EonStor DS Solutions in Data Center

8/4/2019 EonStor DS Solutions in Data Center

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Abstract

This white paper describes how EonStor DS storage solutions support

datacenters where data consolidation, high-availability clusters, servervirtualization and Green IT are implemented.

EonStor DS Storage

Solutions in Datacenters

White paper


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EonSto r DS Sto rag e Solut ions in Dat ac ente rs

Efficiency, the Key to Next-Generation Datacenters

In todays uncertain economy, worldwide businesses, whether big or small, are

facing a shared IT challenge: how can they mange the exponentially-growing data

with limited IT budgets? Implementing datacenter transformation is a necessity, and

EFFICIENCY, or the overused do more with less, is the key to the transformation.

Centering on the concept of efficiency, Infortrend has been developing advanced

storage solutions to serve as powerful building blocks of next-generation

datacenters. By making datacenters more simple, agile and intelligent, Infortrend

storage solutions facilitate IT investment to create maximized value with minimized

management overhead. In this whitepaper, you will see the storage solutions

Infortrend provides with its entry-level product line, EonStor DS.

Infortrend EonStor DS Family

EonStor DS is Infortrends entry-level product line for both direct-attached storage

(DAS) and storage area network (SAN) storage systems. At price points affordable

to SMBs, the EonStor DS delivers high availability, outstanding price/performance,

flexible scalability, and easy management.

High Availability

EonStor DS storage solution features high-availability hardware designs with

redundant, hot-swappable hardware components, such as RAID controllers, power

supplies and cooling fans to eliminate single point of failure. Hardware RAID

protection ensures data accessibility during drive failure. In the event of a power

outage, CacheSafe technology would automatically leverage power of the Battery

Backup Unit (BBU) to safeguard cached data by writing it to flash module for

permanent retention. To protect valuable data sets against more critical threats,

EonStor DS also supports storage-based snapshot and volume copy/mirror. Data

availability can be achieved with minimal downtime in case of human errors or data

volume failure by employing the EonStor DS snapshot and volume copy/mirror

features.

Outstanding Price/Performance

Leveraging Infortrend's proprietary RAID engine, EonStor DS storage solution

delivers breakthrough performance for demanding business applications. The

models supporting Small Form Factor (SFF) drives can further increase

performance density to support highly IO-intensive applications.


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Flexible Scalability

The EonStor DS storage solution supports dynamic scaling to aid in the planning for

future storage growth while satisfying the current storage needs. Flexible drive type

and capacity support (2.5-inch or 3.5-inch, 3Gb/s or 6Gb/s, SAS or SATA and

various drive sizes) allows for the accommodation of current application needs

while future proofs to support tomorrow's applications. EonStor DS storage solution

can be expanded to more than one hundred drives to meet the proliferation of

storage growth. The scale as you grow flexibility of the EonStor DS storage

solution minimizes the upfront investment and provides the best overall Total Cost

ofAcquisition (TCA).

Intuitive and Easy ManagementStorage management should be simple. The EonStor DS storage solution includes

a comprehensive management software suite, SANWatch, to centrally manage

multiple EonStor DS subsystems over a standard TCP/IP network. EonStor DS

status and event information summary can be viewed on the portal window.

Necessary functions to configure, manage and monitor the EonStor DS are only a

few clicks away. Besides providing all firmware features through a user-friendly GUI,

SANWatch also supports script-based configuration of multiple EonStor DS

subsystems simultaneously. Automatic critical event notifications can be customizedto suit the most critical storage environment. SANWatch will guide users through

initializing, configuring and maintaining the EonStor DS every step of the way.

EonStor DS for Storage Infrastructure Consolidation

Storage infrastructure consolidation, also known as data consolidation, is the

foundation of IT infrastructure consolidation. Put in the simplest way, it means to

consolidate data for single point access. Storage infrastructure consolidation often

starts from consolidating internal DAS onto external DAS, and then external DAS

onto SAN.

Internal DAS to External DAS

In a distributed datacenter at the primary stage, every server stores data on its

internal drives.


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Figure 1. Internal DAS

In the first stage of consolidation, the server islands are consolidated to sharecapacity of external DAS. The number of servers allowed to share the storage

depends on the number of ports the storage provides. The number is often less than

four.

Figure 2. External DAS

External DAS to SAN

In the second stage of consolidation, several external DAS storage systems are

further consolidated into a SAN. With one or multiple switches in-between, the

network of storage devices can be shared by theoretically limited number of servers

as long as users have enough switch ports. Users often determine the best

deployment based on their evaluation of applications performance and capacity

demands.


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Figure 3. SAN

Consolidation Benefits

The most significant advantages of consolidated storage infrastructure are better

resource utilization, higher scalability and easier management. Compared with SAN,

external DAS is based on simpler topology. It therefore is easier to deploy and

requires less initial cost. However in terms of resource utilization and managementefficiency, SAN would be a better choice.

EonStor DS Solutions: External DAS

Users who would like to implement external DAS can choose EonStor DS SAS- or

FC-host series. The SAS-host series provides single controller and redundant

controller models, with each controller providing two multi-lane 3Gb/s SAS host

ports. The models support either 2.5-inch or 3.5-inch SAS/SATA drives. In a

sequential I/O environment with RAID 5 configuration, the EonStor DS SAS-host

storage systems can deliver up to 1500MB/s Read and 809MB/s Write data transfer

rate. Through expansion enclosures, they can be scaled up to 80 drives. As to the

EonStor DS Fibre-host series, it also provides single controller and redundant

controller models, and support either 2.5-inch or 3.5-inch SAS/SATA drives. Each

controller provides up to four 8Gb/s or 4Gb/s FC host ports. In a sequential I/O

environment with RAID 5 configuration, the EonStor DS Fibre-host storage systems

can deliver up to 2500MB/s Read and 1200MB/s Write data transfer rate. Through

expansion enclosures, they can be scaled up to 112 drives.

EonStor DS Solutions: SAN


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Users who would like to implement SAN can choose EonStor DS iSCSI-host series

for IP SAN or FC-host series for FC SAN. Performance of IP SANs is not so good as

FC SANs but they require lower total cost of ownership (TCO) and less manager

expertise. The EonStor DS iSCSI-host series provides single controller and

redundant controller models, and supports 3.5-inch SAS or SATA drives. EonStor

DS iSCSI-host models also support link aggregation and jumbo frame features to

help users optimize performance. With up to four 1Gb/s iSCSI ports on each

controller, the storage systems can deliver up to 720MB/s Read and 310MB/s Write

data transfer rate in a sequential I/O environment with RAID 5 configuration

Through expansion enclosures, the iSCSI-host models can be scaled up to 80

drives.

EonStor DS for High-Availability Clusters

High-availability clusters are often implemented to provide high service availability

for mission-critical applications. Two-node configuration is the most common

practice in high-availability clusters. The two servers can be configured as

Active/Active or Active/Passive. With constant heartbeats, one node can

immediately take over the applications hosted on the other node when it fails. The

failover operation requires no administrative intervention and is transparent toclients.

Figure 4. High-Availability Clusters

EonStor DS Solutions


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High-availability clusters can satisfactorily support mission-critical applications only

when they are complemented by high-availability storage. Although all EonStor DS

storage systems are based on high-availability architecture, FC-host and

iSCSI-host series are better match with high-availability clusters since they can be

more widely shared among servers when configured into SAN infrastructure. Users

can choose among the two series based on their data demands. Both EonStor

FC-host series and iSCSI-host series support clustering on the Windows Server

platform, and the FC-host series further supports clustering on the Red Hat Linux

platforms. By configuring mulitpathing for redundant controller models, users can

achieve no-single-point-of-failure fault-tolerant capability throughout data paths.

Both series of EonStor DS allow users to implement RAID technology and data

protection features including snapshot and volume copy. In the easy-to-use GUI ofSANWatch, users can non-disruptively execute and even automate data protection

for mission-critical applications such as Microsoft SQL, Microsoft Exchange and

Oracle database. With the multiple levels of protection, valuable data sets can

remain intact no matter physical or logical errors happen. Among EonStor DS

FC-host series, the models based on Infortrend latest ASIC further come with

CacheSafe technology. During a power outage, the technology can ensure the

integrity of cached data by writing them into the flash module for permanent

retention.

EonStor DS for Server Virtualization

Server virtualization is a technology to abstract server resources from the physical

machine so that the resources can be shared among multiple virtual machines

hosting different OS and applications on a single server. VMware and Microsoft

Hyper-V are key providers of server virtualization technology.


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Figure 5. Server Virtualization

Server Virtualization Benefits

Through server virtualization, users are allowed to more flexibly allocate server

resources for applications and in turn better utilize the computational power andcapacity. Along with the decreasing number of required physical servers, users enjoy

significant benefits of smaller energy footprint and easier management. These

benefits have made server virtualization prevalent in companies of all sizes to drive IT

consolidation.


EonStor DS Fibre-host and iSCSI-host series are both tested compatible with

VMware environment. The compatibility test in Hyper-V and Citrix environment will

also be soon completed in 2010 Q3. Besides compatibility, EonStor DS storage

systems are also designed to deal with the challenges server virtualization causes on

storage infrastructure. According to a survey done by Taneja Group in 2009, the main

storage problems induced by introducing server virtualization technology into

datacenters are capacity management, scalability, complicated data protection tasks

and difficult troubleshooting. Supporting non-disruptive LUN expansion, EonStor DS

allows users to scale the data volume as needed. To further simplify capacity

management, EonStor DS will soon support thin provisioning technology at the end of

June. Just-in-time capacity allocation realized by thin provisioning technology can

also ensure optimized space utilization. When applications capacity demands

exceed what a single storage system can afford, users can scale the Fibre-host


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models up to 112 drives and the iSCSI-host models up to 80 drives through

expansion enclosures. With snapshot and volume copy/mirror features, the virtual

machines stored in EonStor DS storage systems can be soundly protected from

storage accidents. Moreover, coming with multiple monitoring methods, including

component LEDs, buzzers, event notifications, diagnostic reports and event logs,

EonStor DS can help users effectively perform error-handling, whether proactive or

reactive.

EonStor DS for Green Datacenters

Green IT has been a hot topic in recent years. Businesses are working to make their

datacenters green not only for concerns of environmental sustainability but to complywith regulations and increase corporate reputation. Considering green initiatives in

light of business benefits, they are especially important in helping businesses reduce

energy bills. The first step companies can take to green their datacenters is using

devices with lower energy consumption and cooling requirements. If companies

would like to implement Green IT in a more fundamental and effective way, they

should further perform IT consolidation with the help of virtualization technology.

According to VMware, for every server virtualized, customers can save about 7,000

kilowatt hours, or four tons of CO2 emissions, each year.


EonStor DS Fibre-series is the ideal storage to support green datacenters since they

come with the most comprehensive green designs. The ESDS B12F storage systems

support 2.5-inch drives and consume 30% to 40% less energy than their counterparts

supporting 3-5inch drives. They also generate less heat and therefore demand lower

cooling requirements. To further reduce drive power consumption, the EonStor DS

storage systems also support smart drive spin-down. Based on user-configurable

policies, drives will automatically enter idle or spin-down mode if no I/O activity

happens after a pre-set period of time. The technology has been proven able to save

up to 65% of storage power consumption. To make the storage systems even more

energy-efficient, Infortrend also bases some models from the EonStor DS Fibre-host

series on power supplies delivering more than 85% energy efficiency. Supported by

the 80 PLUS-Silver certified power supplies, the EonStor DS storage systems can

deliver best-in-class energy efficiency. By integrating these energy-efficient storage

systems into virtualized environment, companies will be able to carry out green

initiatives without sacrificing necessary capacity and performance.


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Copyright 2010 Infortrend Technology, Inc. All rights reserved. Infortrend, ESVA, EonStor and EonPath are trademarks or registered trademarks of

Infortrend. All other marks and names mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective owners. The information contained herein is subject tochange without notice. The content provided as is, without express or implied warranties of any kind.

EonSto r DS Sto rag e Solutions in Data c en te rs

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EonStor DS Solutions in Data Center