TechRepublic Resource Guide: Data Storage for the Enterprise

TechRepublic Resource Guide

Data Storage for the Enterprise
Contents

Take a look at storage options and benefits ……….………………………………..…..2

Scott Lowe’s overview explores the pros and cons of various storage technologies.

What's new in scalable storage solutions? ……….……………………………………..6

Deb Shinder explains why scalable data storage involves much more than merely increasing
your storage capacity.

How do I... Install, configure, and use Microsoft's iSCSI initiator? ……….……..…..8

In this article from TechRepublic’s popular “How do I…” series, Scott Lowe walks you through
the step-by-step process of installing and configuring Microsoft's iSCSI initiator.

Sponsored by:

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Take a look at storage options and benefits

By Scott Lowe, MCSE

With every server purchase comes a basic question: How much storage should you include with the new
server purchase? For larger companies, you might have already addressed this question through the
implementation of a storage area network. However, until fairly recently, centralized storage pricing has
remained out of reach for many small- and medium- size organizations. Regardless of the specific
situation at your company, one thing is certain: there are a lot of choices – and a lot of decisions to be
made – in today's storage marketplace. In this article, I'll provide an overview of the current technology
as well as its pros and cons. Use this article in conjunction with the Storage product comparison
worksheet available for download from TechRepublic to get a better idea about the various options
available for your business. In a future article, I'll provide a more in-depth view of each of these
solutions.

Storage options
There are three overall storage options that deserve consideration: direct-attached storage (DAS),
network attached storage (NAS), and a storage area network (SAN). As you might expect, each option
meets specific needs and has pros and cons that you must weigh before making a decision. Each storage
option is discussed in detail below.

Direct-attached storage
Just about anyone who's ever touched a server is familiar with DAS. DAS is the storage that fits right into
the server or that hangs off the server. For example, storage connected to a server's external SCSI
channel is also considered direct-attached storage.

DAS has enjoyed a long history and is still the storage of choice in many situations. With the fastest
transfer rates between the disk system and the server, DAS is ideal in situations where fast disk access is
demanded, although some new SAN equipment is starting to give DAS a run for its money in this
department. Further, most applications have no trouble at all working in a DAS environment, so you
don't usually need to worry about application issues and can focus on other areas that might cause
problems instead.

Not all is rosy with DAS, however. First and foremost, IT managers must constantly contend with "space
issues" which attend to answer to common questions:

How much storage do I need to provision for a new server?

What do I do if my provisioning wasn't quite right and I need to add space?

Some options on the market help to alleviate the storage burden related to these questions, but either
way, you still need to make best-guess estimates regarding storage and then expand that storage as
unanticipated needs surface.

Second, you still have to manage most DAS on a server-by-server basis meaning that you need a
mechanism in place to monitor server disk usage per physical unit. Not many IT managers relish the
thought of running out of disk space in the middle of the day!

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DAS is ideal in a number of situations:

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.

Network-attached storage
There are some times that you just need to throw storage on the network, accessible by a number of
users, and call it a day. Enter network-attached storage (NAS). NAS installation is usually very simple.
Like DAS, though, you need to answer some basic questions about how much storage you need for your
particular task. Unlike DAS, NAS devices can usually be more easily expanded in the event you need
additional capacity. For example, where a commonly available DAS device tops on in the 2-TB range,
some NAS devices on the market can scale upwards of 200 TB. With a few exceptions, a NAS unit is a
perfect device for situations where you just need to throw storage at a problem.

There are a couple of major exceptions to this rule of thumb: Most importantly, situations in which
block-level access to data is required, such as for databases and Exchange information stores, are not
appropriate for NAS units. Some NAS units do support these processes, but it's a case of forcing a tool
into being appropriate for a job. Second, when you really need high-speed access to storage from a
server, a NAS may not be appropriate since all data needs to traverse the network and is thus limited by
the speed of your network.

There are two situations in which NAS devices really shine: first and foremost, Web serving, and in a
very close second, general file storage. Both applications require significant disk space, but direct data
access from a server is seldom required. Instead, since most data from these two types of stores is
accessed over the network anyway, it doesn't matter that it's coming from a NAS vs. DAS hardware.

There's also another reason that NAS devices are really good for Web and file serving, but not for
databases and Exchange stores. It has to do with what's called file-level vs. block-level data access. In
file-level systems, data is accessed by a file name, as the name implies. In block-level systems, data is
accessed using a block address, which is the location in which specific data is stored. In a client/server
scenario, when you request a file from a file server, you're asking for a specific file and the server does
the block read to get that data for you. Databases and Exchange stores have difficulty communicating in
this way, so their stores are not appropriately stored on a NAS device. Databases and Exchange stores
are more efficiently accessed using block-level functions available with DAS and SAN solutions.

Even though NAS is a great solution when you need to throw storage at a problem, it does have some
drawbacks:

It can be more expensive than similar DAS space.

Not appropriate for some high-usage tasks like databases and Exchange stores.
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Data retrieval is only as fast as the network connecting the unit.

A potential single point of failure in the storage infrastructure.

Storage area networks

The grand pooh-bah of storage, the SAN is the most expensive storage option of the bunch, as well as
the most complex. However, SANs provide capabilities not found in other solutions and, in the right
situation, can actually end up saving a company some funds, even considering the expensive initial
outlay.

SANs today come in two flavors: fibre channel, and iSCSI or IP-based SANs. Fibre channel is the most well
known type of SAN, but over the last couple of years, iSCSI-based SANs have started to hit the market in
a big way, mainly due to their good performance and much lower cost versus fibre channel.

SANs truly combine the best of both NAS and DAS storage. For example, with a proper implementation,
you get a completely redundant storage network that is eminently expandable to, literally, hundreds of
terabytes a la NAS, but you also get block-level access to the data just as you get with DAS. You also get
access to data at a reasonable speed, making SANs good even for operations that require significant disk
access. With a SAN, you also get centrally managed storage with the ability to provision space on-the-fly.
Even better, with some implementations, you can even configure your servers with no internal storage
and require that all systems boot directly from the SAN (fibre channel only). Talk about plug and play!

With all of these great points, what are the downsides of a SAN? There are two major drawbacks to a
SAN: cost and complexity, particularly when it comes to fibre channel implementations. A reasonable
fibre channel SAN can start in the $50-60K range for just a terabyte or two of storage. On the other
hand, newer SANs based on iSCSI might start in the $20-30K range, but aren't quite up to the
performance levels of their fibre channel cousins. The difference in price is mostly due to iSCSI's ability
to make use of off-the-shelf gigabit Ethernet hardware, whereas fibre channel requires specialized,
expensive equipment.

The chart
When making a storage decision, it's important to have all available information at your fingertips. This
article was meant to be a primer on the different types of storage and help you to move in the right
direction regarding your environment. To sum things up, I've provided the quick-glance chart on the
next page to help you compare and contrast the different kinds of storage systems. The SAN category is
broken up into iSCSI and fibre channel to help you make the distinction between the two technologies.

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DAS NAS iSCSI/IP SANs Fibre channel

Price Low Medium Medium-High High

Expansion Limited Depends on solution Depends on solution Depends on solution

Management Inefficient Inefficient Very efficient Very efficient

Fault tolerance Somewhat tolerant Somewhat tolerant Very tolerant Very tolerant

Good for file storage Yes Yes Yes Yes

Good for database Yes No Usually Yes

storage

Good for Web Yes Yes Yes Yes

serving

Good for Exchange Yes No Usually Yes

stores

Ease of installation Simple Simply Somewhat difficult Very difficult

Disaster recovery None None Many Many

capabilities

OS support All N/A Windows, Linux, Windows, Linux,

UNIX, NetWare UNIX, NetWare
(others dependent (others dependent
on drivers) on drivers)

Primary vendors Any server vendor IBM, Dell, HP, LeftHand, EMC, HP, IBM, EMC, HP,
Network Appliance IBM, Network Network Appliance
Appliance

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What's new in scalable storage solutions?

By Debra Littlejohn Shinder, MCSE, MVP

Most organizations’ needs for storage space are expanding due to more and larger files, including the
increasing use of media files, more sophisticated document and presentation files, larger and more
complex databases, and so forth. In addition, government regulations and court precedents are forcing
companies to retain more data and to do it for longer periods of time. For example, U.S. rules require
parties involved in federal litigation to provide electronic information as part of the discovery process.
This means once a lawsuit has been filed (or perhaps even anticipated), deleting or overwriting files that
pertain to it will be as illegal as shredding paper documents.

But there’s more to it than storage space. A truly scalable storage solution requires not just the ability to
store more and more data, but also the ability to organize and find that data; otherwise the stored data
is not very useful. The security of stored data is another big concern--especially in regulated industries
where HIPAA, the GLB Act and the like require that the privacy of certain information be protected.
Lastly, reliability is of utmost importance, as data loss can irreparably harm to your organization.

Creating a fast, user-friendly, reliable, secure and scalable storage strategy is getting more difficult all
the time, but luckily, new technologies are being developed to address these challenges. Let’s take a
look at some scalable storage solutions for organizations of all sizes.

Scalability and expandability

The first element of a scalable storage strategy is easy expandability, so that as the organization and/or
amount of data increases, you can expand storage space to meet your needs without interfering with
the ability of users to access previously stored data.

This can be accomplished in different ways, depending on your budget, the size of your organization and
the amount of data you need to store. Many small companies can still get by with a file server with SATA
or SCSI RAID arrays. Disk capacity has increased significantly over the last few years, with a
corresponding drop in cost per gigabyte. "Hot swappable" disks allow you to replace or add a disk while
the rest of the system goes on functioning. SATA hot swap RAID cases can be purchased starting at a few
hundred dollars.

As the organization’s needs grow, Network Attached Storage (NAS) becomes a more viable solution.
Using a fibre channel connection allows you to place the storage subsystem a greater distance from the
server. An example is the Aberdeen XDAS NAS system.

The next step up is a Storage Area Network (SAN), which is a separate back-end network of storage
devices. SANs are designed to provide better performance and disk utilization.

Enterprises with huge amounts of data can implement extremely high capacity and high bandwidth
systems such as those offered by Sun’s StorageTek systems, which can provide up to 330 TB of storage
with over eleven hundred 300 GB disk drives.

Scalability and performance

Faster access to data results in increased productivity, and better performance becomes more
important as files grow larger. New technologies address this need for speed.
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Fibre channel is the traditional answer to the bandwidth problem, and is typically used by SANs. More
recently, SANs are operating over gigabit Ethernet, or using SCSI over IP for high performance
communications of the network devices, methods traditionally used by NAS. The lines between the two
are thus becoming more blurred as time goes on.

Scalability and reliability

As the storage system grows, your fault tolerance and backup solutions must keep up. Remember that
fault tolerance and backup are two separate issues and you should not use fault tolerance as a
substitute for backup. Fault tolerance should be built into any well designed scalable storage solution.
RAID is the most common disk fault tolerance technology. Most--but not all--levels of RAID provide fault
tolerance by providing a complete copy (mirroring) of data or by writing parity information that can be
used to reconstruct data that’s distributed across disks if one or more of those disks should fail.

New NAS systems support advanced RAID configurations such as RAID 6, which is a dual parity scheme
that allows for two simultaneous drive failures without data loss or downtime and costs less than RAID 1
(disk mirroring), especially for large capacity drives.

Tape backup, although relatively low cost, is slow and difficult to search for specific files. Disk based
backup is thus becoming more popular. Products such as Microsoft’s Data Protection Manager, a disk-
based backup and recovery server, are making it easier to implement.

Scalability and security

Securing stored data requires a multi-level strategy that includes physical security of the devices on
which the data is stored, security of the data residing on a disk (for example, by using file level or disk
level encryption), and securing the data as it travels across the network between the server or network
storage device where it’s stored and the workstation of the user accessing it (for example, by
implementing IPsec).

Scalability and usability

Usability depends on mechanisms for organizing large amounts of data and finding what you need
quickly. Tiered storage architectures (also known as Hierarchical Storage Management or HSM) divide
data based on performance, availability, and recovery requirements. Data that’s accessed often is stored
on fast and readily accessible media, whereas data that’s less likely to be needed can be stored on lower
cost but cheaper, less easily accessible media.

For example, files can be migrated from high cost, high performance fibre channel SAN devices to slower
and less expensive SATA RAID arrays when the need for them is less immediate, then later to cheap tape
as they are less likely to be accessed.

Summary
New trends in storage make it easier than ever for companies to expand their data capacity, but scaling
up your data storage requires that you also think in terms of scalability of performance, reliability,
security, and usability issues as well. The basics of storage management haven’t changed a lot, but new
products and technologies have made it easier to address these peripheral issues, thereby making
extreme scalability in data storage much more feasible.

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How do I…Install, configure and use Microsoft’s iSCSI initiator?

By Scott Lowe, MCSE

Internet Small Computer System Interface (iSCSI) has taken the storage world by storm. No longer is
shared storage a niche enjoyed by only large, wealthy corporations. Internet SCSI is leveling the playing
field by making shared storage available at a reasonable cost to anyone. By leveraging the ubiquitous
Ethernet networks prevalent in most organizations, IT staff training costs for iSCSI are very low and
result in quick, seamless deployments.

Further, operating system vendors are making getting into the iSCSI game easier than ever by making
iSCSI initiator software freely available. iSCSI networks require three components:

1. An iSCSI target -- A target is the actual storage array or volume, depending on how you have
things configured.

2. An iSCSI initiator -- An iSCSI initiator is the software component residing on a server or other
computer that is installed and configured to connect to an iSCSI target. By using an iSCSI
initiator, target-based volumes can be mounted on a server as if they were local volumes and
are managed as such.

3. A gigabit Ethernet network infrastructure -- iSCSI requires an IP-based Ethernet network for its
transport between systems with initiators (servers) and targets (storage arrays).

In this article, I will show you how to install and configure Microsoft's iSCSI initiator.
Step 1: Set up your target and communications infrastructure
Before you install the iSCSI initiator on any of your servers or workstations, you must have something to
which the initiator will connect. This can be one of the enterprise class arrays, such as those available
from LeftHand, Dell EqualLogic, or EMC, or, if you're on a tighter budget and want to build your own
array, a target running iSCSI target software, such as StarWind.

I recommend that, whenever possible, you use either a physically separate infrastructure or separate IP
network/VLAN for your iSCSI traffic. By doing so, you simplify troubleshooting and configuration later
on. However, setting up and configuring your target is beyond the scope of this article.
Step 2: Configure your local iSCSI network adapter
One best practice is to assign a either a dedicated gigabit Ethernet NIC or TCP offload adapter (ToE
adapter) in each server to handle iSCSI traffic -- in other words, don't share your user-facing network
connection for storage traffic. If you've created a separate physical network or VLAN for storage traffic,
assign this adapter an IP address that works on the storage network. By placing storage traffic on its own
network that is routed separately from the main network, you increase the overall security of your
storage infrastructure and simplify the overall configuration.
Step 3: Download Microsoft's iSCSI initiator -- if necessary
Depending on the operating system you're using, you need to download Microsoft's iSCSI initiator
software. If you're planning to connect to an iSCSI target from a Windows XP or Windows Server 2003
system, visit Microsoft's iSCSI initiator download page and obtain the software. If you're connecting

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from a Windows Vista or Windows Server 2008 computer, Microsoft's iSCSI initiator is included with
these operating systems, so you can safely skip this step.

Make sure to download the initiator that is designed for your operating system. Microsoft provides
builds for both 32-bit and 64-bit Windows. In the 64-bit category, versions are available for both x64-
based processors and Itanium-based processors.

Step 4: Install the iSCSI initiator

If you're running an operating system on which the iSCSI initiator software is not installed, execute the
file that you downloaded and follow the installation instructions (Figure A). The installer will ask you to
decide which components you would like to install.

Figure A

Choose your installation options.

1. Initiator service -- This is the service behind the actual work.

2. Software Initiator -- The software initiator is the software service that handles iSCSI traffic.

3. Microsoft MPIO Multipathing Support for iSCSI -- MPIO is a way that you can increase the overall
throughput and reliability of your iSCSI storage environment. See Step 6 for more information about
how MPIO can be of benefit.

If you have a target that supports Microsoft's MPIO (check with your manufacturer), you should enable
this option. Otherwise, if your target supports MPIO through the use of a proprietary device specific

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module (DSM), obtain that DSM from your array manufacturer and follow the manufacturer's
installation recommendations.
Step 5: Connect to the iSCSI array
Now that you have the initiator software installed, you need to tell it where to look for mountable
volumes. Start the initiator configuration by going to the Control Panel and choosing the iSCSI Initiator
option. From the initiator, choose the Discovery tab, shown in Figure B.

Figure B

The iSCSI initiator's Discovery tab.

On the Discovery tab, click the Add button under the Target Portals box. This will open the Add Target
Portal dialog box, shown in Figure C.

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Figure C

The Add Target Portal dialog box.

In the Add Target Portal dialog box, provide the name or IP address of your iSCSI array. The default
communication port for iSCSI traffic is 3260. Unless you have changed your port, leave this as is. If you
have configured CHAP security or are using IPSec for communication between your client and the array,
click on the Advanced button and make necessary configuration changes (Figure D).

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Back on the Add Target Portal, click the OK button to make the initial connection to the iSCSI array. Note
that, at this point, you're not connecting to an actual volume, but only to the array in general (Figure E).

Figure E

The target portal has been added to the initiator.

Step 6: Connect to a target/volume

Even though you're connected to the array itself, you still need to tell the initiator exactly which target
or volume you want to mount on your local machine. To see the list of available targets on the array you
selected, choose the Targets tab, shown below in Figure F.

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Figure F

The iSCSI initiator Target tab in this example has only a single volume available.

To connect to an available target, choose the target and click the Log On button. A window pops up
(Figure G) with the target name and two options from which you can choose.

Figure G

iSCSI target Log on options.

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The two options are important. If you want your server to connect to this volume automatically when
your system boots, make sure you choose the check box next to "Automatically restore this connection
when the system boots." Unless you have a good reason otherwise, you should always check this check
box. If you do not, you cannot make the iSCSI target persistent after a reboot and will need to manually
reconnect it.

To enable high-availability and boost performance, choose the checkbox next to "Enable multi-path."
Make sure to understand that multi-pathing (MPIO) requires multiple network adapters dedicated to
the iSCSI task and, for maximum availability, you should also have a fully-meshed gigabit Ethernet
architecture for your storage traffic.

Again, if you are using CHAP or IPSec for communication with a target, click the Advanced button to
bring up the Advanced Settings dialog box you saw in Figure D.

Once you're done making decisions regarding how you want to connect to your target, from the Log On
to Target window, click the OK button. The target status in the imitator window should change to
Connected (Figure H).

Figure H

The target is now connected.

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Step 7: Bind the targets

Now, you have successfully connected to a shared target on your iSCSI array. If you selected the
"Automatically restore this connection when the system boots" checkbox as explained in the previous
step, you can now add the target to the iSCSI service's binding list. By doing so, you make sure that the
Windows does not consider the iSCSI service fully started until connections are restored to all volumes
on the binding list. This is important if you have data on an iSCSI target that is depended upon by other
services. For example, if you create a share on your server and that shared data resides on an iSCSI
target, the Server service that handles the share depends on the iSCSI service's complete availability in
order to bring up the shares.

Note: With older versions of the iSCSI initiators, in order to create this kind of dependency structure,
you had to reconfigure individual service dependencies -- a process that could get complicated. With the
iSCSI Initiator version 2, Microsoft has fixed this issue, but you still need to bind the targets.

The best option is to choose the Bound Volumes/Devices tab from the iSCSI Initiator's control panel and
click the Bind All button at the bottom of the window (Figure I).

Figure I

Bound volumes appear in this list on this tab.

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This will bind all available iSCSI targets (that can be bound) to the iSCSI startup process. If you want to
choose individual targets to bind, click the Add button. However, you will need to know the target's
drive letter or mount point. At this point in these instructions, we haven't gotten quite that far.
Step 8: Manage the new volume(s)
When you mount a brand new iSCSI-based volume on your server, Windows treats it the same as if you
had added a new hard drive to your computer. Take a look at this: Open Computer Management (Start |
Right-click My Computer | Manage). Choose the Disk Management option. If the volume you are using is
still blank -- that is, newly created on your iSCSI target and does not contain data -- Windows will pop up
the disk initialization wizard as shown in Figure J.

Figure J

The Windows Disk Initialization Wizard.

Note in Figure J that Disk 1 is not yet initialized and has a size of 1,020 MB. This disk is a small target I
created on my iSCSI host. An iSCSI-based volume follows the same rules as any other Windows volume.
You can create this volume as basic or dynamic (although dynamic is not recommended for iSCSI), or
even as GPT (GUID partition table) volumes, which support volumes in excess of 2TB.

Just as is the case with any Windows volume, you need to initialize the new drive, create a partition and
format the new volume. Take note in Figure J that Windows truly sees this disk as just another typical
volume. There is nothing on the Disk Management screen to indicate that Windows is treating this
volume any differently because it is stored on an iSCSI array.

Summary
Once you get past the mental adjustment that has to take place when you start using shared storage,
you'll probably find that iSCSI (or Fibre Channel, for that matter) shared storage opens up a number of
possibilities. These steps are designed to get you quickly on your way and will not cover every scenario,
but it will get you started.
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