A quick introduction to SANs and Panasas ActivStor Kevin Haines, eScience Centre, STFC, RAL.

A quick introduction to SANs and Panasas ActivStor

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.

It’s like a LAN...

SAN Topology

Host/HBA 1

Host/HBA 2

Host/HBA 3

Storage 1

SAN Switch

Storage 2

Storage 1

SAN Switch

Storage 2

Host/HBA 1

Host/HBA 2

Host/HBA 3

It’s like a LAN... it has a switch...

SAN Topology

Storage 1

SAN Switch

Storage 2

Host/HBA 1

Host/HBA 2

Host/HBA 3

It’s like a LAN... it has a switch, and network cards.

SAN Topology

Storage 1

SAN Switch

Storage 2

Host/HBA 1

Host/HBA 2

Host/HBA 3

It’s like a LAN... it has a switch, and network cards.

SAN Topology

It’s like a LAN...but a little different.

SAN Topology

Storage 1

SAN Switch

Storage 2

Host/HBA 1

Host/HBA 2

Host/HBA 3

Fibre Connectors 2/4/8Gb/s

WWNs

Initiators Targets

Zoning implemented by the switch

Controlling Access

Zone 1 = HBA1 + Storage1Zone 2 = HBA2 + HBA3 + Storage 2

Storage 1

SAN Switch

Storage 2

Host/HBA 1

Host/HBA 2

Host/HBA 3

LD3

LD2

LUN masking on the storage array

Controlling Access

Zone 1 = HBA1 + Storage1Zone 2 = HBA2 + HBA3 + Storage 2

Storage 1

SAN Switch

LD1

Host/HBA 1

Host/HBA 2

Host/HBA 3

HBA2

HBA2

HBA3

LD3

LD2

LUN masking on the storage array

Controlling Access

Zone 1 = HBA1 + Storage1Zone 2 = HBA2 + HBA3 + Storage 2

Storage 1

LD1

Host/HBA 1

Host/HBA 2

Host/HBA 3

HBA2

HBA2

HBA3 SAN Switch

HOST

Multipath

Increasing Resilience

Storage 1

SAN Switch 1HBA 1

SAN Switch 2HBA 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)