A quick introduction to SANs and Panasas ActivStor
Kevin Haines, eScience Centre, STFC, RAL
WikiPedia defines a SAN:
A storage area network (SAN) is an architecture to attach remote computer storage devices (such as disk arrays, tape libraries, and optical jukeboxes) to servers in such a way that the devices appear as locally attached to the operating system.
It’s like a LAN...
SAN Topology
Host/HBA 1
Host/HBA 2
Host/HBA 3
Storage 1
SAN Switch
Storage 2
Storage 1
SAN Switch
Storage 2
Host/HBA 1
Host/HBA 2
Host/HBA 3
It’s like a LAN... it has a switch...
SAN Topology
Storage 1
SAN Switch
Storage 2
Host/HBA 1
Host/HBA 2
Host/HBA 3
It’s like a LAN... it has a switch, and network cards.
SAN Topology
Storage 1
SAN Switch
Storage 2
Host/HBA 1
Host/HBA 2
Host/HBA 3
It’s like a LAN... it has a switch, and network cards.
SAN Topology
It’s like a LAN...but a little different.
SAN Topology
Storage 1
SAN Switch
Storage 2
Host/HBA 1
Host/HBA 2
Host/HBA 3
Fibre Connectors 2/4/8Gb/s
WWNs
Initiators Targets
Zoning implemented by the switch
Controlling Access
Zone 1 = HBA1 + Storage1Zone 2 = HBA2 + HBA3 + Storage 2
Storage 1
SAN Switch
Storage 2
Host/HBA 1
Host/HBA 2
Host/HBA 3
LD3
LD2
LUN masking on the storage array
Controlling Access
Zone 1 = HBA1 + Storage1Zone 2 = HBA2 + HBA3 + Storage 2
Storage 1
SAN Switch
LD1
Host/HBA 1
Host/HBA 2
Host/HBA 3
HBA2
HBA2
HBA3
LD3
LD2
LUN masking on the storage array
Controlling Access
Zone 1 = HBA1 + Storage1Zone 2 = HBA2 + HBA3 + Storage 2
Storage 1
LD1
Host/HBA 1
Host/HBA 2
Host/HBA 3
HBA2
HBA2
HBA3 SAN Switch
HOST
Multipath
Increasing Resilience
Storage 1
SAN Switch 1HBA 1
SAN Switch 2HBA 2
Questions about SANs?
Panasas ActivStor
Panasas ActivStor
Panasas ActivStor
•Director Blades•Meta-data and volume management services•NFS access gateway
Panasas ActivStor
•Storage Blades• Two disks (up to 2TB per blade)•2xGb/s ethernet (failover mode)•11 per shelf (must be managed by DB)
Panasas ActivStor Resilience
•Data is striped across all Storage Blades (RAID5 or RAID1)•One or more Storage Blades’ worth of space reserved for failures•System monitoring for pre-emptive actions (Blade Drain)•Two or more Director Blades can provide failover for each other
Panasas ActivStor Performance DirectFLOW clients
Available for most major Linux distributions
Directly communicates with Storage Blades
RAID computations performed by client ~5000 supported (12000 option)
Panasas ActivStor Performance DirectFLOW clients
Available for most major Linux distributions
Directly communicates with Storage Blades
RAID computations performed by client ~5000 supported (12000 option)
Results show scalable claim is true RAL: 1.2 GB/s from 22 nodes (2 shelves) RoadRunner: 60GB/s (103 shelves)
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