The architecture of computer hardware and system software provides the right amount of technical detail needed to succeed in the field. Auspex storage architecture guide is designed to help ceos, cios and network administrators understand these architectures and. That device operates as a nas server with its own file system, handling the file io and enabling file sharing and centralized data management. Cdbs to scsi storage devices targets on remote servers. System unit central processing unit the most important component of any electronic computer is the central processing unit. A storagearea network san is a dedicated highspeed network or subnetwork that interconnects and presents shared pools of storage devices to multiple servers. Vmware contents vmware san system design and deployment guide iii table of contents. A storage area network san is a specialized, highspeed network that provides blocklevel network access to storage. Introduction to the platform abstract this white paper provides an overview of the dell emc unity platform.
Avm organizes volumes into storage pools that can be allocated to file systems. Mar 29, 2018 the storage area network combines an array of storage devices and enables faster communication. The san fabric ensures a highly reliable, low latency delivery of traffic among the peers. Nova is architected to avoid inherent proprietary hardware or software requirements and with the ability to integrate with existing systems and thirdparty technologies. Unlike traditional fibre channel, which requires special. The openstack compute service nova architecture is designed to scale horizontally on standard hardware.
Tcr spalding 2224762 chapter because each operates independently and interdependently with the storage area network they participate in. At the beginning of my career, it is a challenge to me to understand a lot of technologies and how they work together without a systematical guideline. Transfer of data between storage devices, such as for backup, happens behind the servers and is meant to be transparent. Fibre channel fc is the predominant architecture on which most san implementations are built.
As stated previously, fibre channel is the predominant architecture upon. Short for storage area network, san is a highspeed network of storage devices that also connects those storage devices with servers. These san and nas systems involved custom hardware, custom switching, and a certified engineering staff to operate the equipment. Software part sans operate within a separate set of software called a fabric.
Pdf this chapter describes fundamentals of storage area networks sans, their. San connectivity consists of hardware and software components that interconnect storage devices and. Peripheral devices are hardware used for input, auxiliary storage, display, and communication. Today, bits stored online on magnetic disks are so. A software and hardware architecture for a highavailability pacs. Additionally, you have a choice of enabling crossregion replication on each amazon s3 bucket. A crash course in storage area networking part 2 a crash course in storage area networking part 3 a crash course in storage area networking part 4. Reference architecture for lenovo storage v series. The former uses file level storage and the latter uses block level storage. An san makes a network of storage devices accessible to multiple servers.
For environments with a large number of client devices, the thinclient architecture provides high scalability, with a lower total cost of ownership. This pmcsierra white paper provides an architectural overview of storage. Hardware thinclients are generally inexpensive, with a small footprint and low power consumption. These are attached to the system unit through a hardware interface that carries digital data to and from main memory and processors.
Hardware and software specificationdescribes the hardware software components in detail to aid those responsible for purchasing those products. Laros iii, sandia national laboratories usa 1 abstractthis paper provides a very high level overview of a software and hardware architecture for a reliability availability and serviceability system. In the classical form, network backup systems move the data to be backed up via the lan. We train engineers on all aspects of hardware design. Access hardware is the exclusive manufacturer and distributor of the smart touch and smart grip access controlegress devices. Nas devices access files using a remote protocol, such as smb or nfs. Keep in mind that software components can also be described in the sdl. The storage area network combines an array of storage devices and enables faster communication.
These two technology shifts have produced three mutually coexistent methods for connecting storage to computing platforms. Vmware testing, however, has shown that view with virtual san can. As server vendors have implemented a variety of specialized hardware and software. San devices appear to servers as attached drives, eliminating traditional network bottlenecks. Access architectural hardware premium quality architectural. For users, it is increasingly worthwhile to investigate networked storage core and emerging technologies. From a server application and os standpoint, there is no visible difference between accessing data in a san or. I felt the entry barriers of data center technologies is high. The benefit that comes with the higher layer abstraction in nas is. The most commonly implemented storage architecture for sas software in a distributed environment is a clustered or shared file system cfs. A software and hardware architecture for a modular, portable. Get in touch with our team of electronic system design experts to find out how we can help you define the appropriate hardware design, hardware architecture, or system architecture for your product. Sans are typically composed of hosts, switches, storage elements, and storage devices that are interconnected using a variety of technologies, topologies, and protocols.
Some san products have made the transition from fibre channel to the same ipbased approach that nas devices use. If you would like to read the other parts in this article series please go to. Oct 22, 2019 nas is a method of remote file serving. The hypervisor virtualizes processors and memory and provides mechanisms for the virtualization stack in the root partition to manage child partitions virtual machines and expose services such as io devices to the virtual machines. Jun 12, 2012 in part 2 of this series, i will begin discussing the hardware that is used in a san.
Brief introduction of data center technologies codeproject. San connectivity comprises all sorts of hardware and software components that. This chapter describes fundamentals of storage area networks sans, their architectural elements interfaces, interconnects, and fabrics, technologies fibrechannelarbitrated loop transport protocol, brocades configurations, infiniband switchedfabric architecture, crossroad systems with a storage router, virtual interface architecture, direct. A lun is a range of blocks provisioned from a pool of shared storage and presented to the server as a logical disk. Reference architecture for lenovo storage v series solution for sap hana describes sap hana tdi setup on on lenovo storage v series san systems includes operating system setup and tuning provides details about sizing, configuration and storage layout lists the recommended hardware and software components levente szente trick hartman. A storage area network san or storage network is a computer network which provides access to consolidated, blocklevel data storage. It focuses on the unified block and file, file only, or block only storage solution including host connectivity options and 6 gbserial attached scsi sas backend.
The server partitions and formats those blockstypically with a file systemso that it can store data. A san is a network designed to attach storage hardware and software to servers. The course material presumes that a student can perform the following tasks with no assistance or. Networkattached storage nas is a file level storage architecture that makes stored data more accessible to networked devices.
Reference architecture for lenovo storage v series solution. In a san, a storage device is not the exclusive property of any one server. Computer architecture and hardware operation 176 chapter 6 the little man computer 178. San architecture and hardware devices network backup systems can back up heterogeneous it environments incorporating several thousands of computers largely automatically. Given that consideration, we can discuss and consider the major components of a storage area network and resulting architecture. A san connects servers to storage in a network hardware fabric, usually through a switch that enables many servers to easily access the storage. Although a highend nas will cost more than an entrylevel san, in general nas is less expensive to purchase and maintain. Covers instruction about processors, internal functions, peripheral devices, computer organization, memory management, architecture, instruction format, and basic os architecture. This reference architecture shows 400 desktops running on four vmware esxi hosts. A storage area network san is a dedicated highspeed network or subnetwork that interconnects and presents shared pools of storage devices to multiple servers. Introduction to storage technologies and terminology. Nas is specialized for serving files either by its hardware, software, or configuration. Hyperv features a type 1 hypervisorbased architecture.
Vnx series architectural overview 8vnx series architectural overview 888 file only hardware. Storage area network architectures technology white. The network and file system location also defines the storage architecture. San protocols promises san like devices on ethernet network hardware. Vmware horizon with view and virtual san reference architecture. There is another key difference between data storage on a server or nas box, and how data is stored in a san. Describe the vsan architecture identify vsan features and use cases. A san presents shared pools of storage devices to multiple servers.
A san is a specialized highspeed network of storage devices and switches connected to computer systems. Administrative costs also figure into the equation. Today, its cheaper to get that much capacity from your favorite server vendorplus, you get to use that server for compute as well. High availability is also built into the hpe 3par architecture through ful l hardware redundancy. Background vps are given shared access to hardware devices when the foreground vp does not require exclusive access. Vnx series architectural overview 9vnx series architectural overview 999. As the abstraction of storage resources is provided at the block level, the. Best practices for data sharing in a grid distributed sas. San storage devices can include tape libraries and diskbased devices, like raid hardware. San system design and deployment guide second edition latest revision.
A san is blockbased storage, leveraging a highspeed architecture that connects servers to their logical disk units luns. Sans are primarily used to enhance accessibility of storage devices, such as disk arrays and tape libraries, to servers so that the devices appear to the operating system as locallyattached devices. The foreground vp is always given direct access to hardware devices. Converged network adapter cnahost adapter that allows a. A software and hardware architecture for a modular, portable, extensible reliability availability and serviceability system james h. A storage area network san is a secure highspeed data transfer network that provides access to consolidated blocklevel storage. A hardware architecture generally includes some form of analog, digital, or hybrid electronic computer, along with electronic and mechanical sensors and actuators. A hardware architecture generally includes some form of analog, digital, or hybrid electronic computer, along with. Nas devices are considered appliances and have fewer hardware and software management components than a storage area network. The virtual san storage platform for desktop workloads allows the solution to scale linearly, with each host capable of supporting approximately 100 users per host. Introduction to storage area networks ibm redbooks. Apr, 2020 some san products have made the transition from fibre channel to the same ipbased approach that nas devices use. Alternatively, the increasing specialization of nas systems may embed much of the file system into storage devices. Storage administration experience on block or file storage devices understanding of concepts presented in the vmware vsphere.
Pdf storage area networks fundamentals researchgate. Assign the software components of the information system to the hardware devices of the system in the most advantageous way. To integrate all components of the san, you must meet the vendors hardware and software. It is a storage area network san protocol, allowing organizations to consolidate storage into data center storage arrays while providing hosts such as database and web servers with the illusion of locallyattached disks. Vnx series architectural overview 6vnx series architectural overview 666 properties. Amazon web services aws storage services overview page 5 missioncritical data. This course introduces the vnx series architecture. A software and hardware architecture for a modular, portable, extensible reliability. An information technology approach, 5th edition pdf. Explain the management of hardware storage devices identify alarms for vsan events.
Ras hardware and software architecture the toplevel node depicted in red is the primary admin. This 2 tier design offers supreme performance to vms while ensuring that devices can have data written to them in the most efficient way possible. San protocols promises sanlike devices on ethernet network hardware. In fact, the term direct attached storage didnt come into use until much later when people needed a way to differentiate between traditional storage and san and nas devices. This white paper refers to the computer systems as servers or hosts. Nas network attached storage offers file level storage for end users that are connected to a network. A hardware architecture, then, is an abstract representation of an electronic or an electromechanical device capable of running a fixed or changeable program. Also, with the rapid improvements in disk storage technology, nas devices now offer capacities and performance that once were only possible with san.
Networkattached storage nas is a file level as opposed to blocklevel computer data storage server connected to a computer network providing data access to a heterogeneous group of clients. In this architecture, standard storage devices available from various hardware vendors are shared via san architecture for example. But what is missing is a freshly designed software architecture for storage that can be deployed as software and that can take advantage of the commoditization trends in server. The major architectural components of any system are the software and the hardware.