INFRASTRUCTURE SOLUTIONS - iSCSI SAN STORAGE
Consolidation of storage is now a priority for all medium to large organizations as server numbers grow and demand for greater storage often means servers outgrow their capacity and need to be replaced.
It is often a fact that if the free space on all servers in an organization could be consolidated the resulting free space could cope with growth demands. Installation of a Storage Area Network (SAN) allows that consolidation to take place.
We have known for several years, that the Fibre Channel interface is the ‘Industry Standard’ for Storage Area Networks. However, issues of high costs and difficulties accessing remote devices have often raised the question of ‘is there a better solution?’
Well now there is and it is often referred to as iSCSI, the Internet Small Computer System Interface. Seen as the revolutionary alternative to the Fiber Channel SAN, here are some of the reasons why iSCSI is being embraced:
- iSCSI provides the block-level access and storage I/O intelligence of SCSI, whilst transforming your SCSI storage devices from server-attached to network-attached. This allows for better management, partitioning and allocation to both servers and applications and is therefore much more efficient.
- iSCSI lets you connect a limitless number of storage devices to a SAN, instead of the device limits imposed by SCSI
- Instead of expensive proprietary Fiber Channel (FC) switches and Host Bus Adaptors (HBAs), iSCSI uses industry standard Gigabit components.
- Less training is required as iSCSI is based on the familiar technologies of Ethernet, SCSI and TCP/IP.
- Virtualized storage architectures such as that used by EqualLogic allow additional storage arrays to be added without downtime and without the constraints of the fixed chassis and back planes of traditional FC SAN.
The Nviron Solution
Get the facts! Take advantage of Nviron’s iSCSI Storage Review to assess your storage requirements and provide the solution to your consolidation project. Our comprehensive report identifies the optimum iSCSI storage for your business.
Nviron has added two iSCSI solutions to its Data Centre Advantage framework to meet the differing requirements of Tier 1 and Tier 2 storage:
Tier 1 - Our Business-Critical storage solution is delivered by Dell EqualLogic, a market leading solution in the iSCSI storage sector. With the revolutionary PS series of automated iSCSI SANs providing storage benefiting from data management simplicity and enterprise-class availability, Nviron delivers a much more affordable solution when compared to an equivalent FC SAN at FC SAN levels of performance and reliability.
Tier 2 – If your requirement is Business-Basic storage, then our proven iSCSI solution powered by Dell MD3000 is the logical choice. MD3000 chassis based solution trading virtualised expandability to meet lower cost budgets. The MD3000 solution does not compromise on data integrity allowing key information to be stored with the assurance of RAID and spinning spare disc spindle options. Software options for snapshot and volume cloning are available at additional cost. MD3000 is the ideal choice for Business Basic applications such as archiving and disc-disc backup.
INFRASTRUCTURE OVERVIEW Every organisation needs to be continually mapping new technology solutions to their unique....
SERVER AND DESKTOP VIRTUALISATION Nviron has partnered with VMware – the global leader in virtual infrastructure software....
iSCSI SAN STORAGE Consolidation of storage is now a priority for all medium to large organizations as server....
DATA BACKUP With IT systems now critical to the way businesses operate, the loss of data is usually the one single factor....
MICROSOFT SERVER SOLUTIONS IT is now focussed on ensuring that business requirements are met by delivering secure and manageable solutions...
MESSAGING AND MOBILITY In the modern, competitive business environment, speed of communication is an important factor in ensuring the success of an organisation ....
CITRIX DELIVERY CENTRE AND THIN CLIENT Citrix were the pioneers of centralised application delivery solutions for Windows environments....
SYSTEMS CENTER As hardware and software solutions become more complex to deploy and time-consuming to maintain ....
CONTINUOUS AVAILABILITY Many organisations now have a backup and restore strategy in place. The major problem ....