In talking with customers, one of the biggest areas of discussion is increased storage requirements. This is not just the growing quantity of data that needs to be stored, which is a given, but also the different ways it is being used. Traditional storage conversations have revolved around Windows and NFS shares, planning for usage and growth of shared storage, IOPS performance for application access, and backup time/volume. Storage has traditionally been managed much like SANs, networks and servers in that they have been islands, sized for 1-2 specific applications and the entire size purchased at the outset.
More of our storage conversations these days are taking into account the traditional storage planning, and then are going beyond to talk about the new uses for shared storage that have become mainstream in the last few years. There are costs and downsides to overprovisioning storage and maintaining the single application focus of the storage arrays, and there are definite advantages to storage consolidation and virtualization.
The first one is how to improve performance and utilization of virtualized servers, second is how to take that to the next level with planning for Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI), and the big one is how to convert the current computing and storage systems to support private cloud architecture using a chargeback model.
All of these new capabilities have to be able to scale in size and performance into the future, and be part of a complete offsite backup environment as well.
That is why I am so excited about the NetApp FAS2040 storage system. This is the entry point of the NetApp storage architecture, and it is surprisingly affordable. Now, the major discussion points regarding NetApp tend to revolve around the amazing capabilities of the Data ONTAP software, and rightly so, but at the end of the day the customer has to figure out what box they are going to buy.
So let me tell you some of the things that I like about the FAS2040. First off, it uses the same software as the rest of the NetApp line, including the FAS3100 and enterprise-class FAS6000. That’s very nice because it means no learning curve when growing, but what not everyone knows is that these three different classes of storage devices all use the same disk shelves.
That means that if you start small for current performance requirements with a reasonable budget, and you hit a performance or size limit in the future, that you can actually swap out the FAS2040 for a FAS3100, without any changes to disk shelves or even having to migrate data. If you are running a clustered environment with dual boxes, you can even do this upgrade without downtime!
Just like we have found with all the Unified Communications upgrade that we have done, if there is significant ROI to implementing a new technology, it is much easier to get it funded internally at your organization. VDI is one of those technologies as well, because it lets an organizations change the PC refresh dynamic, and severely curtails desktop support issues. To put it in plain terms, upon implementation of a well planned VDI, a quarter to a third of PC’s won’t need to be replaced every year. As these PC’s die, they can be replaced with small boxes like the Pano Logic device, which basically runs the video and USB devices, and gets driven by the control server that sends out IP-encapsulated PCI commands over the LAN. It has no moving parts, no operating system, no hard discs, and is low cost and high performance.
NetApp storage is the best backend storage for VDI for a few different reasons. First, the virtual PC image can be cloned, with any changes being done with pointers, minimizing additional storage. Second, the Performance Acceleration Module, which is basically a high speed read cache, speeds up the delivery of frequently accessed information (a more complete explanation is here http://www.netapp.com/us/communities/tech-ontap/pam.html). The third reason is that storage requirements are significantly reduced with NetApp’s deduplication of primary storage. All of these capabilities provide high performance while maximizing the usable storage capacity of the installed drives.
Some of the specifics on the FAS2040 are:
- 2 rack units height, with single or dual controllers available.
- With dual controllers, there is a max of 8 GbE and 4 FC ports, and 2 onboard SAS ports.
- 12 internal drives.
- Support 6 external drive shelves, and a total of 136 drives.
Of course, if you need more capabilities right off the bat, the FAS3100 and FAS6000 have quite a bit more performance.
So as you plan ahead for your storage needs, I encourage you to take into account all the different things that your storage system is going to have to do. The FAS2040 is a great starting point for small to mid-size organizations, and it provide room to grow as more demands are placed on the system.
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Author: Rolf Versluis
Adcap Network Systems – Atlanta and Miami
Great Local Engineers Creating Systems that Work!
Posted at Adcap Tech Tips
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Last Updated: June 10th, 2010 |
