Clustered volume manager enables administrators to centrally configure and assign storage assets in a SAN storage environment in Microsoft System Management Server 2003 and Microsoft Operations Manager 2005 environments.
Using Sanbolic's LaScala Cluster Volume Manager toCentrally Manage SAN Storage Configuration andAssignment for Microsoft Windows Servers
SANBOLIC WHITE PAPER
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OverviewMicrosoft System Management Server 2003 and Microsoft Operations Manager 2005 have provided administratorswith tools to centrally manage and monitor Windows Client and Server Infrastructure. Sanbolic's LaScala clusteredvolume manager and related software products provide a complementary tool kit which enables administrators tocentrally configure and assign storage assets in a SAN storage environment.
As a clustered volume manager designed for shared storage environments, LaScala allows multiple servers to haveaccess to one or multiple large shared partitions on an iSCSI or Fibre Channel storage array. Storage LUN(s) can beconfigured into mountable volumes using LaScala volume manager on each host server. Access to the volumes isassigned using native Windows security (ACL) and the native Windows security interface. By using LaScala Disto, anyoperation available on LaScala can also be performed remotely for any server.
LaScala supports Active Directory, so that multiple nodes and accounts can be provisioned centrally. In ActiveDirectory environments, user accounts have consistent access rights to a volume from any physical server. A user canlog into any physical machine, and the volumes for which the user has access rights will be mounted. This functionalityremoves the current limitations of SAN storage, where a LUN is assigned to a specific HBA and a specific server at alltimes, and storage reassignment requires proprietary array-based management tools.
Sanbolic's SILM - Simple Information Lifecycle Manager provides policy-based copies or migrations of files amongany of the volumes within the storage infrastructure. As an example, SILM could migrate infrequently used files fromFibre Channel to SATA storage, or copy files that have recently been accessed to a secondary location.
LaScala, LaScala Disto and SILM are fully WMI compliant, and can easily be incorporated in existing managementscreens. Sanbolic's products provide Windows administrators with new ability to centrally manage and assign andprovision storage resources in large, dynamic data center environments.
BackgroundFibre Channel or iSCSI storage is becoming increasingly pervasive in data centers deploying applications on MicrosoftWindows Server platforms. With the recent launch of Microsoft's Storage Server 2003 R2 with an embedded iSCSItarget, many more applications servers are likely to utilize block iSCSI storage.
Block storage access provides important performance advantages for many applications, but it often addsadministrative complexity. Typically the storage pool on an ISCSI or Fibre Channel storage array must be partitionedinto multiple virtual disks or LUNs. Each server must be assigned unique access to a virtual disk or LUN, which is thenmanaged with a local volume manager and file system.
Although the storage array is typically shared via the SAN fabric, each partition becomes part of a storage-server-application silo. These silos are typically fairly cumbersome to resize or reassign, and often requires the administratorto use separate GUIs for the storage, storage switch, and server. In environments utilizing heterogeneous storage arrays,the administrator may need to learn a separate management platform for each piece of hardware.
LaScala is designed to allow users to elevate the configuration and assignment of storage to the host level (and LaScalaDisto to a central or remote GUI), greatly simplifying the management of storage resources and providing flexibility todynamically expand or reassign storage as needed.
LaScala Clustered Volume ManagerLaScala is a symmetrical clustered volume manager designed specifically for SAN storage. It installs on each SAN-attached Windows server in a few minutes. LaScala utilizes the same industry proven transaction management,distributed locking, and clustering technology as Sanbolic's Melio clustered file system, and is designed to work inconjunction with Windows NTFS or with Melio FS. Once installed, LaScala provides an intuitive tool for centrallymanaging a large storage pool, while coexisting with the native volume manager.Copyright 2006 Sanbolic Inc.sanbolic white paper
LaScala can aggregate both the bandwidth and th... [download for more]
