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the Dot hill ADvAntAge:10gb iSCSi networked RAiD Storage

Dot hill: Driving enterprise SAn performance mainstream.

The use of Ethernet-attached storage using the iSCSI protocol has seen continual advance with 15% quarter on

quarter market growth during 2010 according to industry research firm IDC. Included in this growth is demand

driven by entry storage customers with a need for an enterprise class networked storage solution offering

simplicity and a preferred price point over Fibre Channel. iSCSI performace has accelerated and now demon-

strates competitivness with Fibre Channel solutions typically applied in high-end enterprise data centers.

For many, the key limitation of iSCSI had been performance which previously trailed far behind both its Fibre

Channel and SAS alternatives. Now with widespread introduction of 10Gb iSCSI over Ethernet there is a true

high-performance SAN contender that can enable Ethernet-based storage network convergence benefiting

from the many inherent advantages of Ethernet technology.

the Dot hill ADvAntAge:10gb iSCSi networked RAiD Storage

10Gb iSCSI RAID Storage - The final piece of the puzzle10 Gigabit Ethernet (10GbE) networking is one of the fastest growing IT infrastructure technologies with

shipments of 10GbE ports set to double during 2010. A broad range of 10GbE networking components are

available from today’s leading infrastructure vendors, and the adoption of 10GbE as a de facto standard on

data center servers will complete the transition from 1Gb Ethernet over the next two years. For many small-

to-medium sized (SMB) companies, 1Gb iSCSI has provided a low cost and easy to administer SAN solution,

enabling storage consolidation and access to high availability networked RAID solutions. However, the bandwidth

performance of 1Gb Ethernet is presenting significant limitations, not only as a data storage transport, but

across the board due to the increased demands of high performance computing and server virtualization. The

introduction of the Dot Hill AssuredSAN™ 3400 Series 10Gb iSCSI networked RAID storage platform for the SMB

market, allows entry storage customers to finally implement a complete end-to-end 10GbE server and storage

infrastructure.

Driving Enterprise SAN Performance & Network ConvergenceThe increasing adoption of 10GbE opens the door for 10Gb iSCSI which not only delivers enterprise class SAN

performance to the SMB market, but also enables network convergence for enterprise customers who were

previously reliant upon the deployment of Fibre Channel storage solutions. Network convergence using 10GbE allows

the IT manager to install and manage a single data center network fabric that can support both storage and network

traffic with sufficient bandwidth and minimal latency. The rising popularity of 10Gb iSCSI can clearly be attributed

to its simplicity which calls upon widespread Ethernet networking skills which combined with the convergence of

network and data infrastructure offers the lowest cost of ownership, and the highest performance among all current

SAN fabric alternatives.

Realize the true benefits of Virtualization with 10Gb iSCSIThe demands of server and storage virtualization is a key driver behind the migration to 10Gb iSCSI. However,

the benefits of 10Gb iSCSI extend beyond pure performance in a virtual environment. Storage VMotion was

introduced with VMware Infrastructure 3.5 which takes the same principals of VMware VMotion and applies them

to the migration of virtual machine disk files from one shared storage location to another. Storage VMotion was

initially released with support only for Fibre Channel SANs but extended to support iSCSI SANs with ESX 3.5

Update 1. This provides great flexibility by allowing migration of virtual storage pools between iSCSI and Fibre

Channel (FC) SANs in any direction.

Support for the use of 10Gb iSCSI in a VMware Infrastructure environment was enabled with VMware

Infrastructure 3.5 Update 2, so users can gain immediate benefit from the versatility and performance of 10Gb

iSCSI. Furthermore, the release in July 2010 of vSphere 4.1 introduced 10Gb iSCSI host bus adapter (HBA)

off-load which can move much of the iSCSI overhead away from the VMware server by utilizing the protocol

processing capabilities of the latest converged network interface cards (C-NIC). This returns much needed server

bandwidth back to the virtual machines and vital business applications. Dot Hill AssuredSAN iSCSI solutions are

certified for use with the very latest VMware virtualized environments.

the Dot hill ADvAntAge:10gb iSCSi networked RAiD Storage

Key applications that can benefit from 10Gb iSCSI Storage Solutions10Gb iSCSI can provide an upgrade path to existing 1Gb iSCSI

implementations and also replace aggregated 1Gb iSCSI links,

which in turn simplifies cabling, installation, and maintenance.

The 10x performance increase provides the additional

bandwidth needed to consolidate server functions on fewer,

more powerful, virtualized systems simplifying management

while reducing rack space and power consumption. Applications

that will benefit from 10Gb iSCSI include:

• Post-production video workflows and complex rendering

• High performance computing (HPC) and blade server environments

• Virtual environments and applications using virtualized storage pools

• Applications with large data sets such as medical imaging and seismic modeling

TECHNOLOGY SPOTLIGHT: Dot Hill AssuredSAN™ 3400 SeriesThe AssuredSAN 3400 Series 10Gb iSCSI networked RAID

storage arrays from Dot Hill are the first 10Gb iSCSI solutions

made available to address the needs of the SMB market. The

series offers a flexible choice of drive form factor with the

AssuredSAN™ 3430 offering 12 3.5-inch drives per chassis

and the AssuredSAN™ 3420 packing 24 2.5-inch drives in the

same 2 rack- unit (2U) chassis for applications that require the

maximum performance density. Both single and dual controller

options are available with up to four 10Gb iSCSI ports per system.

All Dot Hill AssuredSAN™ networked RAID solutions include

SimulCache which uses an extremely low latency internal bus

to copy incoming data from the active to the standby controller

without the noticeable drop in write performance experienced

with traditional RAID cache designs. The AssuredSAN 3400 Series

is also available with options for fully licenced AssuredSAN™ Data

Management Software.

Positioning 10Gb iSCSI vs. FC and FCoE in the data center10Gb iSCSI will certainly present an attractive proposition for data centers

that have not yet moved from 4Gb to 8Gb Fibre Channel, and were primarily

driven to Fibre Channel by performance requirements. Ancillary benefits

of Fibre Channel installation will remain a deployment advantage. Added

security of having separate network and data storage paths, both in terms

of network protocol and physical connection favor the Fibre Channel

installation. Additional considerations for implementations requiring the

highest availability and uptime, as hotswap redundancy and non-disruptive

upgrade capability is currently more prevalent within Fibre Channel switch

designs. DHS has addressed these needs in Fibre Channel disk array

offerings.

Those wishing to make use of 10GbE within their infrastructure while

preserving and maximizing investments in Fibre Channel may prefer to

wait for the emerging Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) standard which

enables Fibre Channel to be mapped natively over Ethernet but independent

of the Ethernet forwarding scheme such that Fibre Channel becomes just

another network protocol running on Ethernet, alongside traditional Internet

Protocol (IP) traffic. FCoE resides directly above Ethernet in the network

protocol stack, in contrast to iSCSI which runs on top of TCP and IP. As a

consequence, FCoE is not routable at the IP layer, and does not work across

routed IP networks.

With iSCSI you get an IP based SAN, while FCoE provides a FC based

SAN carried over Ethernet. The positioning of these two SAN solutions can

be confusing to the user, especially when iSCSI is incorrectly positioned

as a FC SAN extension solution. iSCSI provides block level storage over

Ethernet using a unique protocol to carry SCSI commands, and a relatively

inexpensive TCP/ IP transport. The iSCSI infrastructure can be managed

using more familiar network managment tools than the existing FC SAN

management tools enterprise data centers use today. FCoE in contrast

consolidates fabrics while providing investment protection for existing FC

SAN hardware, but maintains the need for in-house Fibre Channel expertise

and FC management tools.

the Dot hill ADvAntAge:10gb iSCSi networked RAiD Storage

© 2010 Copyright Dot Hill Systems Corporation. All rights reserved. Dot Hill Systems Corp., Dot Hill, the DotHill logo, and AssuredSAN are trademarks of Dot Hill Systems. All other trademarks are the property of their respective companies in the United States and/or other countries. 11.09.10

Maximum flexibility through mixed drive supportFor many applications Serial ATA (SATA) is the drive technology of choice providing adequate performance with ever increasing capacity and reliability. Occasionally the need for greater performance or reliability demands the use of Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) or Solid Sate (SSD) drive technology. Dot Hill AssuredSAN RAID solutions offer a very flexible architecture that allows for mixture of both SAS, SATA and SSD drives within each enclosure without restriction and furthermore, a choice of 3.5-inch or 2.5-inch drive chassis is available for maximum choice and performance density.

Maximum choice through FC, iSCSI or SAS host interfacesThrough our highly modular design users can benefit from a choice of host interfaces for both high performance direct attached workstations, or storage area network (SAN) configurations using either 4Gb/8Gb Fibre Channel, 3Gb/6Gb SAS or 1Gb/10Gb iSCSI. A further advantage is that all systems share the same 2 rack-unit footprint, supported by an easy to use web-based management interface and fully redundant hot-swap components such as drives, PSUs, cooling fans and RAID controllers throughout. Our AssuredSAN 3000 series also offers a versatile hybrid interface option which supports both FC and iSCSI host connectivity on a single controller.

Our AssuredSAN 3000 greatly simplifies site to site replication for remote office integration or accelerates the implementation of off site project archive and site disaster recovery.

For more information on Dot Hill Storage Solutions visit our web site:

www.DOTHILL.COM

Model Host Ports Chassis Max. Capacity Drive Support Drive Size* iSCSI RAID Storage Arrays

AssuredSAN 3430 4 x 10Gb iSCSI 2U12 12 | 96 SAS, SATA, SSD 3.5”AssuredSAN 3420 4 x 10Gb iSCSI 2U24 24 | 144 SAS, SSD 2.5”AssuredSAN 3330 8 x 1Gb iSCSI 2U12 12 | 96 SAS, SATA, SSD 3.5”AssuredSAN 3320 8 x 1Gb iSCSI 2U24 24 | 144 SAS, SSD 2.5”

6Gb SAS RAID Storage ArraysAssuredSAN 3530 8 x 6Gb SAS 2U12 12 | 96 SAS, SATA, SSD 3.5”AssuredSAN 3520 8 x 6Gb SAS 2U24 24 | 144 SAS, SSD 2.5”

8Gb Fibre Channel RAID Storage Arrays - Remote Replication Enabled(8Gb FC and Multi-protocol 8Gb FC with 1Gb iSCSI Arrays)

AssuredSAN 3730 4 x 8Gb FC 2U12 12 | 96 SAS, SATA, SSD 3.5”AssuredSAN 3720 4 x 8Gb FC 2U24 24 | 144 SAS, SSD 2.5”AssuredSAN 3930 4 x 8Gb FC & 4 x 1Gb iSCSI 2U12 12 | 96 SAS, SATA, SSD 3.5”AssuredSAN 3920 4 x 8Gb FC & 4 x 1Gb iSCSI 2U24 24 | 144 SAS, SSD 2.5”

6Gb SAS JBOD Expansion Storage ArraysAssuredSAN 3120 4 x 6Gb SAS 2U24 12 | n/a SAS, SSD 3.5”AssuredSAN 3130 4 x 6Gb SAS 2U12 24 | n/a SAS, SATA, SSD 2.5”

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