SANbox 6140/6142 Intelligent Storage Router
Storage Area Network (SAN) and improves the overall Total Cost of
Ownership (TCO) by reducing the number of touch-points where storage
is managed. At the same time, users of rack servers who have concerns
about CPU c
ycles expended or who need to "boot from SAN" can use a
dedicated iSCSI HBA. A dedicated iSCSI HBA would off-load iSCSI and
TCP processing into silicon, thus freeing up CPU cycles on the server.
Support for 512 iSCSI initiator names allows for rapid re-provisioning of
rack servers without any management changes to the SANbox 6140
Series. This enables Asset Re-allocation and lowers TCO.
i
SCSI INTERFACE FOR NATIVE FIBRE CHANNEL STORAGE
(DISK/TAPE)
Customers with existing F
ibre Channel-based disk/tape storage can now
front-end the storage with a QLogic SANbox 6140 Series to create a
multi-protocol storage solution, in effect allowing the same storage array
to now serve up both Fibre Channel and iSCSI protocols simultaneously.
This provides both iSCSI and Fibre Channel hosts with a unified storage
solution that provides data management, data protection and easier stor-
age provisioning for grid applications, among others.
CAMPUS-WIDE SERVERS TO FC SAN
Traditionally, campus-wide department servers had their own direct
attached storage (DAS), which meant multiple touch-points for storage
mana
gement. While the central data center might have storage manage-
ment experts resident, the remote campus-wide servers might be main-
tained by multiple IT generalists, adding to the Total Cost of Ownership for
maintaining all the stora
ge on campus.
If all the campus-wide servers could use freely available iSCSI software
initiators or dedicated iSCSI HBAs (if they need to boot-from-SAN or
would like to offload TCP/IP and iSCSI processing from the server) with a
QLogic SANbox 6140 Series connecting to the campus-wide GbE back-
bone, then all DAS can be migrated to a SAN in the main data center.
This migration to a SAN results in cost efficiencies, as storage manage-
ment is now a centralized function in the hands of a few storage man-
agement experts using the same set of tools previously used in the data
center. Adding storage capacity becomes a simple matter of adding disks
to existing arrays. All this has the end-result of lowering the TCO.
REPLICA
TION FOR DISASTER RECOVER
Y
While synchronous data replication using dedicated software between
two intelligent disk arrays provides for zero recovery point objectives
(RPO),
the solution itself is ver
y sensitive to network la
tency.
Asynchronous data replication on the other hand provides low recovery
point objectives and is more tolerant of network la
tencies.
Asynchronous
replication between disk arrays is the preferred choice where budget
considerations don’t allow for optical connections or where the distance
between headquarters and a remote site exceeds 100 miles.
Now, the QLogic SANbox 6142 Series provides a cost-effective way to
replica
te/mirror da
ta using storage over IP from one mid-range array at
headquarters to another mid/low-end storage array at a remote site. All
this can occur over an exiting Wide Area Network (WAN) and more inter-
estingly between multi-vendor arrays.
Serv
ers
wit
h Fibre Channel HBA
Serv
ers
wit
h iSCSI Software Initiator
or iSCSI HBA
FC Storage
or
FC Tape
Library
Ethernet
Main Data Center
1 Gb Ethernet Backbone
Campus-wide Department Servers
with iSCSI Software or H/W Initiators
Headquarters Remote Site
WAN
SANbox 6140/6142
INTELLIGENT STORAGE ROUTER
FC and
Ethernet Port
