detect the new storage, automatically map the volumes to the hot server, and grow the application volumes to include the new capacity. Similarly, a data protection application can define that every time a file system grows to a certain size a backup is performed to the highest performance, most-available tape library attached to the SAN. SANs provide many more resources to monitor and configure data, thus creating a more complex storage environment. By using policies to automate storage management, IT managers can ensure that the benefits of SANs are fully realized, while the total cost of managing these new systems does not increase as additional levels of complexity are introduced.
3.17.2.3. Example for Increasing Availability Using Clustering

A new promotion for an eCommerce site requires that the organizations data center facilitate additional business processes for a short time, both internally and externally via the Internet. In support of the campaign, twenty new servers must be brought on-line to deal with the short-term increase in demand, even though the additional storage capacity will peak after a period of months, and then slow down until the next promotion. As a result, the data center manager must be prepared to do two things: re-purpose application servers and plan for multidimensional growth. Re-purposing servers to accommodate temporary peaks in data access can be very labor intensive and potentially costly. Data must be replicated to many servers and storage configurations have to be tuned for each server. Performing extensive re-configurations results in a loss of productivity as use of the application servers is suspended and a significant amount of administrative labor is invested in the process
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Fig. 3.17.2.3.1 Overview of SAN Clustering
However, as shown in the diagram above, implementing a SAN can allow server farms to share access to a storage farm. With storage management tools applications can be moved to different servers and still have access to their data. For read-only applications, a single copy of data can be shared between multiple application servers removing the necessity of replicating data. And because this can all be done while applications are online, productivity losses are minimized.
Fig. 3.17.2.3.2 Implementation of SAN
SAN architectures can also accommodate multi-dimensional growth. Capacity management techniques can be used to ensure new storage can be added continuously, so server applications always have storage capacity they need. If more processing power is needed, more servers can be added to the SAN to provide better access to stored data. For higher read performance access to data, multiple copies of data can be created on the SAN, thus eliminating bottlenecks to a single disk.
3.17.2.4. VERITAS SAN Solutions

Online Storage Management: The SAN Virtualization Layer
Virtualization of physical storage is necessary to ensure that SAN applications remain on-line as storage configurations change. VERITAS has been delivering enterprise class storage virtualization with VERITAS Volume Manager (VxVM) for UNIX for over ten years, and is developing the volume manager bundle for Microsofts Windows 2000. VxVM has many intrinsic features that allow it to immediately take advantage of SAN configurations. Some key capabilities applicable to SANs are: Create, synchronize and fail-over to a Remote Mirror while the application remains on-line. Dynamic growth or shrinkage of application volumes allowing non-disruptive addition or deletion of SAN storage Performance optimization to allow hot disk locations to be moved or RAID configurations to be changed while the application remains on-line. Capability to assign ownership of disk groups to a single server, preventing unwanted storage access from another server on the SAN
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Dynamic Multi-Pathing to provide non-disruptive path-level fail-over and load balancing over multiple Fiber Channel links between a server and storage peripheral. VxVM can perform all of these operations for both JBOD and RAID peripherals on a SAN today and even mix and match between peripheral types. By building applications on top of VxVM, these intrinsic virtualization features can be made available without the server application being aware of the physical SAN configuration. This includes other VERITAS applications such VERITAS File Server, Foundation Suite Editions for Oracle, and other thirdparty applications.
LAN-Free Backup: Reducing the Backup Window

Improving backup and recovery performance, and minimizing disruption to applications, is often considered the killer app for this first generation of SANs. The most often requested capability is to share tape libraries, and tape drives in those libraries, between multiple servers. This is sometimes also called LAN Free Backup since most backup data is now transferred to tape using a SAN topology instead of a LAN. VERITAS provides two LAN Free Backup solutions using the VERITAS Shared Storage Option add-on feature: VERITAS BackupEXEC SSO for NT and NetWare (department and workgroup application) VERITAS NetBackup 3.2 SSO for NT and UNIX (enterprise applications) There are four benefits of LAN Free Backup. Since the many-to-many connectivity of Fiber Channel allows a tape library to be shared by multiple servers, LAN Free Backup amortizes the cost of that resource over multiple servers, making it much more affordable for mid-range UNIX or NT servers to have direct access to a library. It also minimizes disruption by removing backup traffic from the production LAN and onto the SAN, avoiding saturating the client-server LAN with backup traffic and allowing normal LAN operation to continue. Removing backup traffic from the LAN also increases performance by reducing the backup window, since data is backed-up and restored via a 1Gbps Fiber Channel-based SAN rather than across a 10/100 Mbps Ethernet network. In addition, VERITAS' LAN Free Backup products increase automation by intelligently scheduling backup jobs dynamically sharing tape libraries based on specific backup policies. Since tape resources can be dynamically allocated to backup sessions on each server, intelligent scheduling can optimize the use of shared drives.
Clustering for Improved Availability

As an example, many internet-centric organizations rely on the availability of data to acquire and retain their customers. A customer stays as long as the site is available and responsive. When disappointed by downtime, that customer will go elsewhere and rarely returns. Improving availability through clustering while containing costs is also a key capability of SAN architectures. Applications must be able to fail-over from one server to any other in a server farm and re-map the application data to the new server, avoiding the necessity to replicate the storage to every server. VERITAS Cluster Server (VCS) provides the ability to create multiple 32-node application fail-over clusters today in a SAN environment for Solaris and HP/UX, and multiple 64 NT node clusters to be managed all from one common cluster console. VCS for Solaris and HP/UX are available today, and VCS for NT will be available by the end of 1999. To implement a VCS SAN installation, the application must be able to configure paths to all storage on the SAN. This can be done in two ways. The first is to use VCS in conjunction with VERITAS Volume Manager (VxVM). VxVM permits all servers to see the storage on the SAN, but the storage isnt explicitly mapped to the server application unless it has ownership of the data. Tight integration between VCS and VxVM allows VCS to quickly re-map the failed servers storage to the new server. The second technique requires VCS to be aware of how to configure SAN equipment to setup the new path.
LAN Free HSM to Shared Tape Libraries

One key element of managing storage costs is optimizing the use of expensive storage. Hierarchical Storage Management (HSM) is a technique common in mainframe environments in which infrequently accessed data is automatically migrated to lower performance peripherals or removable media. Although HSM has traditionally been seen as expensive to implement, SAN configurations can be used to lower this barrier. VERITAS Storage Migrator/Shared Storage Option for UNIX allows multiple HSM servers to share automated tape libraries. Storage Migrator is implemented as an add-on product to VERITAS NetBackup, leveraging VERITAS NetBackup SSO SAN installations to provide even more SAN capabilities. In effect, Storage Migrator provides LAN Free HSM. Just as in LAN Free Backup, LAN Free HSM to shared tape libraries amortizes the costs of sophisticated tape libraries over multiple servers, as well as costs between both backup and restore and HSM applications. It also minimizes disruption to client-server traffic on the LAN as more HSM traffic is transferred over the high-speed
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SAN. Like LAN Free Backup, HSM over a SAN also increases automation by intelligently scheduling HSM sessions to shared tape drive resources.
3.17.2.5. VERITAS SAN 2000: The Next Generation

To create the next stage in the evolution of SAN, VERITAS is creating new technologies to improve the ability of SANs to virtualize storage resources, increase automation, and adapt to change. Building on storage management standards as they evolve, VERITAS is focusing on the following areas: Creating a standard services and API layer that will make existing storage management applications SANaware. For example, VCS will be able to dynamically re-configure SANs to provision paths to storage. Or VERITAS Volume Manager will be able to discover performance and availability attributes of SAN-attached storage to determine the best software RAID configuration. Providing a common service layer will allow all VERITAS applications to exploit SANs over multiple operating systems. Embedding intelligent storage management functions into new types of SAN devices. With the many-to-many connectivity of Fiber Channel networks and the increases in processing power, new types of devices can implement storage management functions such as storage migration, virtualization, or replication. For example, VERITAS Volume Manager can be used to provide virtualization functionality in a RAID controller. Creating central, SAN-wide management applications that can improve visualization of SAN resources and increasingly automate storage management. Optimizing performance and availability across multiple servers and storage peripherals in a SAN requires a centralized management application to co-ordinate functions such as capacity management and automatic capacity allocation. Creating clustered versions of VERITAS Volume Manager and VERITAS File Server products to realize multiserver shared data access in a SAN. Lastly, some high performance applications will benefit from distributing applications over multiple servers and operating on shared read/write data. Create extensions to VERITAS data protection products that maximize application availability in a SAN. Using secondary hosts to backup snapshots of a production application servers data, or using embedded SAN fabric copy agents to move data directly between on-line and off-line storage, will minimize the disruption to application clients during a backup operation, increasing the overall information availability of the data center.
3.17.2.6. Tivoli Storage Manager

When it comes to enterprise storage management for heterogeneous computing environments, no other solution can match IBM Tivoli's Storage Manager (TSM). TSM supports the broadest range of platforms, devices and protocols in the industry, and offers highly reliable, automated backup and recovery, archiving, hierarchical storage management (HSM) and disaster recovery. TSM offers automated backup that is not only consistent, timely and accurate, but flexible. With TSM you can schedule backups to take advantage of off-peak times, priorities the order in which various data is backed up, and store only new or changed files to reduce network traffic. With TSM, you are able to dramatically reduce costs. With TSM's HSM feature, you can automatically move data to the most costs-effective media in the storage hierarchy including disk, optical, and tape. Plus, it greatly eases administrator and user tasks with intuitive graphical interfaces. In fact, TSM simplifies data recovery so users can easily restore files without administrator involvement.
Features:
Flexible Storage Architecture Open and Interoperable Solutions Exploit Data Assets Rapid Access to Data Growth and Capacity Management
Business continuance benefits

Data protection: Reduce backup window and increase tape utilisation Faster, more effective restore process
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Decrease server CPU utilization Disaster tolerance: Offer remote vaulting/mirroring over 10 km Provide no single point of failure (SPOF) Increase availability, including automatic path selection/failover Enhance load balancing
Business efficiency benefits:

Storage consolidation: Improve storage asset utilization Provide capacity-on-demand Reduce management cost Data sharing and access: Allow any-to-any access with a single view of data Increase return on assets Improve reliability, availability and serviceability
3.17.2.7. Tivoli SANergy

With Tivoli SANergy, customers can efficiently centralize their disk storage resources to reduce administration overhead, improve network bandwidth performance, and achieve greater ROI. Tivoli SANergy enables users implementing storage area networks (SANs) to transparently share access to common storage, volumes, and files. Centralized disk storage volumes and files can be shared by multiple computers running UNIX, Mac OS and/or Microsoft Windows to provide higher bandwidth and lower CPU overhead than server-based sharing over an IP network. The resulting high-performance shared storage environment can significantly reduce IT costs by consolidating storage space and eliminating the replicated data common to multihost environments. Tivoli SANergy helps you reach your full SAN potential because it can: Simplify SAN storage centralization and administration through the power of heterogeneous sharing at the volume, file, and byte level Extend industry-standard networking to utilize the high bandwidth of any SAN media, including Fiber Channel, SCSI, SSA, iSCSI, and InfiniBand Enable storage centralization without the performance limiting overhead of server-based file sharing Increase data availability by eliminating the single-point-of-failure potential of server-based sharing Reduce the total amount of storage required in a SAN by eliminating redundant or replicated data Reduce the number of disk volumes required in a SAN and improve the efficient deployment of unused space Increase the server-to-storage scalability ratio, eliminating the expense and bottleneck of dedicated file servers Use industry-standard file systems and SAN and local area network (LAN) protocols Work with almost any SAN and LAN product, regardless of hardware and software Tivoli SANergy eliminates the one-to-one relationship between the number of SAN-connected computers and the number of disk volumes needed by those computers. Tivoli SANergy transparently enables multiple computers to share single disk volumes on the SAN-storage. In fact it allows many combinations of computers running Windows NT, Windows 2000, MacOS, Irix, Solaris, AIX, Tru64, Red Hat Linux and DG/UX to all share the exact same disk volumes at the same time - across platforms. And if the applications running on those computers are capable, Tivoli SANergy even enables the transparent sharing of the exact same files at the same time across platforms.
Features Advantages Benefits Single file system Uses native file system on MDC or any Eliminates the need to manage multiple file systems,
other Tivoli SANergy-enabled thirdregardless of the number of computers connected to
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party file system
the SAN Continues using your existing LAN to handle metadata traffic and low-bandwidth data Works equally well with Fiber Channel, SCSI, SSA, iSCSI or InfiniBand SANs with components from any manufacturer Works with the mix of computers and operating systems used today Enables immediate control through most SAN management consoles
LAN-flexible SAN-flexible Heterogeneous operation Enterprise Management
Utilizes any LAN hardware and software Utilizes any SAN hardware and software Supports true file sharing across heterogeneous networks Enables management control through the Web and SNMP
3.17.2.8. SAN-speed sharing for Application Files

For many high-bandwidth applications in collaborative work environments, sneaker-net has been faster than any wire network. LANs suffer from the bandwidth-crippling overhead of network protocols. With Tivoli SANergy, multiple high-bandwidth workstations run file sharing capable applications all sharing the same application files simultaneously, at full SAN speeds. These applications include CAD, 3D modeling, and design; graphics, RIP engines, and digital printing; animation and multimedia creation packages; and video and film editing and compositing programs. Sneaker net is eliminated because the network is fast enough to handle bandwidths of dozens of megabytes per second to each workstation. As a result, Tivoli SANergy can improve collaboration, enhance operational flexibility and efficiency, simplify workflow, and increase productivity.
Inside Tivoli SANergy

Using patented techniques, Tivoli SANergy is implemented as a file system extension. It leverages the distributed data sharing capabilities embedded within the Windows NT, Windows 2000, UNIX, and Macintosh operating systems. Tivoli SANergy redirects the data portion of standard network file input/output off the LAN and to the SAN. Normal networking protocols (CIFS or NFS) establish access to shared files across a standard LAN. The data itself flows at a much higher bandwidth over the more efficient SAN. SAN-connected storage media is formatted in either NTFS, UFS, or EXT2 FS or any other file system that supports the SANergy open API. Tivoli SANergy extends the standard Windows NT, Windows 2000, Sun Solaris, or Red Hat Linux file server to act as the metadata controller (MDC) for shared storage. This MDC manages the access to storage across the SAN by the computers running Tivoli SANergy client software. The MDC manages access to common storage by providing the necessary file system metadata when requested by the client computers. Hosts can then access the storage directly through their SAN connection. In a heterogeneous sharing environment, this metadata sharing is critical to ensure the coherency of files being used across the SAN. Metadata sharing also enables the continued use of all the network-access security mechanisms already built-in to todays operating systems. With the addition of two new application programming interface (APIs), developers can leverage Tivoli SANergy by adding new MDC platforms and additional file systems. One API allows file system vendors to enable a SANergy MDC to share access to their volumes and files, extending the current SANergy support for NTFS, UFS, EXT2 FS, and any Tivoli Ready for SANergy-certified third-party file system. The other API enables operating system vendors, like those that make NAS servers, to add Tivoli SANergy MDC support hosts to their products. This could enable NAS servers to provide faster and more efficient file sharing to their hosts. These two APIs are available through the Tivoli Ready program, in addition to the already existing SANergy Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) APIs for administration and configuration.
Enterprise-ready Availability
Tivoli SANergy High Availability is an add-on feature to the Windows NT and Windows 2000 versions of Tivoli SANergy. It ensures that critical data remains available in the event of an MDC failure. If a Tivoli SANergy MDC for Windows NT or Windows 2000 fails, the spare MDC running SANergy High Availability seamlessly assumes the duties of the failed MDC. MDC dependent Tivoli SANergy hosts running Windows NT, Windows 2000, and UNIX automatically remap their drives. Most network-aware applications, including database servers, carry on without interruption. Tivoli SANergy High Availability is an essential component for SANs supporting corporate databases, Web servers, and other business-critical applications.
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Enterprise-ready Management
In addition to using native and HTML based interfaces, administrators can use any SNMP management console to manage Tivoli SANergy. A custom SANergy management information base (MIB) is included to support the use of consoles, such as Tivoli Netview, HP OpenView, or SunNet Manager.
3.18. Fiber Channel

3.18.1. Introduction of Fiber Channel
Fiber Channel is a high performance serial interface that was developed by the computer industry specifically to address data storage needs. Because it is an open standard that is protocol independent, Fiber Channel works equally well regardless of operating environment. The additional benefits of Fiber Channel include increased bandwidth, scalability and distance. Fiber Channel runs at 200 MB per second, so applications can access data quicker and run quicker. By using multiple Fiber Channel connections, or loops, the total bandwidth is increased 200 MB per loop. Eight loops means 8 x 100 MB/s or a total bandwidth of 1600MB per second.
3.18.2. Advantages of Fiber Channel

Cost Effective Designed specifically for storage Protocol independent Greater bandwidth Not host dependent Highly scalable in Storage Area Network Framework Greater distance between devices
3.18.3. Fiber Channel Topologies

There are basically many ways to set up your Fiber channel network. Here we consider three basic topologies for Fiber channel.
3.18.3.1. Point-to-Point
This topology uses Fiber channel without a loop overhead, to increase performance and simplify cabling between a RAID storage box and a host. http://www.aspsys.com/hardware/nas_san/view.aspx/system_nas_san_pointtopoint_lg.aspxIn a point-to-point configuration, there are only two devices and they are directly connected to each other. This is used in instances where it is necessary to locate the physical storage in a different location from the server. Reasons for this type of configuration could include security or environmental concerns.
Fig. 3.18.3.1 Point-to-Point Topology
3.18.3.2. Fiber Channel Arbitrated Loop (FC-AL)
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This topology allows you to attach up to 127 nodes without hubs and switches. FC-AL is a time-shared, fullbandwidth, distributed topology where each port includes the minimum necessary connection function. Depending on the distance requirements, workstations or servers can be connected to a single disk or a disk loop with either optical Fiber or copper media. To understand a loop configuration, picture a circle with several points around it. Each point represents a device on a Fiber Channel Loop. Devices connected in this manner are said to be in a Fiber Channel Arbitrated Loop (FC-AL). In this configuration, each device is connected to the next device and is responsible for repeating data from the device before it, to the device after it. Should a device on a FC-AL fail, then no devices on the FC-AL will be able to transmit data.
Fig. 3.18.3.2 FC-AL Topology
3.18.3.3. Switched Fabric

In this topology, N_Ports (Node Ports) are connected to F_Ports (Fabric Ports) on a FC Switch. This connection allows for a large number of devices to be connected together, and provides high throughput, low latency and high availability. Depending on switch vendor support, fabric switches may be interconnected to support up to 16 million-plus N_Ports on a single network. In a switch configuration, a device called a switch is the connection point for all devices attached to the SAN. The switch internally provides the functionality of a FC-AL. The main advantage is the ability to bypass and isolate a failed device.
Fig. 3.18.3.3 Switched Topology
3.18.4. How do SCSI tape drives connect to a Fiber Channel SAN?

Because virtually every SAN implementation uses Fiber Channel technology, an industry standard network interface is necessary. Fiber Channel connectivity requires a Host Bus Adapter (HBA) be attached to every server and storage device on the SAN. Each port uses a pair of fibers for two-way communications, with the transmitter (TX) connecting to a receiver (RX) at the other end of the Fiber Channel cable.
3.18.5. What is an Interconnect?

An Interconnect is the physical pipeline used for high-speed, high-bandwidth connection within a storage area network. It is capable of accessing data at speeds 100 times faster than current networks. It connects all of the pieces of a SAN, as well as providing scalability, connectivity, performance and availability. It is what connects the different components of a SAN. I/O buses and networks are both example of interconnects.
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3.18.6. Scalable Fiber Channel Devices

Fiber Channel is easy to install and scale. A Fiber Channel device does not have to be connected directly to a host. Instead, hubs and switches can be used to create Fiber Channel storage networks. Each loop supports up to 126 devices on a single connection. This means that extremely high storage capacity is available by adding devices to the loop. To contrast, SCSI buses can only handle 16 connections. When it comes to cabling, Fiber Channel gives users a choice of copper or fiber optic. Both have a small diameter allowing for more flexibility when running cable in tight spaces. Fiber Channel also allows for distances of up to 10km between devices when using fiber optics.
3.18.7. Features of Fiber Channel

Hot-pluggability Fiber Channel drives can be installed or removed while the host system is operational, which is crucial in high-end and heavy-use server systems where there is little or no downtime. ANSI standard compliance for serial port interface Fiber Channel does not require special adapters, which can be expensive. Speed In its intended environment, Fiber Channel is the fastest option available. Cost effectiveness Relative to other high-end solutions, Fiber Channel is inexpensive because it does not require special adapters. Loop resiliency Fiber channel provides high data integrity in multiple-drive systems, including Fiber Channel RAID. Longer cable lengths Relative to LVD, Fiber Channel can maintain data integrity through significantly longer cables. This makes configuring multiple devices easier.
3.18.8. Why Fiber Channel?

Fiber Channel is the solution for IT professionals who need reliable, cost-effective information storage and delivery at blazing speeds. With development started in 1988 and ANSI standard approval in 1994, Fiber Channel is the mature, safe solution for gigabit communications. Today's data explosion presents unprecedented challenges incorporating data warehousing, imaging, integrated audio/video, networked storage, real-time computing, collaborative projects and CAD/CAE. Fiber Channel is simply the easiest, most reliable solution for information storage and retrieval. Fiber Channel, a powerful ANSI standard, economically and practically meets the challenge with these advantages: Price Performance Leadership - Fiber Channel delivers cost-effective solutions for storage and networks. Solutions Leadership - Fiber Channel provides versatile connectivity with scalable performance. Reliable - Fiber Channel, a most reliable form of communications, sustains an enterprise with assured information delivery. Gigabit Bandwidth Now - Gigabit solutions are in place today! On the horizon is two gigabit-per-second data delivery. Multiple Topologies - Dedicated point-to-point, shared loops, and scaled switched topologies meet application requirements. Multiple Protocols - Fiber Channel delivers data. SCSI, TCP/IP, video, or raw data can all take advantage of high-performance, reliable Fiber Channel technology. Scalable - From single point-to-point gigabit links to integrated enterprises with hundreds of servers, Fiber Channel delivers unmatched performance. Congestion Free - Fiber Channel's credit-based flow control delivers data as fast as the destination buffer is able to receive it. High Efficiency - Real price performance is directly correlated to the efficiency of the technology. Fiber Channel has very little transmission overhead. Most important, the Fiber Channel protocol, is specifically designed for highly efficient operation using hardware. Corporate information is a key competitive factor, and Fiber Channel enhances IT departments' ability to access and protect it more efficiently.
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In fact, multiple terabytes of Fiber Channel interfaced storage are installed every day! Fiber Channel works equally well for storage, networks, video, data acquisition, and many other applications. Fiber Channel is ideal for reliable, high-speed transport of digital audio/video. Aerospace developers are using Fiber Channel for ultrareliable, real-time networking. Fiber Channel is a fast, reliable data transport system that scales to meet the requirements of any enterprise. Today, installations range from small post-production systems on Fiber Channel loop to very large CAD systems linking thousands of users into a switched, Fiber Channel network. Fiber Channel is ideal for these applications: High-performance storage Large data bases and data warehouses Storage backup systems and recovery Server clusters Network-based storage High-performance workgroups Campus backbones Digital audio/video networks
Fig. 3.18.8 Overview of Enterprise Fiber Channel Switch
3.18.9. Fiber Channel System

Fiber Channel systems are assembled from adapters, hubs, storage, and switches. Host bus adapters are installed into hosts like any other SCSI host bus adapter. Hubs link individual elements together to form a shared bandwidth loop. Disk systems integrate a loop into the backplane. A port bypass circuit provides the ability to hot swap Fiber Channel disks and Fiber Channel links to a hub. Fiber Channel switches provides scalable systems of almost any size.
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Fig. 3.18.9 Fiber Channel systems are built from familiar elements
IT systems today require an order of magnitude improvement in performance. High-performance, gigabit Fiber Channel meets this requirement. Fiber Channel is the most reliable, scalable, gigabit communications technology today. It was designed by the computer industry for high-performance communications, and no other technology matches its total system solution.
3.18.10. Technology Comparisons

Fiber Channel is a product of the computer industry. Fiber Channel was specifically designed to remove the barriers of performance existing in legacy LANs and channels. In addition to providing scalable gigabit technology, the architects provided flow control, self-management, and ultra-reliability. Gigabit Ethernet is designed to enable a common frame from the desktop to the backbone. However, Fiber Channel is designed to be a transport service independent of protocol. Fiber Channel's ability to use a single technology for storage, networks, audio/video, or to move raw data is superior to the common frame feature. ATM was designed at a wide area network with the ability to provide quality of service for fractional bandwidth service. The feature of fractional bandwidth with assured Quality of Service is attractive for some applications. For the more demanding applications, Class 4 Fiber Channel provides guaranteed delivery and gigabit bandwidth as well as fractional bandwidth quality of service. Fiber Channel's use in both networks and storage provides a price savings due to economies of scale associated with larger volumes. Users can expect their most cost-effective, highest-performance solutions to be built using Fiber Channel. As shown in Table below, Fiber Channel is the best technology for applications that require high-bandwidth, reliable solutions that scale from small to very large.
Fiber Channel Technology application Storage, network, video, Topologies Baud rate Scalability to higher data rates Guaranteed delivery
clusters point-to-point loop hub, switched 1.06 Gbps 2.12 Gbps, 4.24 Gbps Yes
Gigabit Ethernet
Network Point-to-point hub, switched 1.25 Gbps Not defined No
ATM
Network, video Switched 622 Mbps 1.24 Gbps No
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Congestion data loss Frame size Flow control Physical media Protocols supported
None Variable, 0-2KB Credit Based Copper and Fiber Network, SCSI, Video
Yes Variable, 0-1.5KB Rate Based Copper and Fiber Network
Yes Fixed, 53B Rate Based Copper and Fiber Network, video
3.18.11. LAN Free Backup using Fiber Channel

Introduction
The continuing growth of managed data creates frustrating and costly storage management problems for IT managers and network administrators. With corporate data amounts doubling every year one of the most difficult challenges facing IT managers is backing up of continuously expanding data volumes. Scheduled down time or slow time for data backup is no longer being tolerated. In the past, there have been two basic ways to back-up data on a group of systems. The first method, known as local or distributed backup, involves directly attaching a backup device to each system. The second method, known as centralized backup, involves attaching a central backup device to a single server. Backups for all other systems are then directed across a local area network (LAN), through the single server, to the central backup device. Today there is now a third approach emerging that is generally referred to as LAN-free backup. LAN-free backup involves attaching a central back-up device to a Storage Area Network (SAN) which all attached servers share. LAN Free Backup is the ideal solution for backing up and storing mission critical data without utilizing valuable LAN bandwidth. Using SAN configurations such as LAN Free Backup to move, manage, and protect your critical data without congesting the LAN easily eliminates bottlenecks associated with storage operations over the LAN. LAN Free Backup solution is a SAN configuration that connects storage elements directly with backup devices using Fiber Channel switches, host bus adapters (HBAs) and management software. The leaders in the Fiber Channel industry have joined together to deliver a completely interoperable solution. LAN Free Backup solution consists of Adaptecs AFC-9110G Fiber channel HBA, Brocades Silkworm 2050 Fabric switch, Chaparrals FS1310 router, and ADICs FastStor 22 tape library. The LAN Free Backup solution has been certified with Veritas Backup Exec v8.5 management software. It combines the benefits of high-speed transfer rates, easy management, and cost effectiveness into a single solution. Working together, Adaptec, Brocade, ADIC, Chaparral, and Veritas have performed rigorous testing to ensure interoperability and ease of use. This LAN Free Backup solution comes complete with a recipe book, which includes an installation guide, and technical support.
Fig. 3.18.11 Implementing LAN free backup
3.18.11.1. Distributed Backup
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The fastest data back up method for a servers internal disk drives is to attach a backup device directly to the server. This method is known as local or distributed backup. Figure below shows a group of systems in a typical distributed backup configuration.
Fig. 3.18.11.1 Distributed Backup Model
For small environments, distributed backup works very well. As the number of servers requiring back up increases, distributed backup starts exhibiting problems. The first problem is the cost and a second and far more serious problem is managing the backup process. Distributed backup requires IT technicians to touch each system physically to perform backup operations. If the server data exceeds the tape capacity, then the IT individual must monitor the operation and reload new tapes at the proper time. In larger organizations, distributed backup is not viable due to the lack of centralized management and the high administrative cost associated with the management of multiple, discrete, backup operations
3.18.11.2. Centralized Backup

Centralized backup limits the management overhead to a single storage repository. Here, the problem isnt managing a centralized backup repository: rather the challenge is getting the data to it. Conventional centralized backup solutions rely on an IP network as the data path. The problem with this solution is the TCP/IP processing associated with transporting the sheer volume of data completely consumes the server CPU. This results in long backup cycles that exceed the scheduled backup window. So, centralized backups often overflow into user uptime - resulting in poor network response and generally unacceptable server performance. Figure below illustrates a typical centralized backup scenario where the Ethernet LAN is the transport mechanism for the backup data. It is interesting to note that data has to travel through two servers before transferring to the tape unit. This is sometimes referred to as the centralized backup two-copy problem. To achieve 4.8 MB/sec the server attached to the tape storage device must be an extremely high performance machine. Currently, it is believed the sweet spot of the backup market is a 2 to 4 drive tape library backing up 6 to 10 NT servers. Total data to be backed up ranges between 200 GB and 600 GB. The problem with a centralized backup method, as seen above, is poor LAN performance. With transfer rates ranging anywhere from 1.6 to 4.8 MB/sec, a full backup of a 500GB site takes anywhere from 29 to 87 hours. This time does not include daily incremental backups.
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Fig. 3.18.11.2 Centralized Backup Model
The major advantage of a centralized method is the ease of management. Advanced backup management products allow scheduling multiple backups in advance, which can proceed without operator intervention. Backups can generally occur during slower weekend periods. For small to medium environments that do not have heavily loaded LANs, conventional centralized backup is probably the most cost effective and easily managed backup method.
3.18.11.3. SAN Backup

A third system back up method uses a dedicated storage network for storage operations. Figure below illustrates a typical configuration.
Fig. 3.18.11.3.1 SAN Backup Model
This concept of a dedicated storage network is known as a Storage Area Network or SAN. Backup methods based on SANs offer all of the management advantages that centralized backup solutions offer coupled with high data transfer rates generally associated with directly attached or distributed backup solutions. SANs offer great promise but are relatively new to the market. In addition to increasing backup operations efficiency, SANs allow storage to decouple from the server. Decoupling storage from the server allows IT
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individuals more flexibility in controlling storage resources. Currently the only practical interconnect for a SAN is Fiber Channel. Figure below shows a LAN-free Backup implementation based on a Fiber Channel SAN. In Figure below, a backup operation involves copying data from internal server storage and writing it to the tape library. In this case, data copies occur only once before data is written to tape. Since backup data does not traverse the network stack, the CPU utilization is much lower than with the centralized backup method. Given that the maximum transfer rate for 1 Giga bit Fiber Channel interconnect is around 100 Mbytes/sec, the limiting factor or SAN backup performance is now the tape drive transfer rate. A FCbased SAN can fully backup a 500GB site in about 15 hours using a two-drive tape library. Using a four-drive tape library, the backup can be done in about 7.5 hours. Figure below also shows a Fiber Channel to SCSI Router. Since native FC tape libraries are relatively new, this enables using of legacy SCSI tape libraries.
Fig. 3.18.11.3.2 Servers storage and FC HBAs
With Fiber Channel providing 100 Mbytes/sec today (moving to 200 Mbytes/sec in the near future), there is more than enough backup application bandwidth. The high bandwidth of Fiber Channel also allows sharing external storage. Figure 5 shows a SAN configuration with external storage and an attached tape library. There are numerous advantages to having storage external to the servers that include storage sharing, the ability to scale storage independently, easier manageability storage, etc. A full discussion of these advantages exceeds this documents scope.
Fig. 3.18.11.3.3 Server with FC HBAs
Having storage external to the server introduces the possibility of performing a server-less backup. In a serverless backup, the server issues a SCSI third party copy command to the backup device. The backup device then becomes a SCSI initiator and copies the data directly from the storage elements. This has the advantage of not requiring servers to copy data from the storage element and send it to the backup device. The server is not part of the data movement and can therefore devote all its compute cycles to serving applications.
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3.18.12. Conclusion
A Fiber Channel, LAN-free backup solution offers all management advantages of a centralized backup scheme coupled with the high performance of distributed backup. For cost sensitive solutions, a Fiber Channel hub can replace the switch. Fiber Channel hubs are less expensive than switches but do not scale well for configurations that involve external storage. LAN-free backup using Fiber Channel is an excellent solution for environments that have a heavily congested LAN and need to perform system backups without impacting LAN performance. LAN-free backup is a first step into SAN technology. With the addition of external storage, the true power of SANs can be realized. Applications such as storage centralization, virtualization, and clustering allow IT environments to reach new levels of reliability, scalability, and maintainability.
3.18.13. LAN Free Backup Solution Benefits

Assurance of an interoperable solution
All products are rigorously tested for interoperability with all types of Fiber Channel devices and configurations to deliver the utmost in compatibility, performance, and reliability - now and in the future.
Ease of installation
Recipe book that includes an installation guide and users manual makes installation easy. Installation and technical support are available through a single point of contact.
Flexibility of design
As storage demand grows component selection is not limited to one brand.
Best of breed components

Adaptec - the industry leader in host storage business Brocade - the industry leader in Fiber Channel switching Chaparral - providing industry leading performance in Fiber Channel to SCSI connectivity ADIC - the industry leader in tape auto-loaders
3.18.14. Fiber Channel Strategy for Tape Backup Systems

The basic architecture for tape backup and archive systems has remained unchanged since the introduction and subsequent wide-scale implementation of the LAN nearly over 15 years ago. Fiber Channel technology allows for the implementation of new tape backup system architectures that will greatly benefit systems administrators, network engineers, and ultimately the customers that rely on these systems. Two new architectures, Fiber Channel-based LAN-free and Server-less backup, achieve large increases in overall, tape backup, system throughput by eliminating many of the bottlenecks.
3.18.14.1. Stage - 1 (LAN Free Backup)

LAN-free backup is the application of Fiber Channel technology to the tape storage sub-system to increase performance in the overall storage system by eliminating the need to pull data over the LAN and through a file or application server. Typically, it is deployed using a tape server, tape library, and disk-based storage all attached directly to Fiber Channel infrastructure as shown in the diagram below. The tape library is attached to the Fiber Channel network by using a bridge device, such as the ATTO FiberBridge, which also acts as a hardware buffer for incoming data.
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Fig. 3.20.1 LAN Free Backup Model
In this design, the tape server can stream data directly from the storage to the bridge device at 85 to 90 M/sec. The only bottleneck is the speed of the tape library itself, and the realized throughput of the tape server itself.
Advantages of LAN-Free Approach

The advantage of the LAN-free backup approach is increased throughput to the tape devices and, hence shorter backups. By removing the Ethernet bottleneck (2 - 8 M/sec.), the performance envelope is most affected by the throughput of the tape units themselves, usually between 12 - 20M/sec. This improves performance by 2.5 to 10 times, an immediately realizable gain in efficiency. Use of tape RAID software can also be used to boost performance by aggregating tape device bandwidth in the same manner as disk RAID. LAN-free backup can also leverage existing assets, keeping cost of entry to SAN architectures low. Thus LANfree backup can be viewed as an upgrade to the existing tape storage sub-system, rather than as an entirely new installation. By having the ability to deploy existing assets in a new manner, thereby extending the lifetime of those assets, a greater ROI is realized on these assets. Time to implement is also significantly shortened, which leads to more immediate benefit to the system and reducing the overall cost of implementation. Besides the obvious financial benefits, LAN-free backup brings with it service increases that will positively effect end-users. Since the LAN is not involved there are no longer heavily loads placed on the LAN or on application servers during backups. This enables higher overall service levels in the LAN and better application response times. LAN-free backup helps ensure that backups are complete without disruption to other systems. This in turn reduces adverse effects of backups on normal business operations.
3.18.14.2. Stage - 2 (Server-Less Backup)

Server-less backup takes the LAN-free solution one step further. In this environment, the tape server is delegated to the role of system coordinator rather than data mover. A copy device such as the ATTO FiberBridge takes on the task of actually moving data from the disk storage to the tape library.
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Fig. 3.20.2 Server Free Backup Model
Typically, there are several major elements to a server-less backup solution. First is the hardware infrastructure deployed for LAN-free backup. Second a bridge device such as the ATTO FiberBridge capable of acting as a copy device or independent data movement unit is needed to actual move the data. Finally, special control software such as Legato's Celestra, which issues commands to the copy device and insures smooth operation of the system. A tape server is still necessary, but acts as a place to house the control software more than as a system device dedicated to moving data. The copy device follows a similar philosophy to network computing devices sometimes referred to as network appliances. It is a specialized device with sufficient and specialized resources to perform a specific rather than general activity within a network or SAN. In the case of a copy device for server-less backup the copy device needs to have enough compute power and memory to support the movement of large blocks of data. The copy device must also support connections to other device that may be involved in the movement of the data, in this case disk drives and tape libraries. Finally, the device must provide a software interface that allow it to interact with software applications that wish to control, manage, and track the movement of data in the SAN. Currently, the Extended Copy Command interface is the most popular interface for these type applications. In general the market has looked to bridge devices since many of them, including the ATTO FiberBridge, have these attributes.
Advantages of Server-Less Approach to End-Users

There are a number of major advantages to this approach. While not as dramatic as the advantages of LAN-free backup, gains may be found from server-less backup that are not available in any other architecture. Removing the remaining bottleneck in the system will create performance gains in an important area: The tape server. Even in LAN-free backup, the backup server's performance is directly related to the memory, I/O, and CPU performance of the backup server itself. This inhibitor to optimal performance is eliminated as the data moves through the high-performance copy device, optimized for data movement, rather than through a generalpurpose computer bound by multiple needs and a non-specific architecture. With server-less backup, cost savings may be realized by the elimination of expensive, high-end servers and their replacement with relatively inexpensive copy devices such as the ATTO FiberBridge and low-end control servers. In fact, since software such as Celestra can usually share space on another server, the dedicated tape server may be eliminated altogether for additional savings. This architecture also makes possible the ability to stream the same data to several tape libraries at once even if geographically separated without the necessity of copying and moving the tapes themselves. This provides an effective element in a disaster recovery plan. Finally, the system becomes simpler overall. A general-purpose server that requires significant administration and maintenance is replaced with a standalone device that need virtually no maintenance and can be replaced quickly in case of failure. This, coupled with the aforementioned cost savings, results in a lower Total Cost of Ownership for the backup sub-system and system infrastructure as well.
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3.18.14.3. Suggested Deployment Strategy

This is a suggested deployment plan that migrates from a non-shared, parallel SCSI-based solution to a serverless backup solution for new customers Upgrade Existing Systems to LAN-free Backup - by deploying a bridge device and other Fiber Channel components, current systems can be upgraded to a LAN-free backup architecture. This has the advantage of proving out the hardware infrastructure before moving to server-less backup. It is advantageous to start here because the step forward is not as radical and yet provides an immediate enhancement. Upgrade Existing Systems to Server-less backup - upgrade the LAN-free systems to serverless where desired. Since this is likely done through software updates to the bridge device as opposed to hardware additions, this provides a method of achieving this functionality at a low incremental cost with little risk. Any risk is also mitigated by the ability to fall back on the existing LAN-free backup system. Add Capacity - as need for more backup capacity grows, add more inexpensive copy devices and additional tape libraries. It is at this point that the cost effectiveness of this solution becomes apparent. Instead of having to add additional servers (that require extensive administration) and upgrades to the LAN, inexpensive copy devices such as the ATTO FiberBridge are added. Add faster tape units - as the speeds of tape devices themselves increase, so will the overall efficacy and performance of the tape backup sub-system. Since the tape devices themselves are the bottleneck, increases in performance will be immediately realized when the performance of the tape units is increased. The current architecture places control of system performance with the LAN and server rather than the tape unit itself. LAN-free and Serverless backup architectures shift control of bandwidth and hence system performance to the high-speed Fiber Channel network, high-bandwidth copy device, and tape library. By implementing a migration strategy away from the current server- and LAN-oriented backup systems toward a Fiber Channel based shared tape system, improvements in overall system performance and reductions in total cost of ownership of the system will be achieved. By extending the lifetime of existing assets while increasing overall system performance and reducing operating costs, a better return on investment will be realized. Finally, end-users and companies will be served better by experiencing less disruption to their overall systems and hence regular business operations. For this reason alone, implementation of this strategy is worthwhile.
3.19. iSCSI
3.19.1 Introduction of iSCSI
With the release of the Fiber Channel and SAN based on it the storage world staked on a network access to storage devices. Almost everyone announced that the future belonged to the storage area networks. For several years the FC interface was the only standard for such networks but today many realize that it's not so. The SAN based on the FC has some disadvantages, which are the price and difficulties of access to remote devices. At present there are some initiatives, which are being standardized; they are meant to solve or diminish the problems. The most interesting of them is iSCSI.
Fig. 3.19.1 iSCSI
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The word iSCSI can often be seen in newspapers and ads of leading storage device makers. However, different sources have very different views, and some consider the iSCSI an indisputable leader for data storage systems in the near future, others have already given it up for lost yet before it was born. iSCSI (Internet Small Computer System Interface) is a TCP/IP-based protocol for establishing and managing connections between IP-based storage devices, hosts and clients.
3.19.2. Advantages of iSCSI

iSCSI provides storage consolidation, improves disk capacity utilization, eases storage management, and consolidates data backup. It allows access from any server or client inside a building, across a campus, throughout a metropolitan area, or the around world, over an existing IP infrastructure or across a dedicated IP infrastructure for storage traffic. iSCSI overcomes the distance limitations posed by traditional direct attached storage solutions. iSCSI enables the deployment of cost-effective storage area networks based on technologies already supported and understood (i.e., SCSI, IP, Ethernet, SNMP). iSCSI is extremely interoperable technology built upon time tested underlying standards including SCSI, TCP/IP, and Ethernet.
3.19.3. Advantages of iSCSI on SAN:

High Availability
Multiple paths between servers and storage enable a constant connection, even if some lines go down.
Scalability
The switched architecture of SANs enable IT managers to expand storage capacity without shutting down applications.
Maximize Storage Resource Investment

SANs allow you to share disk and tape devices across heterogeneous platforms.
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Uses Well-Understood Ethernet Technology
Fig. 3.19.4 Overview of Ethernet Technology
3.19.4. iSCSI describes:

Transport protocol for SCSI which operates on top of TCP New mechanism for encapsulating SCSI commands on an IP network Protocol for a new generation of data storage systems that natively use TCP/IP But it's known that rules of packet delivery differ for IP and SCSI. In IP packets are delivered without a strict order, it is also in charge of data recovery, which takes more resources. At the same time, in SCSI, as a channel interface, all packets must be delivered one after another without delay, and breach of the order may result in data losses. In spite of the fact that this problem, according to some experts, brings ambiguity into practical use of the iSCSI technology, today there are devices that prove its viability. The engineers developing the iSCSI managed to solve this problem to some degree. The specification of the iSCSI requires a longer packet's head. The head includes additional information, which speeds up packet assembling by a great margin. According to a senior system engineer of a Utah's university, the only obstacle for popularization of the Ethernet as a base technology for establishing storage area networks is a relatively great latency (close to 75 microseconds) because of the peculiarities of the TCP/ stack. It can be a crucial problem in High-End systems in case of simultaneous access to thousands of files. Experts working on iSCSI address the problem of latency with a careful attention. And although there are a lot of means developed to reduce influence of parameters, which cause delays in processing of IP packets, the iSCSI technology is positioned for middle-level systems. iSCSI develops quite rapidly. The need in a new standard was so strong that during 14 months after the proposal on the iSCSI by IETF in February 2000 we got a lot of devices demonstrating capabilities of their interaction. The Draft 0 on iSCSI published in July 2000 initiated realization of the technology. In January 2001 IP Storage Forum was created within the SNIA (Storage Networking Industry Association), which had already 50 members in half a year; and a product released in April 2000 soon won the Enterprise Networking Product Prize. So, what is so attractive in the iSCSI for majors of the IT industry who do not even consider contradictions of this standard? Here are the most important applications and functions which can be realized with data storage systems used:
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Within the frames of those which can effectively be realized using modern methods: Consolidation of data storage systems Data backup Server clusterization Replication Recovery in emergency conditions Here are new capabilities which can effectively be realized with the IP Storage: SAN geographic distribution QoS Safety In addition, new storage area systems with the iSCSI being native for them provide more advantages: A single technology for connection of storage systems, servers and clients within LAN, WAN, SAN Great experience of industry in Ethernet and SCSI technologies Possibility of substantial geographic remoteness of storage systems Possibility to use management means for TCP/IP networks. To transfer data to storage devices with the iSCSI interface it's possible to use not only data carriers, communicators and routers of existent LAN/WAN but also usual network cards on the client's side. But it is followed by considerable expenses of processor power on the client's side which uses such card. According to the developers, the software iSCSI realization can reach data rates of Gigabit Ethernet at a significant, about 100%, CPU load. That is why it is recommended using special network cards which support mechanisms of CPU unload before TCP stack processing. At present (June 2002), such cards are produced by Intel. The Intel PRO/1000T IP Storage Adapter is offered at 700USD. It contains a powerful Xscale processor, 32M memory and transfers calculations related with iSCSI and TCP/IP and calculations of checksums of TCP, IP frames to the integrated processor. According to the company it can be as efficient as 500Mbit/s at 3-5% CPU load of a host system.
3.19.5. How iSCSI Works

When an end user or application sends a request, the operating system generates the appropriate SCSI commands and data request, which then go through encapsulation and, if necessary, encryption procedures. A packet header is added before the resulting IP packets are transmitted over an Ethernet connection. When a packet is received, it is decrypted (if it was encrypted before transmission), and disassembled, separating the SCSI commands and request. The SCSI commands are sent on to the SCSI controller, and from there to the SCSI storage device. Because iSCSI is bi-directional, the protocol can also be used to return data in response to the original request. iSCSI is one of two main approaches to storage data transmission over IP networks; the other method, Fiber Channel over IP (FCIP), translates Fiber Channel control codes and data into IP packets for transmission between geographically distant Fiber Channel SANs. FCIP (also known as Fiber Channel tunneling or storage tunneling) can only be used in conjunction with Fiber Channel technology; in comparison, iSCSI can run over existing Ethernet networks. A number of vendors, including Cisco, IBM, and Nishan have introduced iSCSI-based products (such as switches and routers).
3.19.6. Applications that can take advantage of these iSCSI benefits include:
Disaster recovery environments for stored data that needs to be mirrored/recovered in a remote location can take advantage of the distance extensions that iSCSI enables over an IP network. Fiber Channel server and storage extensions. Storage backup over an IP network enables systems to maintain backups online and always be ready and available to restore the data. Storage virtualization and storage resource management applications can create a shared storage environment for all users on a global IP network. Any application can now take advantage of data from remote sites that are accessible over an IP network, expanding the usefulness of this data to E-commerce applications.
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3.19.7. iSCSI under a microscope
Fig. 3.18.7.1 - IP network with iSCSI devices used
Here, each server, workstation and storage device support the Ethernet interface and a stack of the iSCSI protocol. IP routers and Ethernet switches are used for network connections. The SAN makes possible to use the SCSI protocol in network infrastructures, thus, providing high-speed data transfer at the block level between multiple elements of data storage networks. The Internet Small Computer System Interface also provides a block data access, but over TCP/IP networks. Architecture of a pure SCSI is based on the client/server model. A client, for example, server or workstation, initiates requests for data reading or recording from a target - server, for example, a data storage system. Commands which are sent by the client and processed by the server are put into the Command Descriptor Block (CDB). The server executes a command which completion is indicated by a special signal alert. Encapsulation and reliable delivery of CDB transactions between initiators and targets through the TCP/IP network is the main function of the iSCSI, which is due to be implemented in the medium untypical of SCSI, potentially unreliable medium of IP networks. Below is a model of the iSCSI protocol levels, which allows us to get an idea of an encapsulation order of SCSI commands for their delivery through a physical carrier.
Fig. 3.18.7.2 iSCSI Protocol Levels Model
The iSCSI protocol controls data block transfer and confirms that I/O operations are truly completed. In its turn, it is provided via one or several TCP connections.
The iSCSI has four components:

iSCSI Address and Naming Conventions. iSCSI Session Management.
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iSCSI Error Handling. iSCSI Security.
3.19.8. Address and Naming Conventions

As the iSCSI devices are participants of an IP network they have individual Network Entities. Such Network Entity can have one or several iSCSI nodes.
Fig. 3.18.8 - Model of Network Entities
An iSCSI node is an identifier of SCSI devices (in a network entity) available through the network. Each iSCSI node has a unique iSCSI name (up to 255 bytes), which is formed according to the rules adopted for Internet nodes.
For example
Fqn.com.ustar.storage.itdepartment.161. Such name has an easy-to-perceive form and can be processed by the Domain Name System (DNS). An iSCSI name provides a correct identification of an iSCSI device irrespective of its physical location. At the same time in course of handling data transfer between devices it's more convenient to use a combination of an IP address and a TCP port which are provided by a Network Portal. The iSCSI protocol together with iSCSI names provides a support for aliases, which are reflected in the administration systems for better identification and management by system administrators.
3.19.9. Session Management

The iSCSI session consists of a Login Phase and a Full Feature Phase, which is completed with a special command. The Login Phase of the iSCSI is identical to the Fiber Channel Port Login process (PLOGI). It is used to adjust various parameters between two network entities and confirm an access right of an initiator. If the iSCSI Login Phase is completed successfully the target confirms the login for the initiator; otherwise, the login is not confirmed and a TCP connection breaks. As soon as the login is confirmed the iSCSI session turns to the FULL Feature Phase. If more than one TCP connection was established the iSCSI requires that each command/response pair goes through one TCP connection. Thus, each separate read or write command will be carried out without a necessity to trace each request for passing different flows. However, different transactions can be delivered through different TCP connections within one session.
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Fig. 3.19.9 - iSCSI Write example
At the end of a transaction the initiator sends/receives last data and the target sends a response, which confirms that data are transferred successfully. The iSCSI logout command is used to complete a session - it delivers information on reasons of its completion. It can also send information on what connection should be interrupted in case of a connection error, in order to close troublesome TCP connections.
3.19.10. Error Handling

Because of a high probability of errors in data delivery in some IP networks, especially WAN, where the iSCSI can work, the protocol provides a great deal of measures for handling errors. So that error handling and recovery can work correctly both the initiator and the target must be able to buffer commands before they are confirmed. Each terminal must have a possibility to recover selectively a lost or damaged PDU within a transaction for recovery of data transfer.
Here is the hierarchy of the error handling and recovery after failures in the iSCSI:
The lowest level - identification of an error and data recovery on the SCSI task level, for example, repeated transfer of a lost or damaged PDU. Next level - a TCP connection which transfers a SCSI task can have errors. In this case there is an attempt to recover the connection. At last, the iSCSI session can be damaged. Termination and recovery of a session are usually not required if recovery is implemented correctly on other levels, but the opposite can happen. Such situation requires that all TCP connections be closed, all tasks, under fulfilled SCSI commands be completed, and the session be restarted via the repeated login.
3.19.11. Security
As the iSCSI can be used in networks where data can be accessed illegally, the specification allows fpr different security methods. Such encoding means as IPSec, which use lower levels, do not require additional matching because they are transparent for higher levels, and for the iSCSI as well. Various solutions can be used for authentication, for example, Kerberos or Private Keys Exchange, an iSNS server can be used as a repository of keys.
3.19.12. Adaptec iSCSI
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iSCSI Snap Servers, storage arrays and HBAs are flexible, cost-effective and easy-to-manage. Ideal for building iSCSI-based networked storage infrastructures for remote offices, email and other databases, or as primary storage for data that doesn't require the high performance of Fiber Channel SANs, they provide a high-ROI storage option for businesses of all sizes.
3.19.12.1. Storage Systems

Snap Server 18000 - 2U 2TB - 30TB iSCSI-enabled IP SAN RAID solution Snap Server 4500 - 1U 1.6TB - 3.6TB iSCSI-enabled IP SAN RAID solution Snap Server 4200 - 1U 640GB iSCSI-enabled IP SAN RAID solution Adaptec iSA1500 Storage Array - 1U, 4-drive iSCSI to SATA RAID solution
3.19.12.2. HBAs
Adaptec 7211C (Copper) - 1Gb ASIC-based iSCSI copper adapter with full protocol offload Adaptec 7211F (Fiber Optic) - 1Gb ASIC-based iSCSI fiber optic adapter with full protocol offload
3.19.12.3. Adaptec 7211F (Fiber Optic)

The Adaptec 7211F (fiber optic) delivers high performance, interoperable connection into iSCSI SANs in Gigabit Ethernet environments. Unlike NIC based implementations the Adaptec 7211F (fiber optic) offers ASIC-based complete TCP/IP and iSCSI offload enabling lower CPU utilization and the best price-performance. The Adaptec 7211F (fiber optic) provides best-in-class interoperability and is ideal for applications like storage consolidation, LAN-free and server-free back-up, database and e-mail deployment, as well as remote replication and disaster recovery.
Highlights
The premier choice for connectivity High-speed iSCSI SAN connectivity with minimal CPU utilization Fully offloads protocol processing from the host CPU Enables any enterprise that uses standard Ethernet technology to consolidate storage, increase data availability, and reap the benefits of SANs Ideal for environments where storage consolidation, LAN-free backup, and remote replication
Benefits
Delivers outstanding iSCSI performance using familiar, affordable technology Ideal for environments where storage consolidation, LAN-free backup, and remote replication are required. Database, e-mail, and disaster recovery and perfectly suited for iSCSI SANs with iSCSI HBAs. Fully offloads protocol processing from the host CPU High-speed iSCSI SAN connectivity with minimal CPU utilization Enables any enterprise that uses standard Ethernet technology to consolidate storage, increase data availability, and reap the benefits of SANs Enables low latency SCSI "blocks" to be transported via Ethernet and TCP/IP
3.19.13. Conclusion
I'm quite sure that in the near future the Fiber Channel won't disappear and the FC SAN market will be further developing. At the same time the IP Storage protocols will make possible to use effectively storage area networks in those applications for which the FC can't provide an effective realization. With the FCIP and iFCP protocols data storage networks will be geographically distributed. And the iSCSI will make possible to use advantages of the SAN in the spheres, which are still not or ineffectively realized within popular technologies.
3.19.13.1. P.S.
The rapid development of data storage networks is what the conception of the World Wide Storage Area Network based on. WWSAN provides for an infrastructure which will support a high-speed access and storage of data
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distributed all over the world. The conception is very close to the WWW but is based on different services. One of examples is servicing a manager who travels around the world with presentations. WWWSAN provides for transparent transfer of "mobile" data according to how their owner travels all around the world. Therefore, wherever such manager can be, he will always have a high-speed access to the data he needs, and an operation with them won't require a complicated ineffective synchronization via the WWW. The conception of building the World Wide Storage Area Network excellently fits in the development of modern IP Storage technologies.
3.19.13.2. Terms and abbreviations:

SAN CDB PDU SNIA DNS PLOGI iSCSI FCIP iFCP iSNS WWSAN Storage Area Network command descriptor block. Protocol Data Unit. Storage Networking Industry Association. Domain Name Server. Fiber Channel Port Login. Internet Small Computer Systems Interface Fiber Channel over TCP/IP Internet Fiber Channel Protocol Internet Storage Name Service World Wide Storage Area Network Quality of Service (usually describes a network through latency
QoS and band of a signal).
3.19.14. Others (iFCP, FCIP)

The IP Storage (IPS) work group was created within the frames of developing network storage technologies in the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF); it has the following directions: iSCSI (Internet Small Computer Systems Interface) FCIP (Fiber Channel over TCP/IP) iFCP (Internet Fiber Channel Protocol) iSNS (Internet Storage Name Service) In January 2001 IP Storage Forum was established within SNIA (Storage Networking Industry Association). Today the Forum includes three subgroups: FCIP, iFCP, iSCSI, each representing a protocol, which is under the IETF protection. FCIP - a tunnel protocol based on the TCP/IP, which is designed for connection of geographically far FC SANs without affecting FC and IP protocols. iFCP - TCP/IP based protocol for connection of FC data storage systems using the IP infrastructure together or instead of FC switching and routing elements. For better understanding of positioning of these three protocols there is a diagram of networks based on them.
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Fig. 3.19.14 - Diagram of IP Storage networks
3.19.14.1. Fiber Channel over IP

The most revolutionary protocol among these three is Fiber Channel over IP. It doesn't bring in any changes into the SAN structure and organization of storage area systems. The main idea of this protocol is to make functional integration of geographically remote storage networks.
Here is the stack of the FCIP protocol:
Fig. 3.19.14.1 - Lower levels of the FCIP protocol
FCIP helps to effectively solve a problem of geographical distribution, and integration of SANs on large distances. This protocol is entirely transparent for existent FC SANs and involves usage of infrastructure of modern MAN/WAN networks. So, if you want to merge geographically remote FC SANs with new functionality enabled you will have to get just one FCIP gateway and connection to MAN/WAN networks. A geographically distributed
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SAN based on the FCIP is taken by SAN devices as a usual FC network, and it is seen as a usual IP traffic for a MAN/WAN network it is connected to.
3.19.14.2. FCIP IETF IPS Working Group Draft Standard specifies:

Rules of encapsulation of FC frames for delivery through TCP/IP; Rules of using encapsulation for creation of a virtual connection between FC devices and elements of an FC network; TCP/IP environment for support of creation of a virtual connection and support of FC traffic tunneling through an IP network including safety, integrity of data and a data rate issue. Here are some applied problems which can be successfully solved using the FCIP protocol: remote backup, data recovery and a shared data access. With high-speed MAN/WAN communications one can also use synchronous data doubling and a shared distributed access to data storage systems.
3.19.14.3. iFCP
Internet Fiber Channel Protocol is a protocol which provides FC traffic delivery over the TCP/IP transport between iFCP gateways. In this protocol an FC transport level is replaced with a transport of the IP network, the traffic between FC devices is routed and switched by the means of TCP/IP. The iFCP protocol allows connecting current FC data storage systems to an IP network with a support of network services which are necessary for these devices.
Here is how an iFCP protocol stack looks like:
Fig. 3.19.14.3 - Lower levels of the iFCP protocol
According to the specification iFCP:

Overlays FC frames for their delivery to a predetermined TCP connection; FC services of message delivery and routing are overlapped in the iFCP gateway device; therefore, network structures and components of the FC do not mix in one FC SAN but are managed by the TCP/IP means; Dynamically creates IP tunnels for FC frames An important feature of the iFCP is that this protocol provides an FC device-to-device connection via an IP network, which is a more flexible scheme in comparison to the SAN-to-SAN. For example, if the iFCP has a TCP connection between pairs of N_Ports of two FC devices such connection can have its own QoS level which will be different from a QoS level of another pair of FC devices.
3.19.15. How to Build an iSCSI SAN

Not all organizations can afford to build a storage-area network. Why spend hundreds of thousands of dollars and lots of management hours, the thinking goes, if you can get by with your existing direct-attached storage that's more of an inconvenience than a problem? But don't discount a SAN so easily: With the advent of iSCSI, storage networks are becoming more affordable for organizations of all sizes. You won't get all the benefits of a high-end Fiber Channel SAN with iSCSI, but you will have the immediate advantage of remote, centralized storage.
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ISCSI sends SCSI commands over an IP network. As long as the machine requesting data and the machine serving the data both understand iSCSI, the requesting machine will see drives and data on the server as "local." This lets you expand the data in your data server (or group of servers) and not throw disks into every network app server. In iSCSI parlance, an initiator is a device or software that maps SCSI into IP: It wraps SCSI commands in an IP packet and ships them to an iSCSI target. The target machine unwraps iSCSI packets from IP and acts upon the iSCSI commands. It returns an iSCSI response or multiple responses, which are usually blocks of data. The server is your application server, and the storage box is the machine serving up iSCSI drives. (We're using storage box to represent anything from a Linux software iSCSI target to a full-blown SAN with iSCSI support.) You need a gigabit copper network for an iSCSI SAN. If you try running iSCSI over a 100-Mbps network, you'll be disappointed. Assuming your network connection maintains 100 percent utilization, 100 Mbps is roughly equivalent to 5 MB per second of disk transfer. Because iSCSI has a request/response for every packet transferred and network performance degrades before 100 percent saturation, the best performance you'll get is 6.25 MBps of throughput. That's a rough estimate that includes time to wrap and unwrap data packets and responses to each packet. Bottom line: 6.25 MBps of data transfer is not good, considering that most drives run in the 40- to 320-MBps transfer range. Besides, Gigabit Ethernet is affordable: Gigabit adapters start at $60; switches, $120. And Gigabit Ethernet has the throughput for treating iSCSI as a local drive.
Fig. 3.19.15 iSCSI over Ethernet Network
Don't put your iSCSI SAN on your regular IP network, either. There's plenty of traffic running over that, and iSCSI is bandwidth-intensive. Also consider whether your servers have enough CPU power to handle iSCSI. Unwrapping and reassembling iSCSI packets can take a lot of CPU time. The iSCSI standard assumes packets are received in order, while TCP does not (plus iSCSI adds load from intensive TCP/IP processing). So if your server CPU is moderately utilized, you'll need an HBA (Host Bus Adapter) or TOE (TCP Offload Engine). These devices take care of some, or all, of the iSCSI and TCP processing without burdening the CPU. HBAs are storage-only cards that connect your machine to a target using iSCSI. TOEs are TCP-only cards that off-load TCP processing for the CPU. TOE is useful in iSCSI because of the high volume of packets transferred, while HBA processes SCSI commands--another data-intensive application. HBAs costs $600 to $1,200 each, so add them only to machines that need more CPU. And check with your HBA vendor to ensure that its product supports regular TCP/IP communications (most don't). If it doesn't, buy a separate gigabit NIC for that machine if it will handle any management for your storage network. Ideally, the NIC should sit on a separate machine on the gigabit SAN--but not participating in storage work--for network management.
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3.19.16. Setup
Part of iSCSI's appeal is you don't need specialized networking knowledge--like you do with Fiber Channel SANs-to set it up. It's relatively simple to build and configure. First, set up your IP network. Install Ethernet cards or HBAs, and remember to put one in your storage server if you have a target that requires a card or blade to make it iSCSI-ready. You have several options: At the low end is the UNH-iSCSI open-source project that builds a target for Linux. You can install it on any Linux machine, customize the config file and have an iSCSI target. Fill the box with drives and use it as your storage box. Alternatively, you can buy premade storage boxes that are iSCSI targets with plenty of room for drives. This is a good place to start if your budget is tight. You'll need to choose the number of drives, the type of drive (SCSI, ATA or Fiber Channel) and how much expandability you need in the device, as well as the amount of throughput. Another option is to make your existing Fiber Channel SAN and NAS equipment iSCSI-compatible, with iSCSI cards for SANs and iSCSI gateways for NAS products. Next, run cables to your gigabit switch. Remember, you're creating a separate IP network from your backbone. IP networking is much the same no matter the medium--configure the network using your OS guidelines.
3.19.17. Pain-Free Initiation

Configuring iSCSI differs from product to product, and it's different for the initiator and the target systems. Once you've got your storage IP network running, devices can ping each other, and setting up the iSCSI portion is easy. Just enable the iSCSI functionality. Using the UNH Linux target software, you can modify the target configuration file to set up drives, portals and targets. Windows and dedicated storage devices have interface tools for this configuration. Once you've defined the targets and drives they offer, set up the initiators. If a given server doesn't have an HBA acting as an initiator, you'll have to install one, like the Microsoft Initiator. This adds value even if you have an HBA installed. Some HBAs can't use the Microsoft Initiator, though, so check with your HBA vendor. Some vendors have written their own iSCSI initiators that are delivered with their cards. There are initiators and targets for both Windows and Linux available. Windows has an "iSCSI Initiator" icon in the Control Panel for automatically discovering targets, and you can set up undiscovered targets, too. Linux has a config file you modify manually to set up iSCSI, and there's a handy how-to for this purpose. If there's an HBA on your storage machine, check your HBA vendor's documentation for help. Once the initiators are configured, try to contact the targets. Beware: If you set up the targets after the initiators, you have to rescan the iSCSI network at each initiator to see the targets. To check that both TCP/IP and iSCSI are working, the iSCSI protocol maps a command to do an "iSCSI ping." It's a SCSI command wrapped in an IP packet that doesn't request any operation from the target--just a response. Next, select the drives you want each initiator to use, which should be visible as local drives. Format them and begin using them like any other new drive in the system. Over time, you can augment or replace software initiators with HBAs or TOEs, and you can swap out your lowerend target with anything up to a full-blown SAN. You can even upgrade to 10-Gbps Ethernet for greater throughput, if necessary.
3.19.18. SAN Components

Fiber Channel Switches (SAN Fabric) SAN Fabric Management and Monitoring Software SAN Fabric Security and Access Control Software Storage Devices Hosts and Host Bus Adapters (HBA) Cabling and Cable Connectors Gigabit Interface Converters (GBICs)
UA - SAN Setup by Wilshire
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4. SAN Setup by WILSHIRE

4.1. Hardware Details
Components of a SAN comprises of the following: JNI FCE 6410N 64-Bit HBA (Host Bus Adapter) Brocade SilkWorm 2800 Switch ATTO FIBER-BRIDGE 2200 R/D SCSI Tape drive and a SCSI disk subsystem.
4.1.1. JNI FCE 6410N Fiber Channel HBA

The FiberStart line of PCI-Fiber Channel host bus adapter (HBAs) is designed to execute mission critical applications by enabling high-speed data transfers between PCI-based servers and a Fiber channel link. The HBAs are designed with high performance, cut-through architecture, low CPU utilization, a highly efficient physical layer design and a modular software structure. The stability and reliability of the JNI FiberStart line of HBAs remain unchallenged; and its interoperability allows for cross-platform implementation. The FCE-6410 is bundled with two JNI proprietary software products, EZ Fiber and the PC Driver Suite. EZ Fiber is a powerful graphically based management and configuration utility that makes installing and maintaining JNI HBAs as easy point-and-click. The PC Driver Suite is an integrated suite of software drivers that enables the HBA to operate with a wide variety of operating systems. These connectivity options, along with its industry-leading price-performance and straightforward installation process make the FCE-6410 adapter obvious choice when implementing Fiber Channel in a heterogeneous environment. Supports switched fabric, arbitrated loop and point-to-point topologies Full speed, full-duplex Fiber Channel interface Reduced bottlenecks in distributed and clustered environments with measured performance over 98.5 MB/second (half-duplex) LUN-Level zoning/mapping enabled through EZ Fiber Management Utility Runs on Windows NT, Windows 2000, Novell NetWare, Red Hat Linux, HP-UX, AIX, Solaris and Mac. OS.
4.1.2. Brocade SilkWorm 2800 Switch

The Brocade SilkWorm switches create an intelligent storage-networking infrastructure for mission-critical Storage Area Networks (SAN). The SilkWorm 2800 enterprise-class Fiber Channel switches is designed to address the SAN requirements of very large workgroups and enterprises. This Switch support business-critical SAN applications, such as LAN-free backup, storage consolidation, remote mirroring, and high-availability clustering configurations. The SilkWorm 2800 switch is also a completely interoperable with entry-level switches, enabling cost-effective pay-as-you-grow migration to more advanced SAN environments. The SilkWorm 2800 switch support scalability through networking multiple switches, and a fabric operating system (OS) that enables heterogeneous device connectivity, automatic data routing and re routing, self-healing, and scalable connectivity. The 16-port SilkWorm 2800 complements the SilkWorm 2400 switch by delivering higher density connectivity for extremely large SAN fabrics. Up to 239 switches can be networked together, providing over 2,000 ports of interconnectivity.
Technical Highlights
16-port switch deliver an industrial-strength framework for enterprise SAN fabrics. Each port delivers 100 MB/sec full duplex line speed. Offer superior interoperability with a wide range of servers and storage devices. Fabric OS provides powerful fabric management capabilities.
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Provides swappable, redundant power supplies and cooling fans for high reliability, availability, and serviceability. Rack mount, Desktop or Drop-in
Specifications And Features

16 Universal ports automatically determine the port type for a loop, point-to-point devices, or an InterSwitch Link (ISL). Scalability Maximum upto 239 Switches of Full Fabric Architecture Performance Switch Bandwidth is 16Bg/sec End-to-End Non-blocking architecture delivers full-speed data delivery irrespective of traffic conditions. Cut through routing provides maximum latency of two microseconds from switch port to switch port. 448 dynamically allocated frame buffer Fabric switches support unicast, multi - cast (256 groups), and broadcast hot Pluggable, industrystandard GBICs. Redundant power supply, GBICs, and rack mount kit
General
Support seamless connectivity to Fiber Channel Arbitrated Loop and full switch fabric configurations. Supports disk, tape and removable devices.
Fiber Channel Connectivity

16 GBIC Fiber channel port Support for Fiber optic and copper GBICs, short wave and long wave optics.
4.1.3. ATTO Fiber-Bridge 2200 R/D

Fiber channel-to-SCSI Bridge with advanced management, connectivity and Fabric support.
A Fiber Channel-to-SCSI Bridge for high Demand Environments. ATTO Fiber Bridge 2200R/D is an intelligent Fiber Channel-to-SCSI bridge with a very versatile enclosure. The ATTO Fiber bridge 2200R/D provides Fiber channel performance of 1.0625 Gigabit (100 MB/sec) transfer rates. This product which is tightly coupled with two independent SCSI ports provides a sustained throughput of 98 MB/sec. This also supports the latest Fiber channel features including full fabric connectivity.
Technical Highlights
Single GBIC Fiber channel port. Dual independent SCSI buses. RS-232, Ethernet and Fiber channel In-band configuration, Management and Monitoring. Support for Full Duplex and class 2 transfers. Rackmount, Desktop or Drop-in.
Specifications and Features

One Fiber channel GBIC port. Two independent SCSI buses - Ultra2 LVD or High voltage Differential models available. LEDs show Fiber channel activity, SCSI bus activity, unit ready and power status. Upto 5000 I/Os per second and a sustained throughput of 98 MB/sec. RS-232 Serial port provides command line & menu interface for diagnostic information and configuration options. On-board Ethernet provides SNMP and Telnet based monitoring and configuration. Supports full Duplex operations.
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General
Reliably attaches SCSI devices to Fiber channel arbitrated loop and fabric infrastructures. Supports disk, tape and removable devices.
Fiber Channel Connectivity

One GBIC Fiber channel port Support for Fiber optic and copper GBICs, short wave and long wave optics.
SCSI Connectivity
Two independent SCSI buses.
Local and Network Management

10/100 BaseT Ethernet port for LAN-based Management. Out-of-band support for Telnet, FTP and SNMP over Ethernet. RS-232 serial port for local management using Fiberbridge services. Command-line and menu-based ASCII text management interface for RS-232 and Telnet. LEDs for Fiber channel activity, SCSI activity, power and system ready. ATTO BridgeTools, Java-based graphical software for configuration and management of the ATTO Fiberbridge products over Fiber Channel, Ethernet or RS-232. The ATTO FiberBridge 2200R/D is Operating system independent.
4.1.4. Hardware Installation

Minimum System Requirements
Windows 2000 Windows NT version 4.0 with service pack 4 (SP4) Solaris version 2.6,7,8.
4.1.5. Installing the Adapter card

Shutdown the system, power down peripherals, and unplug the powercord. Unplug any peripheral devices from the system unit. To install the adapter card, locate and insert it in an unused 64-bit expansion slot. PCI slots are typically white or ivory. If an expansion slot id covering the slot opening unscrew and remove the bracket. Note: The HBAs can be installed in either a 32-bit or 64-bit PCI system. 64-bit performance will not occur on a 32-bit system. Insert the adapter card in the available slot. Attach a loop back plug to the FC port. Plug power cord, cables and peripherals back into the computer and power up.
Connecting Cables and Devices

Connecting devices to your new adapter card may require a variety of cables and/or adapter.
Optical Interface Connector

If your new adapter card has an optical connection, the interface uses a Fiber optic cable with standard SC Fiber optic connectors at each end. The optical cables should be plugged into the optical Fiber channel (FC) connector. See the figure below for the location of the transmitter port (TX) and receiver port (RX) on the optical SC connector.
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4.2. Software Installation

4.2.1. Installation in Solaris 9
Insert JNI CD cd /cdrom/jni/solaris , you'll see a file jni.pkg. To add the package, # pkgadd -d /cdrom/jni/solaris/jni.pkg. Mount the floppy containing the patches, go to /floppy/san Copy two patches 108434-01 & 108535-01 to /opt diretory. cp 108434-01 /opt/108434-01.Z cp 108435-01 /opt/108435-01.Z Unzip both the files now. To add the patches # patchadd -u 108434-01 # patchadd -u 108435-01 , -u is for updating. # cd /kernel/drv , here you'll have to edit some files. Go to st.conf, (for SCSI tape drive), Line 145: set the LUN number to 10, (depends upon the ID of the tape drive). Go to sd.conf (for SCSI disk), where target=1, set LUN=11 (again depends on the id of the device). Go to jnic.conf, Line 139: uncomment it for defining the node name and give the node number as you see in the NT machine's EZ Fiber utility, FC Target 0. Line 152: uncomment it for defining the port name and give the port number, repeat the same procedure. Line 166: uncomment it and give port binding = "0000ef"; Now init 0 and boot with boot -r. Now if your Tape drive is ready, you can see the files in /dev/rmt, and can take backups as usual. If you have any disks, go to Format Command, you can see the disk. Again Insert the JNI CD, # cd /cdrom/jni/solaris/EZFiber, ls Run a file install.sh. To execute EZ Fiber, # cd /opt/jni/EZFiber/standalone, ls Run a file ezf, ( ./ezf ), A GUI tool EZ Fiber is ready and the devices in SAN can be seen here as you see in NT 4.0.
4.3.2. Installation in NT4.0

Go to the control panel settings and then to SCSI Adapters. There you'll have an option Add driver, you'll have to load the CD and add the driver. Run EZ Fiber software now and you can see the devices in the SAN (LUN numbers).
UA - Emerging Technologies
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5. Emerging Technologies
5. Introduction of InfiniBand
InfiniBand is a new High Speed, Enterprise Wide, I/O technology. InfiniBand provides for high performance I/O used in networked computing platforms and defines the requirements for creating an InfiniBand network. The benefits of InfiniBand over existing technologies include more scale for growth, higher speed data transfer and easy integration with legacy systems. Today's bus-based architecture is limited in its ability to meet the needs of the evolving data center. The speed of the Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) bus, the 'gateway' between external communications (the Internet) and the CPU, has not increased in tandem with CPU speed and Internet traffic, creating a bottleneck. InfiniBand (Infinite Bandwidth) promises to eliminate this bottleneck. InfiniBand, a switched-fabric architecture for I/O systems and data centers, is an open standard that implements a network for I/O connectivity, thereby decoupling the I/O path from the computing elements of a configuration (the CPU and memory). InfiniBand allows for improvements in network performance, processor efficiency, reliability, and scalability. Despite these compelling benefits, the enormous investment in PCI-based architectures will make a phased implementation of InfiniBand necessary.
Fig. 5 Overview of InfiniBand System
5.1 InfiniBand Advantages

InfiniBand allows for greater network performance, processor efficiency, reliability, and scalability. The following outlines how each of these are achieved. Network Performance--InfiniBand has been designed to solve the problem of meeting I/O demand, which is being generated by high-end computing concepts, such as clustering, fail-safe, and 24X7 availability. The architecture is intended to minimize disruption of existing paradigms and business practices. The specification creates three different performance classes--1x, 4x, and 12x. Each lx link can transmit 2.5Gbps in each direction.
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Even in its slowest configuration, InfiniBand's throughput is on par with the fastest PCI bus, SCSI, Gigabit Ethernet, and Fiber Channel technology. Thus, implementation of the highest-class InfiniBand architecture will increase throughput by twelve times or more. InfiniBand enables systems to keep up with the ever-increasing customer requirements for reliability, availability, and scalability, increased bandwidth, and support for Interact technology. Processor Efficiency--InfiniBand's channel adapters are intelligent. This allows them to offload much of the communications processing from the operating systems and CPU. InfiniBand shifts the burden of processing I/O from the server's CPU onto the InfiniBand network, freeing up the CPU for other processing. Reliability--Reliability is superior to today's PCI model because data can take many paths across the InfiniBand architecture. For example, a processor could have two ports; each port would connect to one of two switches. In the event one of the links failed, all traffic could be rerouted over the other operating link. By building a network of redundant pathways using multiple switches, reliability can be achieved. Scalability--The center of the Internet data center shifts from the server to a switched fabric in an InfiniBand architecture. Servers, networking, and storage all access a common fabric. Each of these devices can scale independently based on the needs of the data center.
5.2 InfiniBand Architecture

According to the 1.0.a specifications, IBA is described as "... a first order interconnect technology for interconnecting processor nodes and I/O nodes to form a system area network. The architecture is independent of the host operating system (OS) and processor platform." InfiniBand is much like a phone system--it is able to handle thousands of messages at any given time, as opposed to a shared bus, which is able to handle only one message at a time. The specification defines the various nodes in a subnet (a single InfiniBand network) Nodes of a subnet include: * Routers--interconnect components for routing traffic across subnets or to non InfiniBand networks. * Switches--interconnect components for intra-subnet routing. * Channel Adapters (CAs)--devices that terminate a link; execute transport-level functions to CPU nodes and I/O nodes. InfiniBand is an open standard that implements a network for I/O connectivity, thereby decoupling the I/O path from the computing dements of a configuration (the CPU and memory). As illustrated in the Figure, InfiniBand server elements consist of CPUs and memory. Together with the server, switch technology forms a network to which I/O devices are attached. This is the core framework, or, otherwise known as an InfiniBand subnet.
5.3 InfiniBand Layers

The InfiniBand architecture is divided into multiple layers where each layer operates independently of one another. As shown in Figure, InfiniBand is broken into the following layers: Physical, Link, Network, Transport, and Upper Layers.
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Fig. 5.3 InfiniBand Layer Model
5.3.1. Physical Layer

InfiniBand is a comprehensive architecture that defines both electrical and mechanical characteristics for the system. These include cables and receptacles for fiber and copper media; backplane connectors; and hot swap characteristics. InfiniBand defines three link speeds at the physical layer, 1X, 4X, 12X. Each individual link is a four wire serial differential connection (two wires in each direction) that provides a full duplex connection at 2.5 Gb/s.
Fig. 5.3.1 Physical Layer
The data rates and pin counts for these links are shown in Table
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Infiniband Link Rates Table InfiniBand Link

1X 4X 12X
Signal Count
4 16 48
Signaling Rate
2.5 Gb/s 10 Gb/s 30 Gb/s
Data Rate
2.0 Gb/s 8 Gb/s 24 Gb/s
Fully Duplexed Data Rate

4.0 Gb/s 16.0 Gb/s 48.0 Gb/s
Note: The bandwidth of an InfiniBand 1X link is 2.5 Gb/s. The actual raw data bandwidth is 2.0 Gb/s (data is 8b/10b encoded). Due to the link being bi-directional, the aggregate bandwidth with respect to a bus is 4 Gb/s. Most products are multi-port designs where the aggregate system I/O bandwidth will be additive. InfiniBand defines multiple connectors for out of the box communications. Both fiber and copper cable connectors are defined as well as a backplane connector for rack-mounted systems.
5.3.2 Link Layer

The link layer (along with the transport layer) is the heart of the InfiniBand Architecture. The link layer encompasses packet layout, point-to-point link operations, and switching within a local subnet.
Packets
There are two types of packets within the link layer, management and data packets. Management packets are used for link configuration and maintenance. Device information, such as Virtual Lane support is determined with management packets. Data packets carry up to 4k bytes of a transaction payload.
Switching
Within a subnet, packet forwarding and switching is handled at the link layer. All devices within a subnet have a 16 bit Local ID (LID) assigned by the Subnet Manager. All packets sent within a subnet use the LID for addressing. Link Level switching forwards packets to the device specified by a Destination LID within a Local Route Header (LRH) in the packet. The LRH is present in all packets.
QoS
QoS is supported by InfiniBand through Virtual Lanes (VL). These VLs are separate logical communication links which share a single physical link. Each link can support up to 15 standard VLs and one management lane (VL 15). VL15 is the highest priority and VL0 is the lowest. Management packets use VL15 exclusively. Each device must support a minimum of VL0 and VL15 while other VLs are optional. As a packet traverses the subnet, a Service Level (SL) is defined to ensure its QoS level. Each link along a path can have a different VL, and the SL provides each link a desired priority of communication. Each switch/router has a SL to VL mapping table that is set by the subnet manager to keep the proper priority with the number of VLs supported on each link. Therefore, the IBA can ensure end-to-end QoS through switches, routers and over the long haul.
Credit Based Flow Control

Flow control is used to manage data flow between two point-to-point links. Flow control is handled on a per VL basis allowing separate virtual fabrics to maintain communication utilizing the same physical media. Each receiving end of a link supplies credits to the sending device on the link to specify the amount of data that can be received without loss of data. Credit passing between each device is managed by a dedicated link packet to update the number of data packets the receiver can accept. Data is not transmitted unless the receiver advertises credits indicating receive buffer space is available.
Data integrity
At the link level there are two CRCs per packet, Variant CRC (VCRC) and Invariant CRC (ICRC) that ensure data integrity. The 16-bit VCRC includes all fields in the packet and is recalculated at each hop. The 32-bit ICRC covers only the fields that do not change from hop to hop. The VCRC provides link level data integrity between two hops and the ICRC provides end-to-end data integrity. In a protocol like ethernet, which defines only a single CRC, an error can be introduced within a device, which then recalculates the CRC. The check at the next hop would reveal a valid CRC even though the data has been corrupted. InfiniBand includes the ICRC so that when a bit error is introduced, the error will always be detected.
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5.3.3 Network Layer

The network layer handles routing of packets from one subnet to another (within a subnet, the network layer is not required). Packets that are sent between subnets contain a Global Route Header (GRH). The GRH contains the 128-bit IPv6 address for the source and destination of the packet. The packets are forwarded between subnets through a router based on each devices 64 bit globally unique ID (GUID). The router modifies the LRH with the proper local address within each subnet. Therefore the last router in the path replaces the LID in the LRH with the LID of the destination port. Within the network layer InfiniBand packets do not require the network layer information and header overhead when used within a single subnet (which is a likely scenario for Infiniband system area networks).
5.3.4 Transport Layer

The transport layer is responsible for in-order packet delivery, partitioning, channel multiplexing and transport services (reliable connection, reliable datagram, unreliable connection, unreliable datagram, raw datagram). The transport layer also handles transaction data segmentation when sending and reassembly when receiving. Based on the Maximum Transfer Unit (MTU) of the path, the transport layer divides the data into packets of the proper size. The receiver reassembles the packets based on a Base Transport Header (BTH) that contains the destination queue pair and packet sequence number. The receiver acknowledges the packets and the sender receives the acknowledge and updates the completion queue with the status of the operation. There is a significant improvement that the IBA offers for the transport layer: all functions are implemented in hardware. InfiniBand specifies multiple transport services for data reliability. Queue pair, one transport level is used.
5.4 InfiniBand Technical Overview

InfiniBand is a switch-based point-to-point interconnect architecture developed for todays systems with the ability to scale for next generation system requirements. It operates both on the PCB as a component-to-component interconnect as well as an out of the box chassis-to-chassis interconnect. Each individual link is based on a fourwire 2.5 Gb/s bidirectional connection. The architecture defines a layered hardware protocol (Physical, Link, Network, Transport Layers) as well as a software layer to manage initialization and the communication between devices. Each link can support multiple transport services for reliability and multiple prioritized virtual communication channels. To manage the communication within a subnet, the architecture defines a communication management scheme that is responsible for configuring and maintaining each of the InfiniBand elements. Management schemes are defined for error reporting, link failover, chassis management as well as other services to ensure a solid connection fabric.
5.4.1 InfiniBand Feature Set

Layered Protocol - Physical, Link, Network, Transport, Upper Layers Packet Based Communication Quality of Service Three Link Speeds o 1X - 2.5 Gb/s, 4 wire o 4X - 10 Gb/s, 16 wire o 12X - 30 Gb/s, 48 wire PCB, Copper and Fiber Cable Interconnect Subnet Management Protocol Remote DMA Support Multicast and Unicast Support Reliable Transport Methods - Message Queuing Communication Flow Control - Link Level and End to End
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5.5 InfiniBand Elements

The InfiniBand architecture defines multiple devices for system communication: a channel adapter, switch, router, and a subnet manager. Within a subnet, there must be at least one channel adapter for each end node and a subnet manager to set up and maintain the link. All channel adapters and switches must contain a Subnet Management Agent (SMA) required for handling communication with the subnet manager.
Fig. 5.5 InfiniBand Architecture
5.5.1 Channel Adapters

A channel adapter connects InfiniBand to other devices. There are two types of channel adapters, a Host Channel Adapter (HCA) and a Target Channel Adapter (TCA). An HCA provides an interface to a host device and supports all software Verbs defined by InfiniBand. Verbs are an abstract representation, which defines the required interface between the client software and the functions of the HCA. Verbs do not specify the application-programming interface (API) for the operating system, but define the operation for OS vendors to develop a usable API. A TCA provides the connection to an I/O device from InfiniBand with a subset of features necessary for each devices specific operations.
5.5.2 Switch
Switches are the fundamental component of an InfiniBand fabric. A switch contains more than one InfiniBand port and forwards packets from one of its port to another based on the LID contained within the layer two Local Route Header. Other than management packets, a switch does not consume or generate packets. Like a channel adapter, switches are required to implement a SMA to respond to Subnet Management Packets. Switches can be configured to forward either unicast packets (to a single location) or multicast packets (addressed to multiple devices).
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Fig. 5.5.2 Overview of InfiniBand Switch Model
5.5.3 Router
InfiniBand routers forward packets from one subnet to another without consuming or generating packets. Unlike a switch, a router reads the Global Route Header to forward the packet based on its IPv6 network layer address. The router rebuilds each packet with the proper LID on the next subnet.
5.5.4 Subnet Manager

The subnet manager configures the local subnet and ensures its continued operation. There must be at least one subnet manager present in the subnet to manage all switch and router setups and for subnet reconfiguration when a link goes down or a new link comes up. The subnet manager can be within any of the devices on the subnet. The Subnet Manager communicates to devices on the subnet through each dedicated SMA (required by each InfiniBand component). There can be multiple subnet managers residing in a subnet as long as only one is active. Non-active subnet managers (Standby Subnet Managers) keep copies of the active subnet managers forwarding information and verify that the active subnet manager is operational. If an active subnet manager goes down, a standby subnet manager will take over responsibilities to ensure the fabric does not go down with it.
5.6 InfiniBand Support for the Virtual Interface Architecture (VIA)

The Virtual Interface Architecture is a distributed messaging technology that is both hardware independent and compatible with current network interconnects. The architecture provides an API that can be utilized to provide high-speed and low-latency communications between peers in clustered applications. InfiniBand was developed with the VIA architecture in mind. InfiniBand off loads traffic control from the software client through the use of execution queues. These queues, called work queues, are initiated by the client, and then left for InfiniBand to manage. For each communication channel between devices, a Work Queue Pair (WQP - send and receive queue) is assigned at each end. The client places a transaction into the work queue (Work Queue Entry - WQE, pronounced wookie), which is then processed by the channel adapter from the send queue and sent out to the remote device. When the remote device responds, the channel adapter returns status to the client through a completion queue or event. The client can post multiple WQEs, and the channel adapters hardware will handle each of the communication requests. The channel adapter then generates a Completion Queue Entry (CQE) to provide status for each WQE in the proper prioritized order. This allows the client to continue with other activities while the transactions are being processed.
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Fig. 5.6 InfiniBand Virtual Interface Architecture
5.7 InterConnect of Choice For HPC and Data Center

InfiniBand is a high performance, switched fabric interconnect standard for servers. The technology is deployed worldwide in server clusters ranging from two to thousands of nodes. From Prudential Financial to Sandia National Laboratories, InfiniBand has become the standard interconnect of choice for HPC environments and is quickly becoming the preferred standard in high performance, enterprise data centers. Founded in 1999, the InfiniBand Trade Association (IBTA) is comprised of leading enterprise IT vendors including Agilent, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, InfiniCon, Intel, Mellanox, Network Appliance, Oracle, Sun, Topspin and Voltaire. The organization completed its first specification in October 2000. In the past 12 months all major system vendors have announced InfiniBand products and hundreds of products have completed interoperability testing and are commercially available. More recently the IBTA announced an effort to extend the technologys signaling rate beyond its current 30Gbps limitation to 120Gbps, maintaining InfiniBands leadership as the high performance standard interconnect.
5.7.1 Beyond Servers

InfiniBand implementations are prominent in server clusters where high-bandwidth and low latency are key requirements. In addition to server clusters, InfiniBand unifies the compute, communications and storage fabric in the data center. Several InfiniBand blade server designs have been announced by major server vendors, accelerating the proliferation of dense computing. InfiniBand draws on existing technologies to create a flexible, scalable, reliable I/O architecture that interoperates with any server technology on the market. With industry-wide adoption, InfiniBand continues to transforms the entire computing market. In addition to servers, InfiniBand enables both block and file based storage systems with a high performance interface that directly connects to the server cluster. This unification of servers and storage ultimately delivers higher performance with lower overall total cost of ownership by utilizing a single network for both clustering and storage connectivity. InfiniBand is also being used for embedded computing, an area in which proprietary components are being replaced by higher-performance, standardized, off-the-shelf equivalents. InfiniBand benefits embedded applications economically and technically, through its inherent resiliency, scalability and highly efficient communications. The InfiniBand Trade Association is lead by a steering committee comprised of Agilent, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, InfiniCon, Intel, Mellanox, Sun, Topspin and Voltaire. The first version of the specification for the technology was completed in October 2000. Since then, more than 70 companies have announced the availability of InfiniBand
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products. InfiniBand Architecture has created an opportunity for server design innovation including dense server blade implementations. InfiniBand Architecture draws on existing technologies to create a flexible, scalable, reliable I/O architecture that interoperates with any server technology on the market. With broad adoption, InfiniBand is transforming the industry.
5.7.2 A Single, Unified I/O Fabric

Ethernet. Fiber Channel. Ultra SCSI. Proprietary interconnects. Given that these and other I/O methods address similar needs, and are being implemented in data centers worldwide, it's easy to wonder why so much I/O technology innovation continues in this already-crowded arena. To understand, one needs only to look at the complexity in interconnect configurations in today's Internet data centers. Servers are often connected to three or four different networks redundantly, with enough wires and cables spilling out to give them the look of an overflowing I/O pasta machine. By creating a unified fabric, InfiniBand takes I/O outside of the box and provides a mechanism to share I/O interconnects among many servers. InfiniBand does not eliminate the need for other interconnect technologies. Instead, it creates a more efficient way to connect storage and communications networks and server clusters together, while delivering an I/O infrastructure that produces the efficiency, reliability and scalability that data centers demand.
5.7.3 Identifying the Need

Before the emergence of personal computers (PCs), mainframes featured scalable performance and a "channelbased" model that delivered a balance between processing power and I/O throughput. Data centers provided reliable data processing in a world of predictable workloads. The primary concern of the data center manager was system uptime, as failures led to loss of productivity. The industry transitioned from the model of mainframes and terminals to the client server age, where intelligence is shared between intelligent PCs and racks of powerful servers. With this transition came the advent of the "PC server," a concept that started with a network-connected PC turned on its side. This has evolved into an ever-rising specialization of "N-tier" server implementations, architectures that have applications distributed across a range of systems. The heart of the data center, where mission critical applications live, still relies on servers featuring the proprietary interconnects first seen in early mainframe systems. Today, data center managers are looking for more functionality from standard interconnect server models.
5.7.4 Network Volume Expands

The Internet's impact on the industry has been as big as the PC's, fundamentally changing the way CIOs manage their compute complexes. In a world where eighty percent of computing historically resided locally on a PC, Internet traffic and the rise of applications driven by Internet connectivity have created a model where more than eighty percent of computing is done over the network. This has created a wave of innovation in Ethernet local area network (LAN) connectivity, moving 10 Mbps LAN infrastructures to speeds of up to 1 Gbps. The first wave of Internet connectivity also led to investment of trillions of dollars in communications infrastructure, greatly expanding the ability to transfer large amounts of data anywhere in the world. This has created the foundation for an explosion in applications addressing virtually every aspect of human interaction. It also creates unique challenges for the data center, the "mission control" of information processing. The world of predictable workloads has now been turned into an increasingly unpredictable environment. Once, downtime meant only a loss in productivity. Now an array of other factors, such as decreased consumer confidence and lost sales, complicate the mix. Business success depends on data center performance and flexibility today, and this reliance will only increase as firms escalate their dependence on connectivity for business results.
5.7.5 Trend to Serial I/O

Traditionally, servers have relied on shared bus architecture for I/O connectivity, starting with the industry standard architecture (ISA) bus. For the past decade, servers have also utilized myriad iterations of the peripheral component interconnect (PCI) bus. Bus architectures have proven to be an efficient transport for traffic in and out of a server chassis, but as the cost of silicon has decreased, serial I/O alternatives have become more attractive. Serial I/O provides point-to-point connectivity, a "siliconization" of I/O resources, and increased reliability and performance. As serial I/O has become a financially viable alternative, new opportunities have been created for the industry to address the reliability and scalability needs of the data center. To meet the demands of changing data center environments, companies have new server platform requirements. Increased platform density for scaling more performance in defined physical space Servers that can scale I/O and processing power independently
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Racks of servers that can be managed as one autonomous unit Servers that can share I/O resources True "plug-and-play" I/O connectivity
5.7.6 InfiniBand: Adrenaline for Data Centers

InfiniBand answers these needs and meets the increasing demands of the enterprise data center. The architecture is grounded in the fundamental principles of channel-based I/O, the very I/O model favored by mainframe computers. InfiniBand channels are created by attaching host channel adapters and target channel adapters through InfiniBand switches. Host channel adapters are I/O engines located within a server. Target channel adapters enable remote storage and network connectivity into the InfiniBand fabric. This interconnect infrastructure is called a "fabric" based on the way input and output connections are constructed between host and targets. All InfiniBand connections are created with InfiniBand links utilizing both copper wire and fiber optics for transmission. Seemingly simple, this design creates a new way of connecting servers in a data center. With InfiniBand, new server deployment strategies become possible.
5.7.7 Independent Scaling of Processing and Shared I/O

One example of InfiniBands impact on server design is the ability to design a server with I/O removed from the server chassis. This enables independent scaling of processing and I/O capacity, creating more flexibility for data center managers. Unlike today's servers, which contain a defined number of I/O connections per box, InfiniBand servers can share I/O resources across the fabric. This method allows a data center manager to add processing performance when required, without the need to add more I/O capacity (the converse is also true). Shared I/O delivers other benefits as well. As data center managers upgrade and add storage and networking connectivity to keep up with traffic demand, there's no need to open every server box to add network interface cards (NICs) or Fiber channel host bus adapters (HBAs). Instead, I/O connectivity can be added to the remote side of the fabric through target channel adapters and shared among many servers. This saves uptime, decreases technician time for data center upgrades and expansion, and provides a new model for managing interconnects. The ability to share I/O resources also has an impact on balancing the performance requirements for I/O connectivity into servers. As other networking connections become increasingly powerful data pipes that could saturate one server can be shared among many servers to effectively balance server requirements. The result is a more efficient use of computer infrastructure and a decrease in the cost of deployment of fast interconnects to servers.
5.7.8 Raising Server Density, Reducing Size

Removal of I/O from the server chassis also has a profound impact on server density (the amount of processing power delivered in a defined physical space). As servers transition into rack-mounted configurations for easy deployment and management, floor space is at a premium. Internet service providers (ISPs) and application service providers (ASPs) were among the first companies faced with the problem of finding enough room to house server racks to keep up with processing demand. "Internet hotels" buildings that house little more than racks of servers are commonplace. As the impact of Internet computing grows, the density requirements of servers become more widespread. By removing I/O from the server chassis, server designers can fit more processing power into the same physical space. Using InfiniBand, server manufacturers have recently produced sub-1U server designs (a U is a measurement of rack height equating to 1.75 inches). More importantly, compute densitythe amount of processing power per Uincreases through the expansion of available space for processors inside a server. Additionally, the new modular designs improve serviceability and provide for faster provisioning of incremental resources like CPU modules or I/O expansion.
5.7.9 Clustering and Increased Performance

Data center performance is now measured in the performance of individual servers. With InfiniBand, this model shifts from individual server capability to the aggregate performance of the fabric. InfiniBand enables the clustering and management of multiple servers as one entity. Performance scales by adding additional boxes, without many of the complexities of traditional clustering. Even though more systems can be added, the cluster can be managed as one unit. As processing requirements increase, additional power can be added to the cluster in the form of another server or "blade." Today's server clusters rely on proprietary interconnects to effectively manage the complex nature of clustering traffic. With InfiniBand, server clusters can be configured for the first time with an industry standard I/O interconnect, creating an opportunity for clustered servers to become ubiquitous in data center deployments. With the ability to effectively balance processing and I/O performance
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through connectivity to the InfiniBand fabric, data center managers can react more quickly to fluctuations in traffic patterns, upswings in data center processing demand, and the need to retool to meet changing business needs. The net result is a more agile data center with the inherent flexibility to tune performance to an ever-changing landscape.
5.7.10 Enhanced Reliability

The returns on investment associated with InfiniBand go beyond enhanced performance, shared I/O and server density improvements. Since the advent of mainframe computing, the most important data center requirement has been the resiliency of the compute complex. As this requirement increases with the advent of Internet communications, a more reliable server platform design is required. InfiniBand increases server reliability in a multitude of ways. Channel-Based Architecture Because InfiniBand is grounded on a channel-based I/O model, connections between fabric nodes are inherently more reliable than conventional I/O technologies. Message-Passing Structure InfiniBand protocol utilizes an efficient message-passing structure to transfer data. This moves away from the traditional "load store" model used by the majority of today's systems and creates a more efficient and reliable transfer of data. Natural Redundancy InfiniBand fabrics are constructed with multiple levels of redundancy in mind. Nodes can be attached to a fabric for link redundancy. If a link goes down, not only should the fault be limited to the link, but also the additional link should ensure that connectivity continues to the fabric. By creating multiple paths through the fabric, intra-fabric redundancy results. If one path fails, traffic can be rerouted to the final endpoint destination. InfiniBand also supports redundant fabrics for the ultimate in fabric reliability. With multiple redundant fabrics, an entire fabric can fail without creating data center downtime.
5.7.11 End User Benefit

With more than 200 worldwide deployments in development or completed, customers are quickly garnering a return on investment. In 2003 Prudential Insurance replaced proprietary fabrics with InfiniBand and reduced its costs by an order of magnitude over previous UNIX solutions. Burlington Coat Factory doubled the performance of its Oracle database by replacing large-scale UNIX systems with InfiniBand and commercial off-the-shelf servers.
5.7.12 Industry-Wide Effort

Building a successful computer industry standard takes collaboration and cooperation. Through the InfiniBand Trade Association, some of the industry's most competitive companies are working together to further enhance InfiniBand architecture. They are leading the shift to a fabric-based I/O architecture, and know InfiniBand benefits everyone in the server world.
5.8. Relationship between InfiniBand and Fiber Channel or Gigabit Ethernet

InfiniBand Architecture is complementary to Fiber Channel and Gigabit Ethernet. InfiniBand architecture is uniquely positioned to become the I/O interconnect of choice for data center implementations. Networks such as Ethernet and Fiber Channel are expected to connect into the edge of the InfiniBand fabric and benefit from better access to InfiniBand architecture enabled compute resources. This will enable IT managers to better balance I/O and processing resources within an InfiniBand fabric.
UA - Enterprise Backup Storage
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6. Enterprise Backup Storage

6. Introduction of Enterprise Backup Storage
The explosive growth of data in the world around us is staggering todays computing environment. Application advancements, hard disk capacity doublings, network bandwidth, and connectivity improvements are all contributing to the management challenges felt by todays information technology managers. This growth presents particularly interesting challenges to tape backup technology, since protecting the data on todays rapidly growing storage subsystems is an absolute requirement. Data is typically thought of and measured by its physical capacity. This physical capacity has fueled tremendous growth in the primary storage industry (hard drives and hard-drive-based subsystems). The successes of large primary disk suppliers such as IBM, EMC and Network Appliance have been the result. One often overlooked piece of the storage boom is the effect that this explosion has had on the market for secondary storage, or removable media storage. Of the removable storage types, tape has continued to evolve through the years, and it is still the hands-down leader in the cost-for-capacity category. This fact has created an ever growing need for larger and higherperformance tape drives and automation subsystems. To effectively select a tape technology in todays crowded tape marketplace, it is important for end users to understand the underlying technology and some of the history of tape. Then, end users must apply some common feature-and-benefit analysis and some individualized needs analysis to ensure that a tape technology choice does not leave the business hanging as time goes by. Roadmaps end, technology improvements can be delayed or never realized, companies falter, and new technologies can be introduced which out-date the older technologies. Any of these happenings can leave an end user in a precarious position when they affect the tape technology in which the end user has invested. This white paper provides a simple and understandable look at today's most prevalent mid-range tape technologies. It looks at the history and evolution of each technology and examines how each technology accomplishes the advances and features necessary to compete in the mid-range tape marketplace today. This paper does not discuss a number of very expensive tape technologies, as they are typically not cost competitive in the mid-range space. By the same token, many low-end tape technologies are excluded from discussion, primarily because of the types and sizes of the customers that they target. All of the midrange tape technologies studied in this paper are available in stand-alone and automated library offerings. However, regardless of the offering, the tape drive technology specifications remain the same.
6.1 Recording Methods

6.1.1 Linear Serpentine Recording
Fig. 6.1.1.1 - Linear Serpentine Recording
All DLT and LTO tape products write linear serpentine data tracks parallel to the edge of the tape (Figure 1). In these technologies, half-inch tape moves linearly past head assemblies that houses the carefully aligned read and write heads. To create the serpentine pattern on the tape, the head assembly moves up or down to precise positions at the ends of the tape. Once the head assembly is in position, the tape motion is resumed and another data track is written parallel to and in between the previously written tracks. Both DLT and LTO technologies position the read heads slightly behind the write heads to accomplish a read-while-write-verify. Older DLT and LTO technologies use the edge of the tape or a pre-written servo-track as a tracking reference during read and
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write operations. The new Super DLT technology, however, uses an optical assist servo technology, called Pivotal Optical Servo, to align its heads to the proper tracks. The Use of Azimuth to Increase Linear Capacity Azimuth is defined as the trajectory of an angle measured in degrees going clockwise from a base point. In many tape and disk applications, azimuth has been used through time to increase storage densities. When using azimuth, tracks can be pushed together on a tape, eliminating the need for the guard bands that used to be required between adjacent tracks. The guard bands were eliminated, for example, in DLTs transitions from the DLT 4000 to the DLT 7000-8000 technologies The DLT 4000 used normal linear recording, in which the head assembly operated in one position perpendicular to the tape, writing data blocks in a true linear pattern. The DLT 7000 and DLT 8000 incorporated a modified linear serpentine method called Symmetrical Phase Recording (SPR). The SPR method allows the head assembly to rotate into three different positions, thereby allowing data blocks to be written in a herringbone or SPR pattern, as shown Figure 2 below. This method yields a higher track density and higher data capacity, eliminating the wasted space for guard bands. A third vertical head position (zero azimuth) allows the DLT 7000 and DLT 8000 drives to read DLT 4000 tapes.
Fig. 6.1.1.2 - Logical diagram of normal Linear and SPR Linear Recording.
6.1.2 Helical Scan

Sony AIT and Exabyte Mammoth employ a helical scan recording method in which data tracks are written at an angle with respect to the edge of an 8 mm tape. This is achieved by wrapping magnetic tape partially around an angled, rotating drum. The read and write heads are precisely aligned in the drum and protrude very slightly from its smooth outer surface. As the tape is moved past the rotating drum, the heads create an angled data track on the tape
Fig. 6.1.2 - Helical-Scan Recording
Read heads are positioned just behind the write heads, allowing read-while write-verify, which ensures the data integrity of each data stripe. A special servo head on the drum and track on the tape are used for precise tracking during subsequent read operations. All helical-scan tape drives use azimuth to maximize the use of the tape media. Rather than moving the head assembly itself like linear devices do, helical recording creates azimuth by mounting the heads at angles in respect to each other.
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6.2 Tape Drive Performance

6.2.1 Tape Loading and Cartridge Handling
In all tape drive systems, the tape must be pulled from the cartridge, guided through the tape path, and then pulled across the read-write head assembly. Linear and helical tape technologies differ significantly in their methods of tape handling and loading, but in every case, tapes must be handled properly to avoid high error rates, tape damage, and in the worst case-loss of data.
6.2.2 Linear Drive Mechanisms

When the tape cartridge is inserted into a linear tape drive, a load mechanism inside the drive engages with a positioning tab at the beginning of the tape, which pulls the tape out of the cartridge and onto a take-up hub inside the drive compartment. As the read or write operation is performed, the tape is spooled between the take-up hub inside the drive and the cartridge supply reel inside the media cartridge. This is one reason why linear tape drives are much larger than helical scan drives, which employ a dual-spool cartridge design. It is very important that linear tape cartridges not be dropped or roughly handled because the tape inside may slacken or shift on the spool. This may cause problems with loading the tape or may cause edge damage on the media, since the leader may fail to engage when inserted into the tape drive. If this leader-latching problem occurs, the tape cartridge is typically rendered useless, and the drive may even require repair, which is particularly problematic in automated tape library environments.
Fig. 6.2.2 - Diagram of Linear Tape Drive
6.2.3 Helical-Scan Drive Mechanisms

Sony AIT and Exabyte Mammoth drives employ a more common method of tape loading. When the tape cartridge is inserted, drive motors engage the cartridge hubs and work with tape loading guides to position tape into the tape path. As the read or write operation is performed, the tape is spooled from one cartridge hub to the other. Because of this, Sony AIT and Mammoth tape cartridges are much less sensitive to rough handling and dropping. For best results, users should follow the manufacturers recommendations for storage and handling of data cartridges.
Fig. 6.2.3 - Diagram of a Helical-Scan Drive
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6.2.4 Tape Tension and Speed Control

In all tape drives, the tape must be precisely moved through the tape path and across the heads during read or write operations. Also, the relative speed between the tape and the heads must be precisely controlled. AIT and pre-Mammoth Exabyte tape drives employ traditional servo-driven capstan-and-pinch-roller designs to control tape speed. These designs use a capstan, or a controlled motorized cylinder, to pinch the tape against a freewheeling roller, pulling the tape through the tape path at a regulated speed. The take-up and supply hubs are used to spool and unwind the tape, but the precise tape speed is controlled at the capstan point. Exabyte Mammoth drives employ an entirely new capstan-less design in which the tape speed is completely controlled by closed-loop, servo-driven take-up and supply hubs. The speed of the hubs is engineered to be constantly and precisely varied as the diameter of the two spools changes. For instance, the take-up hub speed must decrease steadily as the tape spool gets larger in order to maintain a constant tape speed across the heads. The goal of the capstan-less design is to reduce tape stress caused by the capstan-and-pinch-roller system. However, Mammoth field studies have not proven this method to significantly improve reliability. Linear recording technology controls tape speed with a system that is very similar to that of Mammoth tape drives. Tape speed is controlled using a servo mechanism and pick-up and take-up spools. These linear mechanisms employ a very tight and positive control of the spool-to-deck mechanism, which forces the spool gears into the corresponding deck gears. In all tape handling systems, tape tension is required to ensure that the tape is held firmly against the head assembly as it traverses the tape path. This tension leads to tape-head wear. In general, the tape tension in linear drives is over twice that of helical scan drives. However, other factors such as head material, media composition, and cleaning practices will also have an effect on tape-head wear.
6.2.5 Tape Speed and Stress

Linear drives move tape at a relatively fast rate, typically over 150 inches per second (ips). The helical scan drives use a much slower tape speed of less than one ips through the tape path and past the rapidly rotating drum assembly. Interestingly, the relative tape speed is nearly equal in both helical-scan and linear technologies. Tape stress is a function of many system variables, some of which include tape speed, tape path control mechanisms (usually guide rollers), capstan pressure, and media contamination. It is important to understand how each drive technology minimizes this tape stress. Linear tape drives utilize a straighter tape path but a much higher tape speed, making the guide-roller system critical to minimize edge wear on the media. On the other hand, helical scan drives use a much slower tape speed but a more complex tape path.
6.2.6 Data Streaming and Start/Stop Motion

A tape drives ability to continuously read or write data, or stream data, is a key performance and reliability differentiator. A drives performance will suffer dramatically if the drive is not supplied with data at a rate sufficient to keep it streaming. In cases where these conditions are not met, the drive will need to stop the forward tape motion, reverse the position, bring the tape back to speed, and then restart the write operation. Linear technologies, with higher tape speeds, do not operate well in start-stop mode. Each start-stop operation requires the mechanism to stop the tape from greater than 150 ips, rewind well past the last data written, ramp the speed back to greater than 150 ips, and then resume writing. The amount of time spent performing a stoprewind-start motion dramatically impacts the overall tape systems throughput. In an attempt to minimize this, high-performance linear technologies employ powerful reel motor systems. The reel-motor system results in linear drives having larger physical footprints and higher power consumption ratings than helical-scan devices. Helical-scan drives, in addition to being smaller and using less energy, can perform the stop-rewind-start sequences very quickly. This is owing to their slower tape speeds and their constantly rotating drum mechanisms. While continued stop-start motion is detrimental to any drive, the reliability impact is greater on devices with higher tape speeds because of the mechanical stress placed on the system and the media. All four of these tape drive technologies use data buffering techniques to minimize the need to perform stop-start activities. Linear technologies must use larger buffers since the performance and reliability penalty for a stop-start operation is so much higher than with helical-scan products. Mammoth and AIT drives will typically out-perform DLT and LTO drives in applications where drive streaming is not possible.
6.2.7 Media Load Time and File Access Time
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Media load and file access times are important factors to consider as per-tape capacities rise or when tape drives are integrated into robotic tape libraries. Media load time is defined as the amount of time between cartridge insertion and the drive becoming ready for host system commands. File access time is defined as the time between when the drive receives a host-system command to read a file and the time when the drive begins to read the data. File access times are typically expressed as averages, since the requested file might be located in the middle of the tape or at either end. Times are usually specified as the time required to reach the middle. Drive vendors typically state specifications for both media load and file access. The specifications for the four mid-range tape technologies are shown in the following table.
Media Load and File Access Time * Tape Drive

Exabyte Mammoth Exabyte Mammoth-2 Quantum DLT 8000
Media Load Time

20 seconds 17 seconds 40 seconds
Average File Access Time

55 seconds 60 seconds 60 seconds
Tape Drive
Quantum Super DLT HP LTO Surestore Ultrium 230 IBM LTO 3580 Ultrium Seagate Viper 200 LTO Ultrium Sony AIT-1 Sony AIT-2 Sony AIT-3
Media Load Time

40 seconds 15 seconds 15 seconds 10 seconds 10 seconds 10 seconds 10 seconds
Average File Access Time

70 seconds 71 seconds 65 seconds 76 seconds 27 seconds 27 seconds 27 seconds
* Times obtained from drive manufacturers published information. The Sony AIT drives offer a much faster media load time and file access time, making these technologies an obvious choice for applications requiring fast data retrieval. The AIT time advantage is due in part to the unique Memory In Cassette (MIC) feature, which consists of an electrically erasable programmable read-only memory chip, called Flash EEPROM, built into the Sony AME tape cartridge. The flash memory stores information previously stored in a hidden file written before a tapes Logical Beginning Of Tape (LBOT). Through the use of the MIC feature, Sonys AIT drives reduce wear and tear on mechanical components during the initial load process and offer faster file access. MIC technology is now being used in todays LTO tape drives.
6.2.8 Data Capacity

Data capacity is measured by the amount of data that can be recorded on a single tape cartridge. Tape manufacturers maximize capacity by increasing the bit density on a given area of tape or by increasing the length of the tape in the cartridge. Hardware data compression is also used to increase capacity, and any valid tape technology comparison must show both native and compressed values. Each manufacturer uses a different data compression algorithm resulting in different compression ratios:
Data Compression * Tape Type

Exabyte Mammoth Exabyte Mammoth-2 Quantum DLT Quantum Super DLT HP/IBM/Seagate LTO Sony AIT
Algorithm
IDRC ALDC DLZ DLZ ALDC ALDC
Ratio
2:1 2.5:1 2:1 2:1 2:1 2.6:1
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* Data compression obtained from drive manufacturers published information. Native and compressed capacities for each type of tape are shown in the table below. The comparisons made here are based on the maximum tape lengths available at the time of this writing.
Capacity Media Type

Exabyte Mammoth Exabyte Mammoth-2 Quantum DLT 8000 Quantum Super DLT HP LTO Surestore Ultrium 230 IBM LTO 3580 Ultrium Seagate LTO Viper 200 Ultrium Sony AIT-1 (Extended Length) Sony AIT-2 Sony AIT-3
Native Capacity
20 GB 60 GB 40 GB 110 GB 100 GB 100 GB 100 GB 35 GB 50 GB 100 GB
Compressed Capacity
40 GB 150 GB 80 GB 220 GB 200 GB 200 GB 200 GB 91 GB 130 GB 260 GB
* Tape capacities obtained from drive manufacturers published information.
6.2.9 Data Transfer Rate

Data transfer rate is defined as the speed at which data is written to tape from the drives internal buffer. This is usually measured in megabytes per second (MB/sec.). If the data transfer from the host system to the drive is significantly slower than the drives transfer rate (after compression), a great deal of start-stop tape motion will occur while the drive waits for more data. Start-stop activities sometimes referred to as shoe shining because the tape goes back and forth across the head will adversely impact the drives throughput performance and can dramatically increase wear on the drives mechanical subsystem. Therefore, it is important to keep the tape drives cache buffer supplied with data for drive streaming. Buffer sizes are selected by the manufacturers to minimize start-stop activities. However, larger buffer sizes cannot eliminate start-stops in situations where there exists a performance mismatch between the host system and the drive.
Data Transfer Rates Drive Type

Exabyte Mammoth Exabyte Mammoth-2 Quantum DLT 8000 Quantum Super DLT HP LTO Surestore Ultrium 230 IBM LTO 3580 Ultrium Seagate LTO Viper 200 Ultrium Sony AIT-1 (Extended Length) Sony AIT-2 Sony AIT-3
Native
3 MB/sec. 12 MB/sec. 6 MB/sec. 11 MB/sec. 15 MB/sec. 15 MB/sec. 16 MB/sec. 3 MB/sec. 6 MB/sec. 12 MB/sec.
Compressed
6 MB/sec. 30 MB/sec. 12 MB/sec. 22 MB/sec. 30 MB/sec. 30 MB/sec. 32 MB/sec. 7.8 MB/sec. 15.6 MB/sec. 31.2 MB/sec.
* Data transfer rates obtained from drive manufacturers published information.
6.3 Reliability
In general, tape drive reliability can mean many things to many people. Tape drive vendors have notoriously slanted tape technology specifications in order to lure users into using to their technology. Following are two sets of reliability specifications often used in mid-range tape technology competition.
6.3.1 Mean Time between Failure (MTBF)

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One method of measuring tape drive reliability is specified by Mean Time Between Failure (MTBF). This is a statistical value relating to how long, on average, the drive mechanism will operate without failure. In reality, drive reliability varies greatly and cannot be accurately predicted from a manufacturers MTBF specification. Environmental conditions, cleaning frequency, and duty cycle can significantly affect actual drive reliability. The fact that manufacturers usually dont include head life in the MTBF specification, and the manufacturers duty cycle assumptions vary. Tape drive manufacturers often add a disclaimer to the MTBF specification that the figures should only be used for general comparison purposes. Head life specifications (in hours) are subject to some of the same interpretation problems as MTBF, but when combined with other reliability specifications, they offer a good comparison of performance in high duty-cycle environments. The table below shows how reliability spec. compare.
MTBF and Head Life Statistics * Tape Drive

Exabyte Mammoth Exabyte Mammoth-2 Quantum DLT 8000 Quantum Super DLT HP LTO Surestore Ultrium 230 IBM LTO 3580 Ultrium Seagate LTO Viper 200 Ultrium Sony AIT-1 Sony AIT-2 Sony AIT-3
MTBF
250,000 hours @ 20% duty cycle 300,000 hours @ 20% duty cycle 250,000 hours @ 100% duty cycle 250,000 hours @ 100% duty cycle 250,000 hours @ 100% duty cycle 250,000 hours @ 100% duty cycle 250,000 hours @ 100% duty cycle 250,000 hours @ 40% duty cycle 250,000 hours @ 40% duty cycle 400,000 hours @ 100% duty cycle
Head Life
30,000 hours 50,000 hours 50,000 hours 30,000 hours ** 60,000 hours ** 50,000 hours 50,000 hours 50,000 hours
* Rates obtained from drive manufacturers published information.
6.3.2 Annual Failure Rate (AFR)

An excellent real-world indicator of a drives reliability is the Annual Failure Rate (AFR) of a drive technologys field population. As in MTBF calculations, the users results are averaged regardless of environmental conditions, cleaning frequency, and duty cycle, which can significantly affect actual drive reliability. Therefore, these numbers should be used only for general comparison purposes. Vendors calculate AFR numbers based on how many failed drives they have returned to the factory from the installed base. The vendor then averages those numbers over each year for that tape technology. LTO tape technologies are so new that they have not yet been able to produce any AFR data.
Tape Drive Annual Failure Rates Drive Type

Exabyte Mammoth Quantum DLT HP/IBM/Seagate LTO Sony AIT ** Technology too new to be quantified.
Approximate AFR
2.5% 4.5% ** 1.5%
6.3.3 Data Integrity

Data integrity is specified as the bit error rate (BER), which gives the number of permanent errors per total number of bits written. Mammoth, DLT, AIT, and LTO drives all incorporate a read-while-write-verify error detection, a cyclic redundancy check (CRC), and an error correction code (ECC) algorithm to ensure a BER of 1017, or 1 error in 100 trillion bits. The Sony AIT drive is the only product that incorporates a third-level error correction code (in addition to first and second level) for increased data integrity.
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6.4 Media Types

Two basic types of media are used in todays mid-range tape drives: Metal Particle (MP) and Advanced Metal Evaporated (AME). MP technology is used in DLT, LTO, first-generation Exabyte drives, as well as many other tape technologies, like video tape technology. AME technology is used for Mammoth and AIT media. Both media types contain a base film and a recording layer of magnetic metal material. MP tape is a relatively old technology and has evolved to support ever-increasing bit densities. Sonys new AME media, on the other hand, has key features that significantly improve its recording characteristics and its head-to-tape interface reliability, making it the most advanced media type being used today. The MP recording layer is composed of magnetic material mixed with a binder and other additives, such as lubricants. AME medias recording layer is made entirely of magnetic cobalt material. The highly metallic surface of AME media allows higher recording densities and improved signal-to-noise ratios. AME media also employs a very smooth diamond-like carbon (DLC) coating, which significantly reduces drive-head wear and head contamination.
6.4.1 Media Reliability

Media reliability is often summarized with pass specifications and use specifications. However, media experts and real-world users agree that media pass and use specifications are largely theoretical and generated primarily for marketing purposes. Even Quantum has stated, The relevance of the media use spec is under review (DLT Forum, 17 August 1999). The best way to judge medias durability is to evaluate its formulation. The smoother and more pure the media, the less friction is generated between the tape and head, resulting in longer-lasting media. For a comparison of the stated specifications of media uses and passes in todays mid-range tape technologies, a clarification of terms is required. Note the distinction between the terms passes and uses. For purposes of comparison here, one use is defined as the filling of a tape to capacity, and a pass is defined as the running of the tape over the head in one direction. The media-use specification is the more valid way to compare the drives. This is because the pass specifications are not comparable; there are too many differences between helical-scan and linear technologies. In helical-scan devices, there are only two passes required for one use. In linear devices, multiple passes are required for one use. A single use of a DLT tape, for example, involves numerous tape passes over the read-write heads. Specifically, in a DLT 8000 device, the head can write four channels at once, and the tape can accept 208 channels, requiring the tape to be passed over the head 52 times to fill a tape. Helical drives, like Mammoth and AIT, require only one pass to fill a tape and one to rewind it, for a total of two. To determine the number of uses a tape may endure, the listed pass specification must be divided by the number of passes necessary to fill a tape. For example, the DLT 8000 media-use number can be calculated by dividing 1 million passes by 52. This equals 19,230 (Quantum lists 15,000 in their specifications). AITs 15,000 and Mammoths 10,000 media-use numbers are deduced by dividing 30,000 and 20,000 passes by two, respectively. Therefore, based purely on specifications, the media used by all of the drives are approximately equal in durability.
Media Use Specifications * Drive Type

Exabyte Mammoth Quantum DLT Quantum Super DLT HP/IBM/Seagate Ultrium Sony AIT
Media Type
AME MP MP LTO MP AME
Media Uses
10,000 15,000 17,850 ** 15,000
* Rates obtained from drive manufacturers published information. ** These tape drive information not there.
6.4.2 Media and Backward Compatibility

Exabyte originally designed Mammoth-1 drives to read both AME and MP media as well as to be compatible with their existing MP 8 mm tapes. This backward compatibility, however, forces special read-write head requirements to read both AME and MP media. It also necessitates special cleaning practices by the user. For example, if an
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MP tape is read by the Mammoth drive, the drive will not accept another tape until a cleaning cartridge is inserted. Cleaning is required because the MP media binder chemistry is prone to leave debris on the heads and in the tape path. This raises a reliability question for Mammoth drives reading MP tapes on a consistent basis. Exabyte has not published any specifications or test reports that quantify reliability when using the Mammoth drive in this mode. The implications of cleaning are even less appealing when using the drive with a mixed media set in a tape library environment where backup software does not recognize the difference in media types. It is perhaps more realistic for Mammoth users to transition to AME media and avoid the problems associated with using MP media. As tape technologies evolve, a drive manufacturer must weigh the size of its installed base and the willingness of that base to switch to a new media type as the manufacturer introduces new tape drives. In general, new tape drives utilize new media types to take advantage of the latest head and media components. Unfortunately, comparison algorithms and media types have been continued long past their usable life just to extend the installed bases backward read (and sometimes write) capabilities. Sonys third generation AIT product, AIT-3, is the first tape drive to double the transfer rates of previousgeneration media. For example, an AIT-1 cartridge in an AIT-3 drive will achieve double the transfer rate of that same cartridge in an AIT-1 drive. (That transfer rate is higher than an AIT-2 cartridge in an AIT-2 drive, but still not as high as an AIT-3 cartridge in an AIT-3 drive.) However, an AIT-2 cartridge in an AIT-3 drive will duplicate the transfer rate available for AIT-3 cartridges in AIT-3 drives. Other technologies have always forced the previous generation speeds when using the older media. So, while it is appealing to be able to read the older tape with the newer drives, most customers have ended up transitioning their media pool over to the newer tapes. Backup windows become unpredictable when new and old media are mixed inside an automated tape library. However, tape library manufacturers like Spectra Logic are now providing solutions in which a user can logically partition old and new media in one tape library. Logical partitioning such as this can help to leverage the end users original investment in the older tapes.
6.5 Drive Cleaning

As tape technologies advance, the recording density on each square millimeter of the tape increases, the distance between the head and tape decreases, and the physical head gap shrinks. Dust, media particles, and other contaminants can enter the head-to-tape interface area and cause high error rates, which slow performance, decrease capacity per tape, and eventually lead to drive failure. Tape drive manufacturers have traditionally addressed these issues by specifying periodic cleaning with a fabric or rough media cleaning cartridges. All of the drives examined here have an LED cleaning light on the front of the drive, which flashes when the drive needs to be cleaned. In addition, Exabyte specifies that a cleaning cartridge be loaded into the Mammoth drive every 72 tape-motion hours. Quantum DLT drives have no recommended cleaning interval other than when the cleaning LED flashes. Sony has taken a different approach to keeping the AIT drives tape path and heads clean. First, the AIT drive does not rely on external fans in the library or the system cabinet to cool the AIT drive and components; those types of fans force airborne dust through the drive and the critical head-tape interface. AIT drive cooling is achieved via an internal, variable-speed fan that cools only the drive circuitry and base plate without pulling air through the tape path. Second, the AME media formulation and the DLC coating significantly reduce media surface debris that can clog heads. These features allow Sony AIT drives to operate with virtually no manual cleaning, eliminating maintenance problems and significantly reducing the drives overall operating costs. Finally, a built-in head-cleaning wheel is automatically activated by an error-rate-monitoring device to ensure a clean head-to-tape interface and maximum performance. (Occasional cleaning of AIT read and writes heads with approved Sony cleaning media may be required for excessive head contamination.)
6.6 Technology Roadmaps

When choosing a tape drive technology, an end user should consider the migration path of the technology. A future migration path should offer higher performance and capacity while ensuring backward-read compatibility with previously written tapes. With typical corporate data volume growing at 60 percent per year, a user would not want to buy into a technology near the end of its life cycle and then be stuck with the lower performance and lower capacity of an older technology. For a look at the past and the proposed future of the different mid-range tape technologies, see the roadmaps compared at the end of this section. (See the table below for drive performance roadmaps.) Historically, tape vendors have struggled to continue along their roadmaps. These challenges have stemmed from a wide variety of causes, including financial difficulties owing to loss of marketshare, prices decreasing, and product development delays. Product development problems have arisen from a number of sources. Sony stands
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alone as having full ownership control over its deck manufacturing, head technology, and media; several companies, however, have been very dependent upon other companies to release their next product. Three generations have historically been the industry norm for tape drive evolution. Evolving semiconductor technologies, compression algorithms, heads, and media processes have made it very difficult for drive vendors to extend the older technologies past three generations while remaining competitive with newer drive products and backward compatible with the existing installed base.
Roadmaps of Drive Performance (Native Transfer Rates) * Drive Type AIT 1998
AIT-1-XL 3 MB/sec. DLT 7000 5 MB/Sec. Mammoth 3 MB/Sec. -
1999
AIT-2 6 MB/sec. DLT 8000 6 MB/Sec. Mammoth 3 MB/Sec. -
2000
-
2001
2003
2005
2006
2007
DLT Mammoth HP LTO IBM LTO Seagate LTO
AIT-6 96 MB/sec. Super Super Super DLT Super DLT Super DLT DLT 1280 DLT 2400 220 320 640 50 100 11 MB/Sec. 16 MB/Sec. 32 MB/Sec. MB/Sec. MB/Sec. AIT-3 AIT-4 AIT-5 12 MB/sec. 24 MB/sec. 48 MB/sec. ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** **
Mammoth ** ** 12 MB/Sec. Surestore Ultrium ** 15 MB/Sec. 3580 Ultrium ** 15 MB/Sec. Viper 200 Ultrium ** 16 MB/Sec.
* Highest data transfer rates of tape drive technologies as publicly stated by drive vendors. ** These tape drive information not there.
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Roadmaps of Drive Capacity (Native) * Drive Type AIT DLT Mammoth HP LTO IBM LTO Seagate LTO 1998
AIT-1-XL 35 GB DLT 7000 35 GB Mammoth 20 GB -
1999
AIT-2 50 GB DLT 8000 40 GB Mammoth 20 GB -
2000
Mammoth 60 GB -
2001
AIT-3 100 GB Super DLT 220 110 GB **
2003
AIT-4 200 GB Super DLT 320 160 GB **
2005
AIT-5 400 GB Super DLT 640 320 GB ** ** ** **
2006
-
2007
AIT-6 800 GB.
Super Super DLT 1280 DLT 2400 640 GB 1.2 TB ** ** ** ** ** ** ** **
Surestore Ultrium 230 ** 100 GB 3580 Ultrium ** 100 GB Viper 200 Ultrium ** 100 GB
* Highest native capacities of tape drive technologies as publicly stated by drive vendors. ** These tape drive information not there. This typically leaves engineers with the problem concerning backward compatibility. Often times, backward compatibility issues make it difficult to remain competitive with other technologies of the time. In the early years of DLT technology, the capacity and transfer rate between DLT generations doubled. However, now that its mature, the jump from DLT 7000 to 8000 yielded an incremental increase of only 5 GB in capacity and 1 MB/sec. in transfer rate. Quantum Corporation recently launched its next generation DLT product: Super DLT. Super DLT technology incorporates more channels, new thin film M-R heads, a new optical servo system, and advanced media formulations. This new DLT product required significant engineering innovation. The major challenges that created on-schedule delivery difficulties include the new servo positioning architecture, a new head design, new media formulations, and much higher internal data rates than the previous DLT architecture. Additionally, pressure to maintain backward read and write compatibility only increased the engineering complexity. The first Super DLT drives did not offer backward compatibility to previous DLT generations. With AIT, Sony remains in the forefront of all mid-range tape technologies, holding the highest capacity and performance specifications for the last several years. Sony has continued to drive the cost of AIT drives down, offering users the best cost-for-performance figures in this class. The December 2001 release of AIT-3 marks the third generation of Sonys AIT technology. Sony has published a roadmap, which extends through AIT-6, expecting to double capacity and performance every two years. Exabytes Mammoth drive had experienced some lengthy production delays but is shipping in volume quantities today. Exabytes Mammoth technology showcased numerous industry firsts and was the companys first attempt at designing and manufacturing a deck mechanism and head assemblies without Sonys expertise. During the production delays, Exabyte allowed Quantums DLT and Sonys AIT to capture Mammoths previous generation customers as the customers needs increased when no new products were being offered by Exabyte. The companys financial woes were only continuing to grow, and Exabyte very recently made the decision to merge with Ecrix Corporation. In todays marketplace, companies that deliver solid products on schedule have gained market share and have become standards. Exabyte delivered a number of products from 1987-1992, and gathered more than 80 percent of the mid-range market share. Those products included the EXB-8200, EXB-8500, EXB-8200C, EXB-8500C, EXB-8205, EXB-8505, and EXB-8505XL. Exabyte owes its key success to those initial products, which offered higher performance at a moderate price while playing in a market with very little competition. However, Exabytes inability to deliver Mammoth until nearly three years after announcing the product opened the door for other technologies. Quantums DLT drives were able to deliver better throughput at a time when storage capacities were exploding. The DLT 2000, DLT 2000XT, and DLT 4000 drives were able to offer better capacity, performance, and reliability than the first Exabyte products, allowing them to capture the market share previously owned by Exabyte. Again,
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delivering a product in a landscape with little competition allowed Quantum to gain more than 80 percent of the market between 1992 and 1996. Availability and engineering delays for DLT 7000 and follow-up DLT products have now opened the door for newer technologies.
6.7 Tape Technologies

The Major Tape technologies
DAT DLT LTO AIT
6.7.1 DAT
6.7.1.1 HP DAT 72 Tape Drive
Overview
The HP StorageWorks DAT 72 tape drive is the fifth generation of HP's popular DDS tape drives, built on the success of four previous generations of DDS technology and providing unprecedented levels of capacity, reliability and cost of ownership. The DAT 72 delivers a capacity of 72 GB on a single data cartridge and a transfer rate of 21.6 GB/hr (assuming a 2:1 compression ratio). This drive reads and writes DAT 72, DDS-4, and DDS-3 formats, making it the perfect upgrade from earlier generations of DDS. The StorageWorks DAT 72 tape drive is the ideal choice for small and medium businesses, remote offices, and workgroups. The DAT 72 drive comes in four models -- internal, external, hot-plug, and offline hot-swap array module - plus it fits in HP's 3U rack-mount kit, making it compatible with virtually any server environment.
Fig. 6.7.1.1 HP DAT Tape Drive
Features & Benefits

Industry-standard DDS technology: As the most popular server backup technology of all time, DDS offers a proven track record of dependability Up to 36 GB native capacity on a single tape (with DAT 72): Provides enough capacity for a small server or workstation Transfer rate of over 10 GB/hr native (with DAT 40 and DAT 72): Backs up a whole cartridge worth of data in less than four hours
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HP One-Button Disaster Recovery (OBDR): Restores your entire system at the touch of a button without the need for system disks or software CDs Small, half-height form-factor: Fits easily into most servers and workstations, including HP ProLiant and AlphaServers with hot-plug drive bays Wide choice of models: Comes in internal, external, hot-plug, offline-hot swap array module, and rackmount configurations, providing a suitable option for any server Automatic head cleaner: Minimizes the need for manual cleaning with a cleaning cartridge Lowest media price of any tape technology: Reduces the overall cost of ownership Broad compatibility with a wide range of servers, operating systems, and backup software: Suits almost every operating environment HP StorageWorks Library and Tape Tools utilities: Helps make installation, management, and troubleshooting a breeze Includes TapeWare XE: Provides a complete, easy-to-use backup solution that includes disaster recovery capabilities
Specification
System feature Capacity Media Description
Up to 36 GB native capacity on a single tape -- 72 GB at 2:1 compression DAT 72 media 170m, 4mm tape, Metal Particle (MP++++) formulation (Blue cartridge shell for ease of identification in mixed media archives where older versions of DDS media may be in use) DDS4 - read and write compatibility DDS3 - read and write compatibility Recording method - 4 mm helical scan Recording Format - DAT 72, DDS-4, DDS-3 (ANSI/ISO/ECMA) Data Compression - Lempel-Ziv (DCLZ) Error Detection/Correction - Reed-Solomon Data Encoding Method - Partial Response Maximum Likelihood (PRML) 8 MB Sustained Transfer Rate (native) 3 MB/s Sustained Transfer Rate (with 2:1 data 6 MB/s compression) Burst Transfer Rate 6 MB/s (asynchronous) 40 MB/s (synchronous) Data Access Time 68 s Average Load Time Average Unload Time Rewind Time Rewind Tape Speed 15 s 15 s 120 s (end to end) 1.41 m/s
Media Format
Buffer size Performance
Reliability Interface
MTBF - 125,000 hours at 100% duty cycle Uncorrected Error Rate - 1x10-17 bits read SCSI Interface - Wide Ultra SCSI-3 (LVD/SE) SCSI Connector Internal: 68-pin wide HD LVD External: 68-pin wide LVDS, thumbscrew Array module: 80-pin SCA (SCSI and power) Termination No terminator is required for internal model (assumes use of terminated cable). External model requires termination with multimode terminator (included with product). Array module requires termination with multimode terminator (ordered separately - p/n C2364A).
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6.7.1.2 T9940 Tape Drives

The StorageTek capacity-centric T9940 tape drive is ideal for applications that demand high throughput and capacity. The StorageTek T9940B tape drive stores up to 200 gigabytes of native data on a single tape cartridge at rates as high as 30 megabytes per second.
Fig. 6.7.1.2 StorageTek Tape Drive
Benefits
Reduced batch and backup windows
With its native data transfer rate of 30 megabytes per second, or up to 70 megabytes per second with compression, the T9940B drive helps you store more data in less time to meet your shrinking production batch and backup windows.
Increased productivity
The high capacity T9940 tape drives minimize cartridge mounts, require fewer cartridges to manage for disaster recovery and improve automation efficiency.
Lower storage costs

T9940 tape drives do the work of multiple typical mid-range drives. This enables you to minimize extra hardware, reduce SAN complexity and simplify management, to help reduce your costs.
Lower backup costs

The T9940B drives low dollar-per-gigabyte media helps you cut your total costs of backup. With data compression, it can store as much as 400-800 gigabytes on a single cartridge.
Standard Features
Tape compatibility
The T9940B drive provides backward read compatibility with 9940A cartridges. It can rewrite StorageTek 9940A tape cartridges with three times more data, for extended investment protection.
StorageTek VolSafe media support

The T9940B drive supports VolSafe cartridges, a high-capacity write-once-read-many (WORM) storage solution. VolSafe is a non-erasable, non-rewritable tape media for archiving critical data.
Multi-platform connectivity
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T9940 drives run on todays popular operating environments. The T9940B supports two gigabit FICON, ESCON, and two-gigabit Fiber Channel connectivity. The T9940A drive supports ESCON, SCSI and one-gigabit Fiber Channel connectivity.
FICON for distance

The FICON interface drives support distances up to 100 kilometers (versus nine kilometers for ESCON) without channel extensions or significant throughput reduction. This enables remote storage applications and increases your disaster recovery options.
SAN-readiness
A native two-gigabit fabric-aware Fiber Channel interface makes the T9940B drive ready for the demands of highspeed SAN environments and storage server networks.
Specification
Tape load and thread to ready: 18 sec (formatted) Average file access time (first file): 41 sec Average access time: 59 sec Maximum/average rewind time: 90/45 sec Unload time: 18 sec Data transfer rate, native (uncompressed): 30 MB/sec Data transfer rate (compressed): 70 MB/sec Capacity, native (uncompressed): 200 GB Interface: 2 Gb Fiber Channel, ESCON, ESCON for VSM, 2Gb FICON for FICON and FICON express channels Burst transfer rate: Channel rate (Fiber Channel): 200 MB/sec (maximum instantaneous) Interface (Fiber Channel): N & NL port, FC-PLDA (Hard and soft AL-PA capability), FC-AL-2 FCP-2, FC-TAPE Read/write compatibility interface: Proprietary format Emulation modes: Native, T9940A, 3490E, 3590
6.7.2 DLT
6.7.2.1 Tandberg DLT 8000 Autoloader
10 Cartridge version
The Tandberg DLT Autoloader brings you the productivity and security of an automated tape solution, as well as the proven reliability and scalability of DLT technology.
Unattended Backup High Speed, Capacity and Reliability

The Tandberg DLT8000 autoloader is one of the highest capacity (4U half-width) autoloaders available. This highly reliable autoloader contains a single Tandberg DLT8000 tape drive and holds up to 10 DLTtapeIV data cartridges supporting random or sequential access. Based on the widely accepted DLTtape technology renowned for its ultimate reliability, you can be assured that your mission critical data is well protected.
Automated Storage Management Made Easy

The Tandberg DLT Autoloader has an easy-to-read LCD readout, which provides information about the tape drive, media status, robotics, installation and configuration. The removable cartridge magazine (7 cartridges in the magazine - 3 in fixed slots) provides easy handling and allows for exchanging weekly backups in one simple step. The Tandberg DLT autoloader also supports an automatic drive cleaning feature which does not require operator intervention. In addition, the optional barcode reader provides an inventory of stored data and automated media tracking so that access to stored data is fast and simple.
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Integration and Administration Made Easy

The Tandberg DLT Autoloader fits easily on a desktop or server and the 4U size allows two units to be placed side by side in a standard 19" rack. Drive exchange and upgrade can be carried out in the field by the user in less than 30 minutes. With simplistic and comprehensive diagnostics, user-friendly configuration and installation, the Tandberg DLT autoloader provides the industrys easiest maintenance for the network administrator.
Special Functions
Up to 800GB* storage capacity Up to 43GB*/hr transfer rate Available with Tandberg DLT8000 drive Fits easily on a desk, in a rack or on top of a server Removable magazine for easy storage management Optional barcode reader for fast cartridge inventory and data retrieval Added security with TapeAlert Supported by all major software suppliers Data Capacity Native: 400GB Data Capacity Compressed (2:1): 800GB Transfer Rate Native: 6 MB/s / 360MB/min / 21.6GB/hr Transfer Rate Compressed (2:1): 12MB/s / 720MB/min / 43.2GB/hr SCSI Interface: SCSI-2, Fast/Wide LVD/SE Tape Capacity: 10-cartridge capacity
High Speed, Capacity and Reliability

The Tandberg DLT8000 autoloader is one of the highest capacity (4U half-width) autoloaders available. This highly reliable autoloader contains a single Tandberg DLT8000 tape drive and holds up to 10 DLTtapeIV data cartridges supporting random or sequential access. Based on the widely accepted DLTtape technology renowned for its ultimate reliability, you can be assured that mission critical data is well protected.
6.7.2.2 SUN StorEdge L8500 Tape Library

The Sun StorEdge L8500 Tape Library provides robust enterprise tape automation capabilities to support the backup/restore of your valuable data in a complex SAN environment. The L8500 is ideal for enterprise-wide data consolidation efforts, and can also help to reduce administrative overhead and lower the total cost of storage ownership. And because of Sun's stringent testing requirements, you're assured of a quality product optimised for the Solaris environment. Sun's Fiber Channel tape drives incorporate FCP-2 error recovery, which detects, retries, and recovers from errors on the interface to eliminate problems - all without interruption in service or performance degradation. The Sun StorEdge L8500 Tape Library is an integral part of a policy-based data management strategy, and when combined with Sun servers, arrays and software, it offers a complete, end-to-end, Sun solution.
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Fig. 6.7.2.2 StorEdge Tape Library
Features
Upgradable to support future drive types. Future ability to connect multiple libraries via redundant Pass-Through Ports (PTPs). Conversion kit for some customer-owned drives. Ease of service. Sun FC drives support FCP-2 error recovery. Small footprint, high slot density (can exceed more than 50 slots/sq. ft.). Service/operator areas limited to front and back. Remote monitoring via TCP/IP or optional local touch-screen panel. Supports true mixed media and drives, including 9840B/C, 9940B and LTO 2. Multiple robots.
Benefits
Protects customer investment; can accommodate growth without scheduled downtime, supporting the highavailability demands of enterprise customers. Protects your current customer investment. Near zero scheduled downtime. No interruption in backup performance, which is transparent to user. Conserves valuable data center floor space. Ease of management. Customers can select the appropriate drives for their application and migrate to new drive types without having to manage physical partitions - so there's only one library to manage. Reduces the queuing effect found in libraries with single robots; multiple robots can handle more requests in parallel.
Specification
Availability: Non-disruptive serviceability: Standard N+1 power for drives, robotics, and library electronics, allowing replacement while the library is operating. 2N power is optional. Capacity and Performance:
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Number of cartridge slots: 1,448 customer-usable slots (minimum) 6,500 customer-usable slots (maximum) Number of tape drives: Up to 64 drives of any combination Cartridge access port (CAP): Standard 39 cartridge slot CAP, Optional 39 additional slots (78 total) Capacity: Number of cartridge slots: 1,448 customer-usable slots (minimum) 6,500 customer-usable slots (maximum) Number of tape drives: Up to 64 drives of any combination Cartridge access port (CAP): Standard 39 cartridge slot CAP, optional 39 additional slots (78 total) Hardware: Sun Blade 1000, 1500, 2000, 2500Sun Fire V210, V240, V250, 280R, V440, V480, V880, V1280, E2900Sun Fire 4800, 4810, E4900, 6800, E6900Sun Fire 12K, 15K, E20K, E25KNetra 240, 440, 1280Ultra 60 & 80Sun Enterprise 220R, 250, 420R, 450, x500, 10000 Management: Media management: full mixed media, any cartridge can be placed in any cell, no required partitions Digital vision system: Unique digital vision camera system performs continuous calibration and reads bar codes Operator panel: Standard remote monitoring and control; touch-screen is optional Automatic clean: Dedicated cleaning cartridge slots for tape drive cleaning for multiple drive types by library or software command Automatic self discovery: Auto-discovery and auto-configuration for all drive, media types, slots, and Cartridge Access Ports Continuous automation calibration: No periodic maintenance or alignment required Performance: Throughput per hour, native (uncompressed):Per drive: 9840C: 30 MB/sec9940B: 30 MB/secLTO-2: 30 MB/secPer 64 drives:9840C - 6.9 TB/hr9940B - 6.9 TB/hrLTO-2 - 6.9 TB/hrAverage cell to drive time: 6.25 sec per robotMean Time To Repair (MTTR): 30 minutes or lessMean Exchanges Between Failures (MEBF): 2,000,000 exchangesMean Time Between Failure (MTBF) - drives9840C FCPower On: 290,000 hr @ 100% duty cycleTape Load: 240,000 hr @ 10 loads/day (100,000 loads)Tape Path Motion (TCM): 216,000 hr @ 70% TCM duty cycleHead Life: 8.5 yr @ 70% TCM duty cycle9840B FCPower On: 290,000 hr @ 100% duty cycleTape Load: 240,000 hr @ 10 loads/day (100,000 loads)Tape Path Motion (TCM): 196,000 hr @ 70% TCM duty cycleHead Life: 8.5 yr @ 70% TCM duty cycleMLTO-2 FCMTBF: 250,000 hr @ 100% duty cycleMCBF: 100,000 cartridge load/unload cyclesHead Life: 60,000 tape motion hours Software: Operating System:Solaris 8 U4 Operating System or laterSolaris 9 Operating SystemSupported software:Sun Enterprise and Application:Sun StorEdge Enterprise Backup Software 7.1 and laterSun StorEdge Utilisation Suite (SAM-FS) Software 4.1 and laterSun StorEdge SFS 4.4 and laterThird-Party:VERITAS NetBackup 5.0 and laterACSLS 7.1 and later
6.7.2.3 HP MSL6000 Tape Libraries

The portfolio of HP StorageWorks MSL6000 Tape Libraries provide centralized backup to a single automated device, freeing valuable IT resources for more strategic work. Ideal for medium to large IT networks with or without a storage area network (SAN), experiencing uncertain data growth. The MSL6000 Tape Libraries provide change without chaos, simplicity without compromise, and growth without limits to meet even the most demanding IT network requirements. The MSL6000 Tape Libraries offer maximum flexibility with best-in-class offering for drive technology including the new HP LTO Ultrium 960 and SDLT 600 in addition to the Ultrium 460 tape drives. These technologies are available for both new library purchases as well as upgrades to currently installed MSL5000 and MSL6000 Tape Libraries.
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Fig. 6.7.2.3 HP Tape Library
The MSL6000 Tape Libraries are easily managed through an intuitive GUI control panel and integrated remote web management, allowing simple management capabilities from any remote or on-site location. In addition, each library is available with HP world-class diagnostic tool, HP Library and Tape Tools, at no additional charge. Fully tested and certified in HP's Enterprise Business Solutions (EBS), the MSL6000 tape libraries can be up and running quickly in a wide range of fully supported configurations. The MSL6000 Tape Libraries provide growth without limits by offering maximum investment protection through scalability. To move from a direct attach to network attached storage configuration, a simple installation of a Fiber Channel interface card makes the conversion a snap. In addition, the MSL6000 Tape Libraries will scale to larger configurations by enabling a single library to grow and change with capacity and technology as needs require. Not only will the MSL6000 Tape Library scale within the family, but it can also be scaled with MSL5000 Tape Libraries using a pass-through mechanism for up to 16 drives and 240 slots.
Features
Scalable: Multi-unit stacking allows the library to grow with your storage requirements. You can start with a direct-attach configuration, and easily change to network storage environment with only an interface card upgrade. Flexible: Available with a broad choice in tape technology, including: Ultrium 960, Ultrium 460, and SDLT 600, and with either a SCSI or Fiber Channel interface. Upgrade to new technology with easy to install upgrade kits Manageable: User-friendly GUI control panel and web interface make library management easy from any remote or local location. Reliable: Tape libraries provide consistent backup and automatically change tapes with robotics rating of 2 million Mean Swaps before Failure. Compact: 5U and I0U modules offer the highest storage density in their class. Affordable: Buy only the storage you need now and add more later. Evolutionary: Drives can be upgraded as technology progresses. Compatible: All MSL6000 libraries work with industry leading servers, operating systems, and backup software is fully tested through the HP Enterprise Business Solutions group for complete certification
Benefits
Flexible: Investment protection by providing instant interface and drive technology upgrades without hassle Manageable: Manage the library from any local or remote location and reduces administrative burden Scalable: Investment protection by providing seamless capacity enhancement
6.7.2.4 EXABYTE 430 Tape Library

High capacity, high performance automated data storage Up to 4 drives, 30 cartridges 2.4 to 4.5 TB capacity (compressed)
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86.5 to 173 GB/hr transfer rate Accommodates either VXA-2 or M2 tape drives Optimized for rack-mount installations
Fig. 6.7.2.4 EXABYTE Tape Library
Impressive! The 430 tape library is the most affordable, mid-range automated data storage solution designed for mid-size data centers running IBM and HP/Compaq servers. The power of mid-range automation now comes with a choice. The 4 drive, 30 slot 430 library can be configured to meet your unique system needs with either VXA-2 or M2 tape drives for up to 5TB of data storage. Don't pay for more than you need. The 430 library with VXA-2 is designed to meet the of organizations limited by both budget and network bandwidth. Running at speeds up to 173GB/hr, the 430 with VXA-2 has adequate performance for many mid-range data center environments, priced thousands less than the nearest competitor. If your data center system architecture is optimized for speed, the 430 configured with M2 tape drives delivers the advantages of a higher performance tape drive.
Extended service options include:

For the VXA-2 library: PN 1010915-000 for 430 VXA, 5x9 Next Business Day On-site Service For the M2 library: PN 1010918-000 for 430 M2, 5x9 Next Business Day On-site Service
6.7.2.5 Scalar 10K by ADIC

With its capacity-on-demand scalability, built-in storage network support, and high-availability architecture, the Scalar 10K brings the efficiencies of consolidation to your backup.
Fig. 6.7.2.5 Tape Library by ADIC
The Scalar 10Ks unique capacity-on-demand scalability lets you scale your storage capacity more easily and quickly than you can with any other library. Capacity-on-demand systems ship with extra capacity that you can activate, in 100-tape increments, using a software key. You pay only for the capacity you use. For high-capacity or mixed-media needs, the Scalar 10K offers traditional library configurations. These maximum capacity models have up to 15,885 tape slots and allow you to combine LTO, SDLT, and AIT technology in the same chassis. The Scalar 10K is the first library to offer integrated storage network support, with certified interoperability that means seamless operation in new or existing SANs. The system supports multiple protocols and heterogeneous
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fabrics at the same time. Integrated SAN management services, such as serverless backup and data-path conditioning, provide better backup in storage networks. The Scalar 10Ks high-availability architecture, which includes true 2N power and dual data paths, is designed to meet the reliability demands of data consolidation. Features to ensure maximum system uptime include autocalibration, self-configuration, and magazine-based loading of up to 7.9TB (native) at once. For more information on the Scalar 10K, please see the Scalar 10K microsite.
Features and Benefits

Capacity-on-demand scalability: lets you instantly activate additional storage while paying only for the storage you actually use Enterprise size: high drive count for maximum performance and flexible configurations Proven connectivity: storage network interoperability means seamless integration into new or existing SANs Intelligent SAN support: integrated storage networking supportincluding serverless backup, data path conditioning, and built-in firewallfor easier installation and operation, higher performance and reliability High availability: features include true 2N power, dual SCSI library control channels, hot-swap drives Reliability: diagnostic options include real-time health checks, email and pager alerts, and phone-home event reporting Rapid configuration: five slots-per-second inventory speed; auto-discovery and auto-calibration of all components Investment protection: supports LTO, SDLT, and AIT in single- or multi-technology installations for maximum flexibility and performance Virtual libraries: provides up to 16 virtual library partition options for multiple applications support Responsive service: one-year on-site service provided by ADIC technical Assistance Center (ATAC) with 24-hour, worldwide service and support
6.7.3 LTO (Linear Tape Open)

6.7.3.1 HP Ultrium960 Tape Drive
The HP StorageWorks Ultrium 960 Tape Drive represents HP's third-generation of LTO tape drive technology. Positioned as the highest capacity drive in the StorageWorks family, the Ultrium 960 features an 800 GB compressed (2:1) storage capacity using new LTO 3 media. By doubling the capacity of current Ultrium drives, HP customers now require fewer data cartridges to meet their storage needs, significantly reducing their IT costs and increasing their ROI. The Ultrium 960 also features a compressed (2:1) data transfer rate of 160 MB/s. Using a new 16-channel recording head, an Ultra320 SCSI interface, and increases in media tracks and bit density, the HP Ultrium 960 sets a new performance benchmark as the world's fastest tape drive. For customers that continually experience shrinking backup windows, the Ultrium 960 is the ideal direct-attach backup storage solution for enterprise and mid-range server, as well as entry-level hard drive arrays.
Fig. 6.7.3.1 HP LTO Tape Drive
The Ultrium 960 supports the industry's most comprehensive list of compatible hardware and software platforms. Each drive option includes a single-server version of HP Data Protector (license) and Yosemite TapeWare (CD) backup software, as well as support for HP StorageWorks One-Button Disaster Recovery (OBDR) and HP StorageWorks Library and Tape Tools (L&TT). The Ultrium 960 Tape Drive is fully read and write compatible with all second-generation Ultrium media, and adds a further degree of investment protection with the ability to read all
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first-generation Ultrium media as well. The Ultrium 960 also represents HP's first tape drive solution to deliver support for Write-Once, Read-Many (WORM) media. This feature allows customers to easily integrate a costeffective solution to secure, manage, and archive compliant data records to meet stringent industry regulations. HP customers can now manage all of their backup and archiving data protection needs with just one drive.
Features
800 GB Capacity: The Ultrium 960 tape drive is a high capacity drive that stores 800 GB on a single cartridge with 2:1 compression. 160 MB/s Performance: The world's fastest tape drive with sustainable data transfer rates to 160 MB/s at 2:1 compression. Data Rate Matching (DRM): Allows the tape drive to dynamically and continuously adjust the speed of the drive, from 27 MB/s to 80 MB/s, matching the speed of the host or network. LTO Open Standard: Drive technology based on an open standard that provides for media compatibility across all brands of LTO Ultrium products. Server Compatibility: Qualified on HP ProLiant, Integrity, 9000, NonStop, and AlphaServers platforms, as well as many servers from other leading vendors such as Dell, IBM, and Sun. Software Compatibility: Extensive list of supported backup and archiving software applications from HP, CA, VERITAS, Yosemite, Legato, Tivoli, and many more. Support for WORM Media: Able to read and write to new Write-Once Read-Many (WORM) HP Ultrium Data Cartridges Management and Diagnostics Software Included: HP StorageWorks Library and Tape Tools software provides a single application for managing and troubleshooting your tape drive, media and configuration. Backup Software Included: Includes a single-server version of Yosemite TapeWare XE (CD) and HP OpenView Data Protector (license) One-Button Disaster Recovery (OBDR) Supported: Firmware-based disaster recovery feature that can restore an entire system using a single Ultrium 960 tape drive and data cartridge
Benefits
High capacity drive allows customer to backup more data with fewer data cartridges: High capacity drive reduces the costs associated with data protection by requiring fewer data cartridges to complete backups. Ultra fast performance can backup more data in less time: High performance drive allows customers to scale their backup capacities without having to increase their backup windows. Data Rate Matching optimizes performance while reducing tape and media wear: Data Rate Matching optimizes the performance of the tape drive by matching the host server or network's data transfer rate, putting less stress on the tape drive and media. LTO open standard provides customers with more choices: The LTO open standard ensures compatibility across all brands of Ultrium tape drives, giving customers a greater choice of Ultrium solutions without losing investment protection. Comprehensive hardware and software qualification increase customers agility to adapt to new environments as needed: Support for heterogeneous hardware and software platforms provides customers with a single tape drive solution for all environments. Investment protection through backward write and read compatibility: Backward read compatibility ensures that files from generation one and two Ultrium data cartridges can be recovered using the HP Ultrium 960 tape drive. Backward write compatibility allows the customer to create backups using second-generation Ultrium media with their HP Ultrium 960 tape drive, maximizing their ROI for media that was previously purchased. Easily integrate a secure method for archiving compliant records using Ultrium WORM media: With a single HP Ultrium 960 tape drive and HP's comprehensive support for hardware and software platforms, customers can easily integrate a WORM-based archiving solution into their current data protection strategy using LTO Ultrium solutions. Complete set of management and diagnostics tools included with each tape drive option and available via free download from HP.com: Tape drive management, performance optimization, and troubleshooting is made simple using the HP StorageWorks Library and Tape Tools application that is included with HP Ultrium 960 tape drive.
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Complete hardware and software solution in the box with each HP Ultrium 960 tape drive: HP Ultrium 960 tape drives ships with a choice of single-server backup software applications (HP OpenView Data Protector and Yosemite TapeWare), tape drive media, and SCSI cables, providing the customer with a complete data protection solution in the box. Simple and fast disaster recovery with One-Button Disaster Recovery (OBDR) included in the drive firmware: HP Ultrium 960 tape drives include a HP-exclusive disaster recovery feature, One-Button Disaster Recovery, that allows the customer to simply and quickly recover a server's operating system, software applications, and data using a single HP Ultrium data cartridge.
6.7.3.2 IBM 3584 Tape Library

The IBM TotalStorage 3584 Tape Library leverages the drive technology the IBM TotalStorage 3588 Ultrium Tape Drive Model F3A, as well as the IBM TotalStorage 3592 Tape Drive Model J1A, within the same library. The 3584 has been designed to meet the needs of customers seeking solutions for data archiving, backup, disaster recovery, and other storage needs. The 3584 tape library is designed to offer high performance, availability, reliability, mixed media, and on demand storage capacity.
Fig. 6.7.3.2 IBM Tape Library
Tape Library offers the IBM TotalStorage 3592 Tape Drive and the new IBM TotalStorage 3588 Ultrium Tape Drive Model F3A, utilizing Linear Tape-Open (LTO) Ultrium 3 Tape Drive technology designed to provide high capacity, throughput, and fast access performance Variety of drive technology offerings help increase storage density while protecting your technology investment in supporting LTO Ultrium 1, LTO Ultrium 2, LTO Ultrium 3 and IBM 3592 tape drives and media within the same library Introducing a second library accessor, the 3584 High Availability Frame Model HA1, designed to help increase library availability and reliability Built-in storage management functions designed to help maximize availability and allow for dynamic management of both cartridges and drives Designed to provide multi-petabyte capacity, high performance and reliability in an automated tape library that is scalable to 192 tape drives and over 6200 cartridges for midrange to enterprise open systems environments Patented Multi-Path Architecture designed to help increase configuration flexibility with logical library partitioning while enabling system redundancy for high availability
6.7.3.3 Comparison IBM LTO Ultrium versus Super DLT Tape Technology
Introduction
This white paper is a comparison of Super DLTtapeTM technology with the Ultrium technology developed by the Linear Tape Open (LTO) technology providers, Seagate, HP and IBM. Its focus is on the merits of the two technologies from a customer point of view, and as such it compares the features and benefits of the SDLT 220
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drive with the three different implementations of Ultrium technology, taking into account the key factors a customer considers when choosing a data protection solution. It draws on secondary data from respected industry analysts such as IDC and Dataquest, independent third party test data, as well as extensive primary research conducted with IT managers in departmental and enterprise IT environments.
Technology Overview
Super DLTtape is the latest generation of the award-winning DLTtapeTM technology. The SDLT 220 drive is a single reel, half-inch magnetic tape drive with a native capacity of 110GB a native transfer rate of 11 MB/sec. It is manufactured by Quantum Corporation and by Tandberg Data, and is sold and marketed by most leading vendors of servers and automated backup systems. It is backward read compatible with all DLTtape IV media written on DLT 4000, DLT 7000, and DLT 8000 tape drives. Ultrium tape drives are the single reel implementation of LTO technology, a new platform developed by Seagate, HP and IBM. They also use half-inch magnetic media, have a native capacity of 100GB and are specified with transfer rates of 15 MB/sec or 16 MB/sec. They are sold by HP and IBMs captive server and automation divisions, as well as by a subset of other vendors. Ultrium drives are not compatible with any previous tape technology.
Open Standards
DLTtape drives and media have served the worlds mid-range backup and archiving needs for much of the last ten years. With an installed base of over 1.7 million drives and over 70 million cartridges shipped to customers, DLTtape systems are recognized as the de facto industry standard for mid-range backup. IDCs latest reported market share numbers indicate that DLTtape had a market share of 73% in the mid-range tape segment1. The chart below summarizes the installed bases of various competing mid-range tape technologies.
6.7.3.4 AML/2 LTO by ADIC

The AML/2 is the industry's premier solution for large data system storage. It offers the industry's largest capacity, scaling to support hundreds of drives, more than 76,000 pieces of media, and as much as 5,000TB of data (native). The library grows simply by adding new, barrier-free modules. For true mission-critical applications, the AML/2 offers the only large-scale library in which every piece of media can be accessed by two fully redundant robotics systems to ensure maximum continuous data availability. The AML/2 supports more than a dozen media types. The AML/2's barrier-free scalability and mixed-media support make it the preferred choice for a wide range of data management tasks, including: Backup and Restore Nearline and HSM Digital Asset Management Archiving Digital Broadcasting Data Acquisition The AML/2 features a multi-host architecture that lets the library share data across all of your network applications and architectures, including Storage Area Networks. It also supports partitioning of the library's storage into userdefined virtual libraries.
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Fig. 6.7.3.4 Data Storage System by ADIC

Industry's largest capacity data storage library - the only one with fully redundant robotics for continuous data availability Industry-leading density, with more than 6,500GB per square foot Protects your investment by supporting simultaneous use of different media and drive types and providing an easy migration path to new technologies Scales with your data growth using unique barrier-free expansion to eliminate all pass-through ports Multi-host architecture makes it easy to share the library between different applications and OS Provides for automated data and media management and allows easy remote monitoring and operation. Supported by one of the industry's premier global networks of integration, logistics, and field support experts The AML/2 holds up to 5,184TB and 400 drives, handles a mixture of drive and media types, scales without passthrough ports, and offers the industry's only fully redundant robotics option.
6.7.3.5 Scalar 1000 AIT by ADIC

The Scalar 1000 is a high-performance, scalable tape library with integrated storage networking support. A budget-friendly choice, the library reduces total cost of ownership (TCO) in high-growth environments. The Scalar 1000 grows easily and economically, scaling from 118 tapes to more than a thousand. Unlike other libraries, its unique barrier-free expansion eliminates the use of pass-through portsmaintaining performance and reliability as the system scales.
Fig. 6.7.3.5 Tape Library by ADIC
To provide better backup in storage networks, the Scalar 1000 features management services that ease installation and diagnostics, enhance security and availability, and make data management more efficient. These tools include serverless backup, single-view connectivity, a built-in SAN firewall, and data-path conditioning utilities that increase backup performance and reliability.
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The Scalar 1000 supports LTO, SDLT/DLT, and AIT technologies in single- or mixed media configurations. It also offers up to 16 virtual library partitions.

Cost-effective scalability: pay as you grow by adding drives, cartridges, and expansion modules, as needed Barrier-free growth: robotics extend through all modules for continuous high-speed service without passthrough ports Proven connectivity: storage network interoperability means seamless integration into new or existing SANs Intelligent SAN support: integrated storage networking supportincluding serverless backup, data path conditioning, and built-in firewallfor easier installation and operation, higher performance and reliability Reliability: diagnostic options include real-time health checks, email and pager alerts, and phone-home event reporting High performance: Supports up to 48 drives with a 1,000,000-cartridge exchange rating. Remote operation: browser-based management lets you perform all library operations and diagnostics remotely Investment protection: supports LTO, SDLT/DLT, and AIT in single- or multi-technology installations for maximum flexibility and performance Virtual libraries: provides up to 16 virtual library partition options for multiple applications support Responsive service: one-year on-site service provided by ADIC technical Assistance Center (ATAC) with 24-hour, worldwide service and support
6.7.3.6 AML/J by ADIC

The AML/J automated storage library offers a unique combination of solutions for large-system data storage needs. Its the right solution for changing technology because mixing and changing media is easy. Supporting more than a dozen technologies, the AML/J is designed for easy field integration of new drive technologies. And since it supports concurrent operation of different technologies in the same library, older and newer technologies can easily co-exist. The AML/J is the right solution for data growth because it offers true scalability within a single library. Barrier-free expansion modules let you scale the system easily and economicallyfrom as few as two drives and 400 cartridges to as many as 226 drives and 7,500 cartridges. Finally, the AML/J is the right solution for enterprise storage because the system makes it easy to share the library between different applications and operating systems. Its multi-host architecture lets the AML/J become a shared network resource. You can also partition the library into user-defined volumes.

Grows economically with data using a unique barrier-free expansion system that eliminates pass-through ports Provides the industry's widest choice of storage technologies, including simultaneous use of different media Protects your organization's IT investment by offering an easy migration path to new technologies Offers an integrated multi-host architecture that makes it easy to share the library between different applications and operating systems Provides for automated data and media management and allows easy remote monitoring and operation Supported by one of the industry's premier global networks of integration, logistics, and field support experts
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Fig. 6.7.3.6 ADIC Storage Library
Enterprise Storage Solution - Index
Page i
INDEX
1. Introduction to DAS........................................................................................................................... 1
1.1. Advantages of DAS................................................................................................................................. 1 1.2. Direct Attached Storage (DAS) Model...................................................................................................... 1 1.3. Ideal Situations for DAS .......................................................................................................................... 2 1.4. Adaptec Direct Attached Storage SANbloc 2GB JBOD.......................................................................... 2 1.5. Connectivity............................................................................................................................................ 2 1.5.1. Enhanced IDE.................................................................................................................................. 3 1.5.1.1 PATA......................................................................................................................................... 4 1.5.1.2 SATA......................................................................................................................................... 4 1.5.1.3 Advantages of SATA over PATA ................................................................................................ 4 1.5.1.4. PATA vs. SATA ........................................................................................................................ 4 1.5.1.5. Hardware, Configurations & Pictures ......................................................................................... 5 1.5.2. SCSI................................................................................................................................................ 8 1.5.2.1. Introduction................................................................................. Error! Bookmark not defined. 1.5.2.2. Advantages of SCSI.................................................................................................................. 8 1.5.2.3. Comparison of SCSI Technologies ............................................................................................ 9 1.5.2.4. Single - Ended vs. Differential.................................................................................................... 9 1.5.2.5. SCSI Devices that do no work together.................................................................................... 10 1.5.2.6. SCSI Termination.................................................................................................................... 10 1.5.2.7. Adaptec Ultra320 SCSI ........................................................................................................... 11 1.5.2.8. SCSI Controllers ..................................................................................................................... 11 1.5.3. Fiber Channel ................................................................................................................................ 11 1.5.3.1. Introduction............................................................................................................................. 11 1.5.3.2. Advantages of Fiber Channel .................................................................................................. 12 1.5.3.3. Comparing FC DAS Storage Solutions..................................................................................... 13
2.1 Introduction to NAS ....................................................................................................................... 14

2.2. Advantages of NAS:.............................................................................................................................. 14 2.3. What is Filer?........................................................................................................................................ 15 2.4. Strong standards for Network Attached Storage (NAS)........................................................................... 15 2.5. Network Attached Storage versus Storage Area Network ....................................................................... 16 2.6. NAS Plus Tape Based Data Protection .................................................................................................. 17 2.7. Streamlined Architecture ....................................................................................................................... 17 2.8. NAS Characteristics.............................................................................................................................. 18 2.9. NAS Applications and Benefits .............................................................................................................. 18 2.10. Business Benefits of NAS Gateways.................................................................................................... 18 2.11. Drawback ........................................................................................................................................... 19 2.12. File Storm NAS: .................................................................................................................................. 19 2.13 Benefits of Low end and workgroup NAS storage.................................................................................. 19 2.14. AS: Think Network Users .................................................................................................................... 20 2.15. Ns: Think Back-End/Computer Room Storage Needs........................................................................... 20 2.16 NAS Solutions ..................................................................................................................................... 20 2.16.1 NetApp NAS Solution .................................................................................................................... 20 2.16.1.1 NetApp Filers Product Comparison......................................................................................... 21 2.16.2. NAS by AUSPEX ......................................................................................................................... 23 2.16.3. NAS by EMC................................................................................................................................ 25 2.16.4. EMC NS Series/Gateway NAS Solution ........................................................................................ 26 2.16.5. NAS by SUN ................................................................................................................................ 27 2.16.6. Sun StorEdge N8400 and N8600 filers.......................................................................................... 27 2.16.7. Sun StorEdge 5310 NAS Appliance .............................................................................................. 27
Page ii
2.16.8. NAS by ADIC ............................................................................................................................... 29 2.16.8.1. Benefits of Using a SAN Behind a NAS Storage Network ....................................................... 29 2.16.8.2. ADIC / Network Appliance Solution Overview......................................................................... 29 2.16.8.3. Benefits for ADIC-Network Appliance NAS backup solution to an enterprise:........................... 30 2.17. StorNext Storage Manager .................................................................................................................. 30 2.17.1. Benefits of StorNext Storage Manager .......................................................................................... 31 2.16.2. Features of StorNext Storage Manager ......................................................................................... 31
Introduction of SAN............................................................................................................................. 33
3.1. Advantages of Storage Area Networks (SANs) ...................................................................................... 34 3.2. Advantages of SAN over DAS ............................................................................................................... 34 3.3. Todays SAN Topologies....................................................................................................................... 35 3.4. Difference between SAN and LAN......................................................................................................... 37 3.5. Difference between SAN and NAS ........................................................................................................ 37 3.6. How do I manage a SAN? ..................................................................................................................... 37 3.7. What is a SAN Manager?...................................................................................................................... 37 3.8. When should I use a Switch vs. a Hub? ................................................................................................. 37 3.9. TruTechnology...................................................................................................................................... 38 3.9.1. TruFiber......................................................................................................................................... 38 3.9.2. TruCache....................................................................................................................................... 38 3.9.3. TruMap .......................................................................................................................................... 38 3.9.4. TruMask ........................................................................................................................................ 39 3.9.5. TruSwap ........................................................................................................................................ 39 3.10. Features of a SAN .............................................................................................................................. 39 3.11. SANs : High Availability for Block-Level Data Transfer.......................................................................... 39 3.12. Server-Free Backup and Restore ........................................................................................................ 40 3.13. Backup Architecture Comparison......................................................................................................... 40 3.14. SAN approach for connecting storage to your servers/network? ........................................................... 40 3.15. Evolution of SANs ............................................................................................................................... 42 3.16. Comparison of SAN with Available Data Protection Technologies......................................................... 43 3.17. SAN Solutions .................................................................................................................................... 44 3.17.1. SAN Hardware Solutions .............................................................................................................. 44 3.17.1.1. ADIC SAN Solutions.............................................................................................................. 44 3.17.1.2. SAN by SUN......................................................................................................................... 45 3.17.1.3. Features of SUN StorEdge .................................................................................................... 46 3.17.1.4. Benefits of SUN StorEdge ..................................................................................................... 46 3.17.2 SAN Management Software Solutions............................................................................................ 47 3.17.2.1. SAN by VERITAS.................................................................................................................. 47 3.17.2.2. Veritas SAN Applications....................................................................................................... 47 3.17.2.3. Example for Increasing Availability Using Clustering............................................................... 49 3.17.2.4. VERITAS SAN Solutions ....................................................................................................... 50 3.17.2.5. VERITAS SAN 2000: The Next Generation ............................................................................ 52 3.17.2.6. Tivoli Storage Manager ......................................................................................................... 52 3.17.2.7. Tivoli SANergy ...................................................................................................................... 53 3.17.2.8. SAN-speed sharing for Application Files ................................................................................ 54 3.18. Fiber Channel ..................................................................................................................................... 55 3.18.1. Introduction of Fiber Channel........................................................................................................ 55 3.18.2. Advantages of Fiber Channel........................................................................................................ 55 3.18.3. Fiber Channel Topologies............................................................................................................. 55 3.18.3.1. Point-to-Point........................................................................................................................ 55 3.18.3.2. Fiber Channel Arbitrated Loop (FC-AL).................................................................................. 55 3.18.3.3. Switched Fabric .................................................................................................................... 56 3.18.4. How do SCSI tape drives connect to a Fiber Channel SAN? .......................................................... 56
Page iii
3.18.5. What is an Interconnect? .............................................................................................................. 56 3.18.6. Scalable Fiber Channel Devices ................................................................................................... 57 3.18.7. Features of Fiber Channel ............................................................................................................ 57 3.18.8. Why Fiber Channel?..................................................................................................................... 57 3.18.9. Fiber Channel System .................................................................................................................. 58 3.18.10. Technology Comparisons ........................................................................................................... 59 3.18.11. LAN Free Backup using Fiber Channel........................................................................................ 60 3.18.11.1. Distributed Backup .............................................................................................................. 60 3.18.11.2. Centralized Backup ............................................................................................................. 61 3.18.11.3. SAN Backup ....................................................................................................................... 62 3.18.12. Conclusion ................................................................................................................................. 64 3.18.13. LAN Free Backup Solution Benefits ............................................................................................ 64 3.18.14. Fiber Channel Strategy for Tape Backup Systems....................................................................... 64 3.18.14.1. Stage - 1 (LAN Free Backup)............................................................................................... 64 3.18.14.2. Stage - 2 (Server-Less Backup) ........................................................................................... 65 3.18.14.3. Suggested Deployment Strategy.......................................................................................... 67 3.19. iSCSI.................................................................................................................................................. 67 3.19.1 Introduction of iSCSI ..................................................................................................................... 67 3.19.2. Advantages of iSCSI .................................................................................................................... 68 3.19.3. Advantages of iSCSI on SAN:....................................................................................................... 68 3.19.4. iSCSI describes:........................................................................................................................... 69 3.19.5. How iSCSI Works......................................................................................................................... 70 3.19.6. Applications that can take advantage of these iSCSI benefits include:............................................ 70 3.19.7. iSCSI under a microscope ............................................................................................................ 71 3.19.8. Address and Naming Conventions ................................................................................................ 72 3.19.9. Session Management................................................................................................................... 72 3.19.10. Error Handling............................................................................................................................ 73 3.19.11. Security...................................................................................................................................... 73 3.19.12. Adaptec iSCSI............................................................................................................................ 73 3.19.12.1. Storage Systems................................................................................................................. 74 3.19.12.2. HBAs .................................................................................................................................. 74 3.19.12.3. Adaptec 7211F (Fiber Optic)................................................................................................ 74 3.19.13. Conclusion ................................................................................................................................. 74 3.19.13.1. P.S. .................................................................................................................................... 74 3.19.13.2. Terms and abbreviations: .................................................................................................... 75 3.19.14. Others (iFCP, FCIP) ................................................................................................................... 75 3.19.14.1. Fiber Channel over IP.......................................................................................................... 76 3.19.14.2. FCIP IETF IPS Working Group Draft Standard specifies: ..................................................... 77 3.19.14.3. iFCP ................................................................................................................................... 77 3.19.15. How to Build an iSCSI SAN ........................................................................................................ 77 3.19.16. Setup ......................................................................................................................................... 79 3.19.17. Pain-Free Initiation ..................................................................................................................... 79 3.19.18. SAN Components....................................................................................................................... 79
4. SAN Setup by WILSHIRE................................................................................................................. 80

4.1. Hardware Details .................................................................................................................................. 80 4.1.1. JNI FCE 6410N Fiber Channel HBA................................................................................................ 80 4.1.2. Brocade SilkWorm 2800 Switch ...................................................................................................... 80 4.1.3. ATTO Fiber-Bridge 2200 R/D.......................................................................................................... 81 4.1.4. Hardware Installation...................................................................................................................... 82 4.1.5. Installing the Adapter card .............................................................................................................. 82 4.2. Software Installation.............................................................................................................................. 83 4.2.1. Installation in Solaris 9.................................................................................................................... 83
Page iv
4.3.2. Installation in NT4.0........................................................................................................................ 83
5. Introduction of InfiniBand ............................................................................................................... 84

5.1 InfiniBand Advantages ........................................................................................................................... 84 5.2 InfiniBand Architecture ........................................................................................................................... 85 5.3 InfiniBand Layers ................................................................................................................................... 85 5.3.1. Physical Layer................................................................................................................................ 86 5.3.2 Link Layer ....................................................................................................................................... 87 5.3.3 Network Layer................................................................................................................................. 88 5.3.4 Transport Layer............................................................................................................................... 88 5.4 InfiniBand Technical Overview ............................................................................................................... 88 5.4.1 InfiniBand Feature Set..................................................................................................................... 88 5.5 InfiniBand Elements ............................................................................................................................... 89 5.5.1 Channel Adapters ........................................................................................................................... 89 5.5.2 Switch............................................................................................................................................. 89 5.5.3 Router ............................................................................................................................................ 90 5.5.4 Subnet Manager ............................................................................................................................. 90 5.6 InfiniBand Support for the Virtual Interface Architecture (VIA) .................................................................. 90 5.7 InterConnect of Choice For HPC and Data Center .................................................................................. 91 5.7.1 Beyond Servers .............................................................................................................................. 91 5.7.2 A Single, Unified I/O Fabric.............................................................................................................. 92 5.7.3 Identifying the Need ........................................................................................................................ 92 5.7.4 Network Volume Expands ............................................................................................................... 92 5.7.5 Trend to Serial I/O........................................................................................................................... 92 5.7.6 InfiniBand: Adrenaline for Data Centers ........................................................................................... 93 5.7.7 Independent Scaling of Processing and Shared I/O.......................................................................... 93 5.7.8 Raising Server Density, Reducing Size ............................................................................................ 93 5.7.9 Clustering and Increased Performance ............................................................................................ 93 5.7.10 Enhanced Reliability...................................................................................................................... 94 5.7.11 End User Benefit ........................................................................................................................... 94 5.7.12 Industry-Wide Effort....................................................................................................................... 94 5.8. Relationship between InfiniBand and Fiber Channel or Gigabit Ethernet ................................................. 94
6. Introduction of Enterprise Backup Storage.................................................................................... 95

6.1 Recording Methods................................................................................................................................ 95 6.1.1 Linear Serpentine Recording ........................................................................................................... 95 6.1.2 Helical Scan.................................................................................................................................... 96 6.2 Tape Drive Performance ........................................................................................................................ 97 6.2.1 Tape Loading and Cartridge Handling.............................................................................................. 97 6.2.2 Linear Drive Mechanisms ................................................................................................................ 97 6.2.3 Helical-Scan Drive Mechanisms....................................................................................................... 97 6.2.4 Tape Tension and Speed Control .................................................................................................... 98 6.2.5 Tape Speed and Stress................................................................................................................... 98 6.2.6 Data Streaming and Start/Stop Motion ............................................................................................. 98 6.2.7 Media Load Time and File Access Time........................................................................................... 98 6.2.8 Data Capacity ................................................................................................................................. 99 6.2.9 Data Transfer Rate........................................................................................................................ 100 6.3 Reliability............................................................................................................................................. 100 6.3.1 Mean Time between Failure (MTBF).............................................................................................. 100 6.3.2 Annual Failure Rate (AFR) ............................................................................................................ 101 6.3.3 Data Integrity ................................................................................................................................ 101 6.4 Media Types........................................................................................................................................ 102 6.4.1 Media Reliability............................................................................................................................ 102
Page v
6.4.2 Media and Backward Compatibility ................................................................................................ 102 6.5 Drive Cleaning ..................................................................................................................................... 103 6.6 Technology Roadmaps ........................................................................................................................ 103 6.7 Tape Technologies .............................................................................................................................. 106 6.7.1 DAT.............................................................................................................................................. 106 6.7.1.1 HP DAT 72 Tape Drive........................................................................................................ 106 6.7.1.2 T9940 Tape Drives ................................................................................................................ 108 6.7.2 DLT .............................................................................................................................................. 109 6.7.2.1 Tandberg DLT 8000 Autoloader.............................................................................................. 109 6.7.2.2 SUN StorEdge L8500 Tape Library......................................................................................... 110 6.7.2.3 HP MSL6000 Tape Libraries .................................................................................................. 112 6.7.2.4 EXABYTE 430 Tape Library ................................................................................................... 113 6.7.2.5 Scalar 10K by ADIC ............................................................................................................... 114 6.7.3 LTO (Linear Tape Open) ............................................................................................................... 115 6.7.3.1 HP Ultrium960 Tape Drive...................................................................................................... 115 6.7.3.2 IBM 3584 Tape Library........................................................................................................... 117 6.7.3.3 Comparison IBM LTO Ultrium versus Super DLT Tape Technology ......................................... 117 6.7.3.4 AML/2 LTO by ADIC .............................................................................................................. 118 6.7.3.5 Scalar 1000 AIT by ADIC ....................................................................................................... 119 6.7.3.6 AML/J by ADIC ...................................................................................................................... 120

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UA - Direct Attached Storage

1. Directed Attached Storage

1.1. Advantages of DAS

1.2. Direct Attached Storage (DAS) Model

Wilshire Software Technologies Ph: 2761-2214 / 6677-2214 / 6452-6173

Rev. Dt: 15-Oct-08 Version: 3

UA - Direct Attached Storage

Fig.1.3 - Direct Attached Storage Model

1.3. Ideal Situations for DAS

1.4. Adaptec Direct Attached Storage SANbloc 2GB JBOD

Wilshire Software Technologies Ph: 2761-2214 / 6677-2214 / 6452-6173

Rev. Dt: 15-Oct-08 Version: 3

UA - Direct Attached Storage

1.5.1. Enhanced IDE

Wilshire Software Technologies Ph: 2761-2214 / 6677-2214 / 6452-6173

Rev. Dt: 15-Oct-08 Version: 3

UA - Direct Attached Storage

Hardware, Configurations & Pictures

1.5.1.3 Advantages of SATA over PATA

Up to 150 Mbytes/sec (1.5 Gbits/sec) Faster, and room for expansion

1.5.1.4. PATA vs. SATA

Wilshire Software Technologies Ph: 2761-2214 / 6677-2214 / 6452-6173

Rev. Dt: 15-Oct-08 Version: 3

UA - Direct Attached Storage

Parallel ATA Maximum Speed Cable Length Cable Pins

1.5.1.5. Hardware, Configurations & Pictures

Wilshire Software Technologies Ph: 2761-2214 / 6677-2214 / 6452-6173

Rev. Dt: 15-Oct-08 Version: 3

UA - Direct Attached Storage

Wilshire Software Technologies Ph: 2761-2214 / 6677-2214 / 6452-6173

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UA - Direct Attached Storage

Fig. 1.5.1.5.4 SATA to PATA Adapter

Fig. 1.5.1.5.5 Converting PATA hard disk to SATA Technology

Fig. 1.5.1.5.6 - Standard PATA cable connection.

Wilshire Software Technologies Ph: 2761-2214 / 6677-2214 / 6452-6173

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UA - Direct Attached Storage

Wilshire Software Technologies Ph: 2761-2214 / 6677-2214 / 6452-6173

Rev. Dt: 15-Oct-08 Version: 3

UA - Direct Attached Storage

1.5.2.2. Comparison of SCSI Technologies

1.5.2.3. Single - Ended vs. Differential

Single - Ended Cables:

Low-Voltage (LVD) Differential Cables:

Wilshire Software Technologies Ph: 2761-2214 / 6677-2214 / 6452-6173

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1.5.2.4. SCSI Devices that do no work together

These mutually exclusive alternatives are:

1.5.2.5. SCSI Termination

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1.5.2.6. Adaptec Ultra320 SCSI

A Smooth, No Risk Transition

True Ultra320 SCSI

1.5.2.8. SCSI Controllers

I/0 data Rate