NEWSLETTER - NOT ALL ISCSI SOLUTIONS ARE EQUAL
Managing data storage and reducing its administrative costs are an increasingly complex problem that all sizes of business face. Today, most organisations have storage directly connected to individual servers. This method of direct attached storage (DAS) is expensive, difficult to grow, and limited in management capabilities, especially as servers increase in numbers.
Storage area networks (SANs) can offer a solution for many storage management challenges as they can consolidate storage for many servers into one, centrally-managed resource. Up until 2003 Fibre Channel (FC) was the only means of implementing a SAN. This involved significant initial investment as well as ongoing costs and coupled with the attendant administrative and management complexities rendered it an unrealistic option to all but the largest organisations.
However, 2003 saw the arrival of Ethernet-based SANs and the iSCSI standard changed the SAN environment making the benefits of consolidated storage available to organisations of all sizes. By combining the simplicity of Ethernet networks with the advanced storage features that important applications require, iSCSI SANs deliver simplified storage management and consolidation at a reasonable price.
The key to controlling costs and increasing storage management can be found in a SAN solution that couples best-of breed consolidation and virtualisation methods with iSCSI connectivity. Storage consolidation expands device connectivity and reduces points of management, while virtualisation delivers a centralised, flexible method of management that masks the complexity of storage infrastructures and reduces administrative overhead.
What to look for in a SAN
Now there are many types and size of iSCSI solution available all with different features and capabilities. So how do you know which is the right solution for you? A recent article in the US-based Computer Technology review outlined what a high quality SAN solution should offer:
- Scalable, highly available pool of storage
- Storage allocation and resizing on demand
- Centralised management with easy-to-use interfaces and remote access
- Security that protects logical volumes from unauthorised access
- Automatic load balancing for performance optimisation
- Snapshot and replication functionality
- Host-platform independence
- High-performance, multi-path host access
This means that IT managers must design a storage strategy that couples cost considerations with overall system management and longer-term objectives. Using an iSCSI SAN can be an effective method for implementing such a storage strategy, but it is important to recognise that not all storage devices with iSCSI connectivity are created equal.
Evaluating the SAN's methods of consolidation and virtualisation is critical to finding a solution that delivers the management capabilities needed to lower the total cost of ownership, increase storage utilisation, streamline system administration, and lay the groundwork for the virtual data centre.
Affordable data storage solution
Nviron have partnered with leading provider EqualLogic to enable us to deliver affordable, intelligent and easy to manage solutions for data storage consolidation. An EqualLogic iSCSI SAN brings the benefits of storage consolidation to all data.
Their fully redundant solutions enable organisations to leverage centralised storage to gain simpler management, data sharing and improved availability. A single pool of storage makes allocating volumes easier and improves backup and disaster recovery.
You can grow on demand as your needs change and gain better performance through the unique architecture, which automatically load balances across multiple arrays, disks, and ports. Built-in intelligence delivers the highest levels of performance, scalability and availability.
EqualLogic supports the following Host vendors for consolidation:
- Apple Computer Inc.
- Hewlett-Packard Company (HP)
- IBM Corporation
- Microsoft Corporation
- Novell Inc.
- Red Hat
- Sun Microsystems Inc.
- VMware
To find out more about how an iSCSI SAN can help your organisation cope with growing data storage requirements, please contact us on 01928 809000
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