The demands on Storage Area Networks (SANs) go far beyond where they were only a few years ago. It is no longer good enough to just provide a large pool of scalable storage with good performance.
AWestWorld Productions, Inc. PublicationMARCH/APRIL 2006 VOLUME XXVI Number 2 www.wwpi.com
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ComputerTechnologyReview
TECHNOLOGY SOLUTIONS FOR SYSTEMS INTEGRATORS, VARS & OEMS
Enabling Cost Effective
Global Enterprise Storage Area Networks
Using 10 Gigabit Ethernet
Leonid Grossman, Neterion, Inc. disaster recovery capabilities, and 10 GbE iSCSI Full Error Recovery enables traffic to be consistentlyand Nicholas Bellinger, SBE, Inc. accomplish it without breaking the And Distance Advantages classified, prioritized, and queuedbank. The five key factors defining The completion of the entire iSCSI at line rate speedshe demands on Storage Area today's metrics for a successful, protocol, as defined by IETF RFCNetworks (SANs) go far global, enterprise SAN deploy- 3720, provides the full error recov- 10 GbE coexists natively withbeyond where they were only ment are cost: bandwidth, reach, ery features as required by storage currently deployed 1 GbE infra-Ta few years ago. It is no longer latency, and ease-of-access. managers. These enhancements structures.good enough to just provide a large While Fibre Channel (FC) has sat- ensure robust and highly-available Furthermore, 10 GbE iSCSI SANspool of scalable storage with good isfied the early demands for SANs, system operation across geograph- are not subject to distance limita-performance. Corporate users the evolution of the Internet Small ically diverse enterprise networks. tions like FC-based SANs. Fibrerequire easy and rapid access to Computer Systems Interface The maturity and robustness of Channel was designed as a cam-data that may be globally distrib- (iSCSI) and 10 Gigabit Ethernet iSCSI with Error Recovery Level 2 pus-wide network, not to exceeduted. IT managers must deliver on (GbE) from Neterion have enabled (ERL 2) support, combined with 100 miles, and because of its sen-these requirements; ensure rapid a compelling alternative for build- the throughput, distance, and econ- sitivity to delay; there are manying Global SANs. omy of scale advantages of issues with supporting it overNeterion's Xframe 10 GbE solu- WANs. These limitations nega-tions, present a complete frame- tively impact network costs mak-Target work for deploying globally dis- ing it very difficult to cost-effec-AMD Opteron 4-way 2GHz system persed, ubiquitous, enterprise tively provide global access to aLinux 2.6.9 Pyx Technologies Target iSCSIRAM drive1 Neterion Xframe 10GbE Adapter SANs. The key points are: FC SAN.RAM drive2 Ethernet offers seamless inte- Total Cost of OwnershipRAM drive3 gration with the LAN, MAN, and AdvantagesWAN, enabling native sharing of Calculating TCO for a SANdata anywhere in the world. requires evaluation of more than10 Gigabit Ethernet Switch just initial hardware costs. AllForce 10 Terascale Ethernet is based on well- costs including initial capitalproven protocols, management expenditures, maintenance fees,tools, with a wealth of trained systems integration and manage-experts worldwide. ment, ongoing support, physicalspace, port density, power, cool-SCSI dev1 SCSI dev2 SCSI dev3 10 GbE continues to benefit ing, upgrades along with soft costsInitiator 1 Initiator 2 Initiator 3 from emerging Ethernet advance- (e.g., slow network performancements, such as hardware-based and downtime due to overloading)iWARP support (RDMA over must be considered. There are2 AMD Opteron 2-way 1.8GHz systems, and 1 Intel Itanium 2 GHz system TCP/IP) that further optimizes per- always costs with deployingLinux 2.6.9 Pyx Technologies Initiator iSCSI software. Neterion Xframe 10 GbE Adapters formance and reduce CPU utiliza- SANs, but the real differences aretion. the costs of staffing, training, andmanaging a FC SAN versus iSCSI.Figure 1: This test setup was used to benchmark iSCSI performance. True QoS functionality Because Ethernet is already wide-spread in the data center, the incre- $250,000 with management costsmental management costs with 10 to less than $56,500. For global 8000GbE iSCSI are negligible in com- SANs, the cost savings of this con- 7,370 7,500parison. Additionally, the simplifi- solidation with 10 GbE iSCSI ver- 6,9007000cation stemming from a converged sus FC can be tremendous. 6,374 6,460Ethernet network res... [download for more]
