A quick introduction to SANs and Panasas ActivStor

STORAGE NETWORKING
Kevin Haines, eScience Centre, STFC, RAL

WikiPedia defines a SAN:

A storage area network (SAN) is an architecture to attach remote computer storage devices (such as disk arrays, tape libraries, and optical jukeboxes) to servers in such a way that the devices appear as locally attached to the operating system.

SAN Topology
Its like a LAN...

Host/HBA 1 Storage 1 Host/HBA 2 Storage 2 Host/HBA 3 SAN Switch

SAN Topology
Its like a LAN... it has a switch...

Host/HBA 1 Storage 1 Host/HBA 2 Storage 2 Host/HBA 3 SAN Switch

SAN Topology
Its like a LAN... it has a switch, and network cards.

Host/HBA 1 Storage 1 Host/HBA 2 Storage 2 Host/HBA 3 SAN Switch

SAN Topology
Its like a LAN... it has a switch, and network cards.

Host/HBA 1 Storage 1 Host/HBA 2 Storage 2 Host/HBA 3 SAN Switch

SAN Topology
Its like a LAN...but a little different.
Fibre Connectors 2/4/8Gb/s Host/HBA 1 Storage 1 Host/HBA 2 Storage 2 Host/HBA 3 Initiators SAN Switch WWNs Targets

Controlling Access
Zoning implemented by the switch

Host/HBA 1 Storage 1 Host/HBA 2 Storage 2 Host/HBA 3 SAN Switch Zone 1 = HBA1 + Storage1 Zone 2 = HBA2 + HBA3 + Storage 2

Controlling Access
LUN masking on the storage array

Host/HBA 1 Storage 1 Host/HBA 2

LD1
Host/HBA 3 SAN Switch Zone 1 = HBA1 + Storage1 Zone 2 = HBA2 + HBA3 + Storage 2 LD2 LD3

HBA2 HBA2 HBA3

Controlling Access
LUN masking on the storage array

Host/HBA 1 Storage 1 Host/HBA 2

LD1
Host/HBA 3 SAN Switch Zone 1 = HBA1 + Storage1 Zone 2 = HBA2 + HBA3 + Storage 2 LD2 LD3

HBA2 HBA2 HBA3

Increasing Resilience
Multipath

HBA 1 HOST HBA 2

SAN Switch 1 Storage 1 SAN Switch 2

Questions about SANs?

Panasas ActivStor

Panasas ActivStor

Panasas ActivStor

Director Blades Meta-data and volume management services NFS access gateway

Panasas ActivStor

Storage Blades Two disks (up to 2TB per blade) 2xGb/s ethernet (failover mode) 11 per shelf (must be managed by DB)

Panasas ActivStor Resilience

Data is striped across all Storage Blades (RAID5 or RAID1) One or more Storage Blades worth of space reserved for failures System monitoring for pre-emptive actions (Blade Drain) Two or more Director Blades can provide failover for each other

Panasas ActivStor Performance

DirectFLOW clients
Available for most major Linux distributions Directly communicates with Storage Blades

RAID computations performed by client

~5000 supported (12000 option)

Panasas ActivStor Performance

DirectFLOW clients
Available for most major Linux distributions Directly communicates with Storage Blades

RAID computations performed by client

~5000 supported (12000 option)

Results show scalable claim is true

RAL: 1.2 GB/s from 22 nodes (2 shelves)
RoadRunner: 60GB/s (103 shelves)