Track 4: How to build trouble-free large SANs up to thousand(s) of ports

Dragon Slayer ConsultingMarc Staimer, President & CDS marcstaimer@earthlink.net 26 April 2004

Agenda

SAN Definition 2004

Current Large SAN Architectures

Issues w/current architectures

Eliminating SAN Scaling pain

Summary

Dragon Slayer Background

7 yrs sales

7 yrs sales mgt

10 yrs marketing & bus dev

• Storage & SANs

• 6 years consulting

Launched or participated

• 20 products

Paid Consulting

• > 70 vendors

Unpaid Consulting

• > 200 end users

Known Industry Expert

• Speak ~ 5 events/yr

• Write ~ 3 trade

articles/yr

SAN Definition 2004

T he interconnection of multiple server initiators across ahigh speed switched fabric to one or more target storagedevices.

Audience Response

Raise your hand if you now have or plan to have

within 12 months an all-encompassing SAN

infrastructure into the thousands of ports.

Large SAN Architectures

Traditional (a.k.a. Victorian)

Planned/Gated Communities

Urban Sprawl

Audience Response

By a show of hands, what SAN architecture have you

implemented?

1. Core-to-edge

2. Mesh

3. SAN Islands

4. Not sure

Traditional: a.k.a. VictorianMesh

• Switch-switch interconnect

Core-to-edge

• Guaranteed hop count & latency

Dual fabric typical for both

Issues with Traditional Approaches

Change management

Guaranteed bandwidth

Fabric disruption propagation

Change Management

Change “No” management

• Lot of coordination

Servers, storage, SAN, cables & facilities

• Re-architecting

Switch ports have to be reallocated for ISLs

Zones, cabling, and LUN masking must be redone

• Followed up with shakedown & troubleshooting

Sometimes requiring back out of the change

Guaranteed Bandwidth

Lack of user definable QoS

• Some applications have higher priorities than others

Fabric Disruption PropagationFabric disruptions anywhere…

• …propagate throughout the fabric everywhere

• RSCNs

Zone changes, add switches or HBAs

Traditional Approaches have led to Urban Sprawl: a.k.a SAN Islands

IT is dynamic

• Most organizations do not plan well

Minimizes disruption effects of change

• Doesn’t eliminate disruptions

This becomes…

…this

Issues with SAN Islands

Limits SAN benefits

• Storage consolidation limited by island

• Management touches expand

Eliminating SAN Scaling Pain: The Market Requirements

Fabric disruptions

Large fabric latency

• Intra-fabric switch ASIC hops

Database bloat

QoS

Change management

Correlating storage provisioning, SANs, & policies

Troubleshooting

Fabric Disruptions

RSCNs

• Switch, HBA, Zoning

Changes

Market requirement

• < fabric disrupts

Intra-Fabric Switch ASIC hops

Hop number affects latency

• Latency is cumulative

• Affects end user response times

Users demand predictability

• Mesh and/or SAN islands = unpredictable Locality = predictability again

• Core-edge = predictable

Market requirement

• Minimize latency

SAN Database BloatAs fabrics get larger

• FSPF databases get larger…and slower

• Name services get larger…and slower

Market requirement

• Keep databases small

QoS

Policy based bandwidth matching

• Providing each application bandwidth based on

• User defined requirements and thresholds

Market requirement

• Optimize bandwidth

• Not to waste it

Change Management

Market requirements include

• Automation

• Negative impact minimization

• Audit trail

• Change simulation, planning, & validation

• Correlation of LUN maps, zones, pathing policies

• Work plans for all of the departments involved

• Simple, “brain dead” trouble shooting

Correlating Storage Provisioning, SANs, & policies

Efficient storage mgt = < SAN

Market requirements include

• One interface for both storage &and SAN mgt

• Policy based

• Enforcement capable

Troubleshooting

Market requirements include

• Make it brain-dead simple

• Make it quick

• Make it easy AND cheap

Audience ResponseBy a show of hands, which is your worst SAN scaling pain?

1. Fabric disruptions

2. Large fabric latency

3. Database bloat

4. QoS

5. Change management

6. Storage, SANs, policies correlation

7. Troubleshooting

Solutions that Eliminate SAN Scaling Pain

HBA RSCN switch suppression

Automated change mgt software

SAN Masking-a.k.a. SAN routing

SAN segmentation

• Planned communities

QoS

SAM

Troubleshooting tools

HBA RSCN Switch SuppressionStops unimportant HBA RSCN disruptions

• From disrupting other HBAs

• Significantly < zoning requirements

Vendors include

• QLogic

• McDATA RSCNRSCNRSCNRSCN

RSCNRSCN

Automated Change Management Software

Plan Change

Predicts Impact

Implements Change

Validates Change

Logs Change History

Correlates

• Storage & SAN

changes

• LUNs

• Zones

• Pathing Policies

Vendors include

• Onaro

SAN Masking-a.k.a. SAN Routing Analogous to LUN masking

Routes specific data

• Between SAN islands

• Visibility between specific WWNs

Eliminates disruptions

• Between SAN islands

Increases SAN scalability

• > switches from 239 to 57,121

Simplifies management

• Both ongoing & change mgt.

• Heterogeneous SANs

• Address translation (domain & WWN)

• Eliminates ATL forced fabric merges

• Increases availability SAN Fabric C

SAN Fabric BSAN Fabric A

VSA

N 2

VS

AN

1

SAN Masking continued Works over FC

• And IP networks

• iFCP and FCIP

Vendors include

• McDATA

Eclipse/IPS

• Cisco

MDS:VSAN Routing

• Brocade

Multiprotocol Router

• LightSand

8100SAN Fabric C

SAN Fabric BSAN Fabric A

VSA

N 2

VS

AN

1

SAN Segmentation: a.k.a. Planned Communities

Analogous to large storage controller

• Start large & subdivide

One physical fabric

• Many logical ones

Vendors include

• Cisco MDS:VSANs

• McDATA Dynamic Partitioning

• CNT (04)

Quality of Service: QoS SAN throughput allocation

Based on IT priorities

Policy based

Recognizes App performance

• Requirements differ

• OLTP > than data migration, etc.

Vendors include

• SANdial: Shadow 1400 Inter & intra-switch

• Cisco: MDS Intra-switch

• McDATA (04)

• CNT (04)

QoS

OLTP 100MB/s

Migration 25MB/s

Warehouse 35MB/s

Email 30MB/s

System Area Management: SAMSRM + SAN mgt

• Storage Provisioning

• Block & File

• Heterogeneous

• Policy based mgt

• Policy enforcement tools

• One look & feel

App performance mgt

Optimizes ecosystem

Vendors include

• EMC

• Softek

• AppIQ

• HP

• IBM

• Creekpath

• VERITAS

• Storability

• TekTools

• CA

Easier Troubleshooting ToolsSimplified

• Problem isolation

• Problem resolution

• Performance issues

Vendors include

• Cisco

SPAN, rSPAN

• SANdial

Network Performance

Analyzer

How Big Can SANs Grow? Switches

• Currently up to 256 ports

Up to 1024 2H 2004

Fabrics

• Traditional

239 switches

• 239 x 256 = > 61K ports

• Theoretical (new technologies)

239 switch domains

239 switches/domain

256 ports/switch

= > 14M ports

Conclusion

SAN Scaling today is painful

New generation software & hardware

• Provides pain relief

Test & verify

Thank you. Questions?

Mr. Staimer will be available in the

Ask-the-Expert booth in the Exhibit Hall:

Monday 5-6 PM