White paper about the use of Smart Style Office computing and virtualisation appliances for IP storage purpose.

1. Smart Style Office as iSCSI Target for
Storage Array or Storage Area Network
Zenith Infotech Europe
Published: February 2010
Pages: 8
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2. Contents
Introduction and Definitions .................................................................................................................................. 3
SSO Storage Concept .......................................................................................................................................... 3
iSCSI .................................................................................................................................................................... 3
iSCSI Target ......................................................................................................................................................... 3
Fibre Channel ..................................................................................................................................................... 3
Storage Array...................................................................................................................................................... 3
Software Target .................................................................................................................................................. 4
Logical Unit Number ........................................................................................................................................... 4
Advantages and Disadvantages .............................................................................................................................. 4
Benefits .............................................................................................................................................................. 4
Limitations .......................................................................................................................................................... 4
The Opportunity ..................................................................................................................................................... 4
Use Cases ................................................................................................................................................................ 5
Managing Storage Capacity and Performance in Virtualization......................................................................... 5
Disk-to-Disk and Cloud Backup........................................................................................................................... 5
Remote Data Replication & DR .......................................................................................................................... 5
Thin Provisioning ................................................................................................................................................ 5
Technical Considerations ........................................................................................................................................ 6
Multipathing policies for load balancing and failover ........................................................................................ 6
Support for x64 processors ................................................................................................................................ 6
Support for IPv6 ................................................................................................................................................. 6
Other Technical Considerations ......................................................................................................................... 6
SSO as Storage Area Network ................................................................................................................................. 6
Smart Style Office Technology ........................................................................................................................... 6
Smart Style Office Components ......................................................................................................................... 6
Recommendations ............................................................................................................................................. 7
Other White Papers ................................................................................................................................................ 7
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3. White Paper Introduction
Smart Style Office as iSCSI Target for Storage Array or Storage Area Network
If you want to make use of existing IT network  Flexible volume expansion through cloud
infrastructure expertise to get into storage connectivity and management interface
networking, introducing Smart Style Office (SSO) as  Automatic distribution of data via
iSCSI target is a smart way to go. Since Zenith proprietary BitSpread™
Infotech released SSO in 2011, the adoption of  Optional near-instant offsite backup and
storage over IP in the SMB channel has recovery via MirrorCloud™
significantly grown. That’s because iSCSI offers the  Kernel build-in iSCSI target daemon with
benefits of storage area networks (SANs), starting command line interface
with shared, centralized storage on the SSO
infrastructure, to anyone with network expertise. iSCSI
Abbreviation of Internet Small Computer System
Interface. iSCSI is an Internet Protocol based
Introduction and Definitions storage networking standard for linking data
Within the context of providing simplified storage storage facilities. By carrying SCSI commands over
to your customers, Smart Style Office can be IP networks, iSCSI is used to facilitate data
implemented as storage array with build-in iSCSI transfers over intranets and to manage storage
target. The benefit to centralize storage within an over long distances. iSCSI can be used to transmit
IT infrastructure project for small or large data over local area networks, wide area networks,
customers is about availability, manageability and or the Internet and can enable location-
scalability. independent data storage and retrieval.
SSO Storage Concept iSCSI Target
Within the Smart Style Office concept of The iSCSI specification refers to a storage resource
computing you can easily extend storage resources located on an iSCSI server (more generally, one of
by adding extra nodes to the environment: potentially many instances of iSCSI storage nodes
scalability. Each additional storage node added will running on that server) as a target. An iSCSI target
automatically become part of the cloud storage is often a dedicated network-connected hard disk
architecture and data will spread across the storage device, but may also be a general-purpose
environment using proprietary BitSpread™ computer, since as with initiators, software to
technology. This has the benefit of keeping data provide an iSCSI target is available for most
and storage volumes available at any time, even mainstream operating systems.
when node hardware fails: availability.
Fibre Channel
Last but not least, the cloud management center Fibre Channel, or FC, is a gigabit-speed network
graphical user interface allows for management technology primarily used for storage networking.
and monitoring of activities taking place within the Fibre Channel Protocol (FCP) is a transport
storage node. At any time you can remotely log in protocol which predominantly transports SCSI
the Smart Style Office platform to check system commands over Fibre Channel networks.
health, storage consumption and user activity
levels: manageability. Storage Array
In a data center or enterprise environment, an
The benefits of using SSO as iSCSI target for
iSCSI target often resides in a large storage array,
storage arrays are:
such as a Smart Style Office, AmpliStor, EqualLogic,
NetApp filers, EMC NS-series or a HDS HNAS
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4. computer appliance. A storage array usually Specifically, wrapping SCSI packets around TCP/IP
provides distinct iSCSI targets for numerous protocols has some overhead. It is also difficult to
clients. guarantee the performance of mixed networks.
Software Target
Nearly all modern mainstream server operating The Opportunity
systems (such as BSD, Linux, Solaris or Windows How will IP storage help create and maintain a
Server) can provide iSCSI target functionality, recurring revenue stream for resellers while still
either as a built-in feature or with supplemental being valuable to the customer?
software. There are also specific-purpose
operating systems (such as FreeNAS, Openfiler or Just selling iSCSI target infrastructure for IP storage
FreeSiOS) that implement iSCSI target support. SAN purposes is not enough. The best formula is to
have core competencies in all facets of the
Logical Unit Number network, applications and storage integration
In SCSI terminology, LUN stands for logical unit capabilities when dealing with SMB customers.
number. A LUN represents an individually
The successful reseller can earn recurring revenue
addressable (logical) SCSI device that is part of a
from an IP storage SAN deployments via Smart
physical SCSI device (target). In an iSCSI
Style Office by offering differentiated post-sales
environment, LUNs are essentially numbered disk
support capabilities.
drives.
It is extremely important that trusted resellers
maintain a high-level of training and skill sets to
Advantages and Disadvantages properly understand the relationships between
The dynamics around storage connectivity are the customer's applications and their needs for IP
changing. Fibre Channel has been on the market SAN Storage using Smart Style Office.
for a long time, but iSCSI has matured and is ready
to take a piece of the market, but what are its Knowledgeable network and IP SAN storage
benefits and limitations? integrators will have varying degrees of experience
in network infrastructure, servers, security,
Benefits applications and TCP/IP -- the basic ingredients for
 iSCSI offers cheaper connectivity anyone that wants to be successful in this market.
compared to Fibre Channel SAN ports To that end, a well-rounded network reseller will
 leveraging existing knowledge in make their overall services and skills more valuable
networking, rather than Fibre Channel to the end-users when they can handle most of
infrastructure their IT and storage related needs simultaneously.
 very important advantage is distance
connectivity, no limit as long as there is
networking
 last but not least, iSCSI provides SAN
storage to all kinds of machines, desktops
as high-end
 possibility to mirror data over IP-based
networks using synchronous mirroring of
disk arrays
Limitations
One of the challenges, especially for mission-
critical or performance-sensitive applications, is
that there is higher latency in iSCSI.
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5. Use Cases Disk-to-Disk and Cloud Backup
The deployment of Smart Style Office as IP Storage A common challenge for many organizations is
System has many purposes, but according to our timely and comprehensive data protection and
experience with our resellers the deployment data preservation. IP-based storage using the
takes place in Smart Style Office iSCSI target is a great
complementary technology combined with disk-to-
 Workgroup and file server storage disk data protection, such as disk-to-disk and disk-
 Long-term retention of low-touch data to-disk-to-mirroring (see also Smart Style Office
 Business continuity and disaster recovery Mirror Cloud), along with other approaches to
 Archives and libraries for engineering, protect data locally and remotely. IP-based storage
images, software, and email enables distributed access of storage while
 Temporary capacity for migration, new supporting data movement over distance for
projects, or web workloads remote mirroring, replication, archiving, and
 Engineering, development, and lab electronic vaulting for data backup.
applications
Remote Data Replication & DR
Combine Gigabit Ethernet based IP networks and Remote data replication consists of archiving or
disk storage as part of an IP storage solution to mirroring. Archiving is a commonly used process in
address various business and IT challenges that which data is written to portable media, such as
may include supporting and enabling server or optical disks or magnetic tapes, old school! For
storage consolidation, disk-to-disk backup, and disaster recovery purposes, the disks or tapes are
data or storage sharing among applications: physically transported to an offsite location and
stored, old school!. Mirroring enables two sites to
Managing Storage Capacity and share the same set of data so that either can
Performance in Virtualization continue to operate on that data in the case of a
Most server virtualization projects start out with site outage.
the right amount of capacity, at least to meet
initial demands. The problem comes when the Zenith Infotech offers a disk-to-disk backup and
project becomes successful, and sprawl starts. disaster recovery point solution with remote data
Your customers need ways to manage their replication. This product is called Mirror Cloud and
capacity and make sure that all data growth is has been available since January 2011.
necessary.
Thin Provisioning
Many of our customers haven't had to deal with Thin provisioning provides the ability to purchase a
performance issues until server virtualization and new storage system that has significantly less
its accompanying consolidation of servers. As is overall capacity than the current system and
the case with storage capacity, as Smart Style allows space to be easily allocated to servers, on a
Office provides adequate performance at the start just-enough and just-in-time basis.
of the virtualization project, but as it becomes
successful, performance starts to suffer unless The primary concern with thin provisioning centers
measures to prevent that are put in place. Unlike on over provisioning and what happens if the
capacity, though, performance is a more variable storage administrator actually runs out of storage.
metric; the best practice needs to be more Smart Style Office has built-in tools for monitoring
dynamic. And it's not just physical storage and simplified allocation of new storage systems
performance that needs to be monitored; storage over thin provisioning. When new nodes are
network performance and demands of the attached to the storage area network, the system
connecting hosts also need to be examined. re-distributes data across the new node, increasing
the availability and reducing the resource
SSO has monitoring interfaces included for both overhead, making more usable storage accessible.
capacity and performance management.
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6. Technical Considerations SSO as Storage Area Network
When researching the market for appropriate
storage array hardware and software solution Smart Style Office Technology
supporting iSCSI, you need to consider following Smart Style Office has embedded technology from
the storage software manufacturer Amplidata.
Multipathing policies for load Amplidata has designed a revolutionary approach
balancing and failover to providing alternative storage systems. Rather
In order to thoroughly safeguard your stored than avoiding the weaknesses of RAID through
resources, each path between server and storage workarounds or small enhancements, Amplidata
must be protected. A single link between the two designed a whole new concept of storage which
is also a single point of failure, and if the link goes guarantees ultimate availability across petabyte
down, that server’s access to storage is lost. With scale data sets at lower cost. This technology is
the appropriate software support, such as built into Smart Style Office:
Microsoft iSCSI Software Initiator v2.0, however,
 BitSpread™ encodes data with higher
the administrator can implement a high availability
availability than RAID6 and lower
solution though deployment of multiple paths
overhead than replication.
between servers and storage. Multipahting
 BitLog™ tracks all block data writes to
provides an automatic means of persisting I/O
offer snapshots, clones, rollback and
without error, failing over the workload to a
history on all stored data.
redundant path should one path fail.
 BitDynamics™ manages storage scalability
Support for x64 processors and availability, and performs out-of-band
storage verification and optimization.
The new 64-bit processors provide both 32 and 64-
bit capabilities on the same processor, supporting  Encryption as all data is encoded and
both older 32 bit applications without loss of distributed across disks through the
performance, as well as newer 64 bit applications. BitSpread encoder.
X64 technologies enable faster and more efficient  Caching technology retains the most
application performance, because more data can frequently accessed data blocks across
be preloaded into virtual memory, thereby one or multiple levels of caching to
reducing the time it takes to seek, read, and write maximize read and write performance.
to storage devices. Smart Style Office support x64  Unlimited snapshots as the overhead is
processors. minimized by scrubbing the storage nodes
and the associated logged blocks that can
Support for IPv6 be removed.
Also known as the Next Generation Internet
Protocol, IPv6 is designed to fully interoperate Smart Style Office Components
with the current standard (IPv4), and has been The Smart Style Office Virtual Desktop
architected specifically for Gigabit Ethernet. IPv6 Infrastructure consists of the minimal following
solves many of the problems associated with IPv4, components:
including security issues, autoconfiguration and
 2 x CS414 nodes with quad core CPU AMD
extensibility.
2.7GHz and 28 GB usable memory in total
 Storage capacity of 12 x 1TB secondary
Other Technical Considerations
storage and 4 x 60 GB primary SSD in total
 Authentication
 2 switches for public and private network
 Authorization
 1 x Racktivity device for power monitoring
 Logical network isolation
and environmental control
 Physical network isolation
 Fully racked and cabled with space to
 Confidentiality and integrity
scale with 2 more node in same rack
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7.  Cloud Management Center with extensive Don't "go cheap"
virtual machine controls (start, stop,
snapshot, clone, restart, etc.) and server Consolidation, whether it's servers or storage, can
management tools. increase vulnerability, something that's often lost
in the discussion about the benefits of scaling and
Each node has about 4TB of usable storage flexibility, etc. This is especially true in a virtual
included. The storage system offer high-availability server environment where virtual machine’s
due to the BitSpread technology. Adding additional densities keep increasing and a storage hardware
nodes increases the availability of the system and failure can affect even more applications than it
further reduces the overall resource overhead. did in a physical environment. With Smart Style
Office there is the practice of using commodity
Each node has a iSCSI targets built-in, so each node hardware to reduce storage costs, but care should
can act as storage array within an existing be taken to make sure it's reliable, and scalable,
virtualization project. It is also possible to connect enough for the application.
a separate virtual machine environment to an IP
storage environment build on top of Smart Style Consider scale-out/scale-up
Office.
Consolidated storage that is supporting a dynamic
The system itself can be located at the customer virtualized server environment could be providing
premise and has all remote administration tools storage for dozens of server instances. To scale
included. As long as there is power and IP, remote large enough to handle the expected storage
administrators can access their Smart Style Office growth, node storage solutions are available from
instance and make changes to the configuration, Zenith Infotech (planned Q3 2011). Also called
e.g. allocating more storage, etc. "scale-out" or "scale-up," depending upon their
specific architecture, these systems can grow while
Besides on-premise deployments, Smart Style maintaining performance, something that neither
Office can also be placed at the data center. This technology could do in the past.
requires another view on bandwidth consumption
and security configuration, but the user experience Find out what's on the floor
should be identical compared to a local
deployment. Knowing the Smart Style Office and what OS
platforms are prevalent for virtualization can make
Recommendations your job a lot easier. A total concept solution,
For most organizations, solutions from either a including IP storage and server virtualization, in a
NAS or SAN vendors can be implemented that single platform solution such as Smart Style Office
meet their needs. The real differentiator for Smart will be the path of least resistance. Become a
Style Office IP storage and other storage solutions reseller today or start testing the platform by
in a virtualization environment may be the ordering your evaluation version.
features and functionality of the storage system
itself, not so much whether it's block- or file-
based, and what potential limitations that Other White Papers
technology choice puts on the environment down  Smart Style Office as Virtual Desktop
the road. Infrastructure for Desktop Virtualization
 Smart Style Office as iSCSI Target for
As a reseller, you'll need to spend some time Storay Array and Storage Area Network
understanding the customer's environment and  Smart Style Office as as Application Host
what their future requirements may be. As is the for Multi-Site Small Office Environments
case with every storage decision, there are no easy  Smart Style Office as Wide Area Network
answers. Here's some advice for how to approach Host for Data Center Services
the decision.  Smart Style Office as Server Cluster for
High Availability Workloads
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8. Disclaimer
The information contained in this document
represents the current view of Zenith Infotech
Europe on the issues discussed as of the date of
publication. Because Zenith Infotech Europe must
respond to changing market conditions, it should
not be interpreted to be a commitment on the part
of Zenith Infotech Europe, and Zenith Infotech
Europe cannot guarantee the accuracy of any
information presented after the date of
publication.
This White Paper is for informational purposes
only. Zenith Infotech Europemakes no warranties,
express, implied or statutory, as to the information
in this document.
Complying with all applicable copyright laws is the
responsibility of the user. Without limiting the
rights under copyright, no part of this document
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Microsoft Corporation.
Zenith Infotech Europe may have patents, patent
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intellectual property rights covering subject matter
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Europe, the furnishing of this document does not
give you any license to these patents, trademarks,
copyrights, or other intellectual property.
©2011 Zenith Infotech Europe. All rights reserved.
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