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Technology

What is the big deal about Unified Storage?

23 February 2010

NAS (Network Attached Storage) was introduced to the market in the 1990’s to accommodate the growing demand for file sharing via the IP network. Sun Microsystems’ open source NFS protocol and NFS file server were the standard implementation for the UNIX distributed computing environment. The early users’ experiences were mixed, however, because of the IP bandwidth limitation and higher TCP overhead. A non-journaling-based file system can also cause long down time when there is a file system corruption. A dedicated NAS appliance solved these issues and it mostly satisfied the user’s file-sharing across the network.

Microsoft also saw the need to have an open standard file access standard for its Windows environment. CIFS (Common Internet File Service) protocol was the answer for the Microsoft window-based platform. NAS appliance vendors used the opportunity to offer both CIFS and NFS on a common platform. The quick market acceptance of a multiple protocol appliance turned NAS into a viable alternative to the traditional DAS (Direct Attach Storage) and SAN (Storage Area Network) environments.

A low cost iSCSI storage solution was introduced to the market and it quickly was adopted to be an alternative to the more expensive FC (fiber channel) storage. Some integrated NAS storage platforms also offered the native fiber channel connection for the SAN network. NAS vendors quickly added iSCSI and native FC protocol to their NAS storage and the term Unified Storage was used for the mixed protocols on the same storage platform.

Why is Unified Storage a big deal for your storage environment?

The premise of the dedicated unified storage platform is that it is inexpensive, easy to use and fast for file sharing. It masks the complexity of the RAID and volume management systems by integrating them into its management tool. The user-friendly GUI also makes the job easy for the administrator and it has become the first choice of management tools for a large scale environment.

Unified Storage devices provide the snapshot feature for user online file recovery, NDMP (Network Data Management Protocol) for backup application, mixed protocol directory access for CIFS and NFS, quota setting by user, group and tree, virus scanning for data safety, WORM file system for compliance needs and thin-provisioning for storage capacity planning. Most recently updated systems also provide data de-duplication for maximum storage utilization, disk drive spin down for reducing energy consumption and enabling the system to scale linearly via a non-disrupted file system or lun expansion. A unified storage gateway system is recommended to satisfy the file sharing need in a pure SAN environment. All these functions are evolving over time which demonstrates the flexibility of unified storage to adapt and change as end-users see their requirements change.

The Unified Storage platform comes with the following basic characteristics:

1. Simple to manage: The management interface needs to be seamless in order to address RAID, volume management, file system creation, volume expansion and thin provisioning. It takes less than four hours for the initial set up and to be ready to provide file service for all protocols. It does not need a dedicated IT administrator to configure, deploy and manage. Wizard-based setup and configuration are the standard tools.

2. Fast and easy to scale: Unified Storage was considered a tier-2 storage solution and is now moving up to the data center as an alternative to SAN storage. Some applications that were SAN-based now use Unified Storage as the standard storage platform thanks to the advanced software functions. For example, exchange mail servers with single mail box recovery and SQL database application can run a quick test via snapshot without the need to disrupt the production data sets. Virtual server function is implemented to reduce the number of physical servers and different RAID level settings for different application requirements. Most recently, deployments also see the need to do server/storage consolidation through advanced storage and server virtualization. The company benefits from the combination of VMWare virtualization technology and Unified Storage to reduce the number of physical servers and better storage utilization.

3. Reliable and highly available: Unified Storage needs to provide either dual-head HA (active/active) or N+1 (active/passive) to ensure high availability of data service. A true 99.999% reliability is a must have to meet data center standards. This translates to 5 minutes of downtime per year.

Unified storage platforms in the market today provide dual RAID controllers, mirroring cache or NVRAM(Non-volatile RAM) cache for data protection. You will see some vendor’s implementation having performance limitations due to the scalability issue, the limitation of storage capacity, low cost iSCSI target only and offering a data de-duplication option only for the target or VTL(virtual tape library). All of these handicaps will limit your scope of planning for your data growth rate and storage expansion. Continually deploying with the same architecture with all of these limitations will cause you to have islands of isolated NAS storage, unwanted expansion of the data center foot print and increase the operation/management cost dramatically.

4. Serviceability and support: The constant demand for universal access via the corporate VPN network required that the data be 100% available all the time. The traditional 9 to 5 support model no longer meets this requirement. A true 7/24/365 support service is the standard contract provided.

Unified Storage is both the present and the future of data storage. It is likely to become the standard storage platform in the next generation data center?

It is clear that this year will present a challenge for many companies with shrinking IT budgets to provide adequate storage for their needs. The Unified Storage platform fits the current environment due to its lower initial capital investment and relatively low operation cost. The initial deployment can be small and allows for expansion over time. It can also allow you to share the resources with the combination of file and block storage for different applications.

Unified Storage is clearly a continually evolving storage technology with a low barrier of entry for different types of IT projects. It is the right choice to be part of your data center’s storage infrastructure.

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