It’s been awhile since I last did a review of what people are searching for (July 30th was the last time…wow) so, let’s see what’s new.
Search Term #1: EMC NX4
Not really suprised here. Honestly, take the Celerra NS-20, cut the price signficantly, allow blended SAS/SATA drive trays, Read the rest of this entry »
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AX4-5, EMC, Fibre, NAS, NX4, SAS, SATA, SMB, clariion, perspective, storage | Tagged: Buses, Business, EMC Celerra, EMC Corporation, Fibre Channel, google, Hardware, iSCSI, NetApp, Network-attached storage, storage, Storage area network, Subsystems, YouTube | 
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Posted by flickerdown
Image via Wikipedia
Since I work in the SMB/Commercial space as a TC, I routintely am exposed to mixed fabric environments. With the advent of iSCSI, we’ve seen a proportional shift towards iSCSI as a reduced-cost block storage fabric. Legacy (2Gb/s) fibre still has presence in specific markets but the uptake of 4Gb/s fibre has been slowing down. With FCoE being announced as the next logical evolution of converged fabrics and 8Gb/s FC and 10G iSCSI working their way to availability, does FCoE make sense for SMB/Commercial markets?
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EMC, Fibre, NAS, Performancing, marketing, perspective, storage | Tagged: Cisco, Emulex, Ethernet, FCoE, Fibre Channel, Fibre Channel over Ethernet, Hardware, Host adapter, iSCSI, NetApp, Nexus, Qlogic, Storage area network | 
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Posted by flickerdown
In the previous Future Storage System articles, we’ve covered the basic hardware foundation for what I envision to be a powerful future-oriented storage solution for the commercial midrange. However, as you’re probably aware, hardware is meaningless without software to provide the operational capabilities that are needed to mange information. In this article, I will focus on a general design for an extensible software layer (an OS) that will provide future-oriented capability expansion as well as robust analytics, capabilities, and integration with business continuity principles. As always, please reference the diagram below.
Future Storage System - Operating System - Conceptual
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AMD, EMC, FSS, Fibre, Hypertransport, Infiniband, Intel, PCI Express, PCIe, Performancing, Qlogic, SATA, VMWare, clariion, environment, perspective, storage | Tagged: Business, Business continuity, Command line interface, Computers, Emulator, Fibre Channel, Fibre Channel over Ethernet, Graphical user interface, Hardware, Hyper-V, Hypervisor, IBM, iSCSI, Kernel, Mac OS, Management, Microsoft, Microsoft Visio, Microsoft Windows, NetApp, Operating system, Programming, RAID, server, storage, system-tray, Torrenza, Virtual machine, VMWare, Windows, Xen | 
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Posted by flickerdown
In Part 3a, we discussed the possibility of a purpose-driven Compute Node based on the Torrenza initiative for the Future Storage system. This expansion node made use of Hypertransport as a “glue” between the base storage compute node and the expansion node (of computation or I/O flavours) that could be added. The advantages of that topology were simple: hot add support for additional processing power, additional I/O bandwidth within the system, and additional computing power for the array OS (which we’ll cover in a later article). In this overview, we’ll take a look at another variation on an expansion node: an I/O expansion node that will add additional front-end ports and/or functionality to the base system. We will be referencing the diagram below. (Apologies in advance for the image shearing off in the lower right hand corner).
Hypertransport I/O Expansion Topology
Leave a Comment » | AMD, EMC, FSS, Fibre, Hypertransport, Infiniband, Intel, PCI Express, PCIe, Performancing, Qlogic, clariion, perspective, storage | Tagged: Advanced Micro Devices, AMD, Application-specific integrated circuit, clariion, Computing, Emulex, Ethernet, Fibre Channel, Fibre Channel over Ethernet, FSS, Hypertransport, iSCSI, Multi-core, Node, Operating system, PCI Express, Processors, Qlogic, SNWSpotlight, Storage area network, Torrenza, Ultraflex, XFP | Permalink
Posted by flickerdown
In the previous two articles on the Future Storage System (FSS), I took a general look at a basic storage system architecture (Part 1) and then went a bit deeper into some of the more interesting bits of that system from a platform standpoint (Part 2). In this article, I want to dive a bit deeper into how I envision nodes to be building blocks for additional capabilities and processing directives. I will be referencing the image below as part of this article.
Hypertransport Node Expansion (detailed)
1 Comment | AMD, EMC, FSS, Fibre, Hypertransport, Infiniband, Intel, PCI Express, PCIe, Performancing, Qlogic, clariion, perspective | Tagged: Advanced Micro Devices, AMD, Central processing unit, Components, Hardware, HTX, Hypertransport, Intel, NetApp, Opteron, PCI Express, Permabit, Processors, Socket F, Torrenza, x86, XIV | Permalink
Posted by flickerdown
So, in my article yesterday, I gave a global view of a very simple storage system for the future. Since I LOVE this type of conjecture and theoretics (is that a word?), I decided to take this a step further and flesh out some of the other intricacies of the design. Check out the image below and then click through to read the rest.
Fleshing out the Hypertransport Storage System
1 Comment | AMD, EMC, FSS, Fibre, Hypertransport, Infiniband, Intel, PCI Express, PCIe, Performancing, Qlogic, Sun, clariion, perspective, storage | Tagged: 3Par, AMD, Broacde, Cisco, clariion, CX4, EMC, EMC Clariion, Equallogic, FCoE, Fibre Channel, Fibre Channel over Ethernet, Hardware, HDS, HP, Infiniband, Intel, iSCSI, Lefthand, Multi-core, NetApp, Opteron, Pillar, Processors, Sun | Permalink
Posted by flickerdown
So, I’ve been toying around with this in my mind for some time. Essentially, I’ve tried to understand the basic “Storage Processor” limitation of current storage systems and propose an admittedly simplistic design to get around some of the difficulties. The biggest hurdle, in my mind, is to have cache coherency, low latency memory access to other nodes in a “cluster,” and have a communications “bus” between nodes that is extensible (or at least will grow bandwidth with more devices on the signal chain). Staring at that problem, then, look at the image below.
A case for Hypertransport connected nodes...
1 Comment | AMD, FSS, Fibre, Hypertransport, Infiniband, Iomega, Performancing, environment, perspective, storage | Tagged: Advanced Micro Devices, AMD, Brocade, Buses, Business, CHiPs, Cisco, Components, Emulex, Fibre Channel, Fibre Channel over Ethernet, Hardware, Hypertransport, Infiniband, Mellanox, PCI Express, Processors, Qlogic | Permalink
Posted by flickerdown
Image via WikipediaIs it just me or have we been waiting for this for a while? 
Today is officially the EMC Clariion CX4 public GA (general availability) date. Good news: they’re shipping TODAY! No paper launches, folks…this is immediate availability. The other good news: you get to do more with your storage; faster, cheaper, stronger, more flexible, etc. Let me rip through some highlights for you:
a.) Cache and SP Processor increases. Across the board, processor “speeds” and cache sizes have been increased. Now, this may appear somewhat odd in that the CX4-120, for example, only has two dual core 1.2ghz processors, but, when you consider that the onboard L2 cache is greater in size (and Woodcrest processors were HANDILY more powerful than the older Nocona Xeons), it actually has more innate processing power than the previous generation processors. Cache sizes, when coupled with the 64 bit FLARE OS for the array, allow for better allocation and utilization within the array.
Leave a Comment » | EMC, Fibre, Infiniband, PCI Express, PCIe, SAS, SATA, clariion, perspective, storage | Tagged: clariion, Compellent, CX4, EMC, EMC Disk Library, Fibre Channel, Fibre Channel over Ethernet, FLARE, Hardware, Infiniband, iSCSI, NetApp, OS, storage, Symmetrix, Ultraflex | Permalink
Posted by flickerdown
This is the second edition of the same post. Evidently, WordPress doesn’t like it when I fat-finger in Firefox 3.0 Beta 5. Grrrrr…..
So, what is “Search Term Tuesday” (or any other day of the week, even)? The principle of it is this: grab some of the focused searches out there that land on this site (i.e Flickerdown) and attempt to respond to them with more data. Deal? Let’s begin, then.
Leave a Comment » | AX4-5, EMC, Fibre, SAS, SATA, SMB, environment, perspective | Tagged: AX4, AX4-5, Celerra, CIFS, clariion, Commercial, EMC, Fibre, Fibre Channel, FTP, HTTP, IOPs, iSCSI, Navi Express, Navisphere Manager, NFS, RAID 1, RAID 10, RAID 3, RAID 5, RAID 6, replication, SAS, SATA, SMB, spindles | Permalink
Posted by flickerdown
In my previous post, I discussed the reasons why EMC needed to spent a little more quality time with the SMB market at large. Today, in the course of several back-to-back design calls with various level SMB customers, I was struck by a couple of things.
a.) The Clariion AX4-5, while more of a “baby” Clariion amongst its more “mature” CX3 bretheren, offers something that the other arrays currently don’t: Tiered storage within the same drive tray (i.e. SAS and SATA in the same tray). Why is this important, you say? For one, I can now design tiered storage within the same tray, adding value to a customer who previously had to invest in two discrete trays of disk, one for fibre and one for SATA. Simply put, utilize 750GB/1TB drives for the 3+1 vault R5 group, toss in a good 3+1 R5 based on 10k or 15k SAS for a good baseline performance group, and then mix/match other drives to taste. You’ve got 12 slots (wish it was 15) to play around with and, it just works.
b.) You really have a harder time positioning the CX3-10 and NS-2x series because of it. Yes, the NS-22 offers the most versatility, especially with fibre and IP connectivity in the same box, but, again, with all 3 arrays (AX4-5, CX3-10, NS-22) offering 60 drive max with the same performance and storage capabilities, you need to set the table a little more carefully. Obviously, segmenting the AX4-5 into two product variants (iSCSI and fibre) leads to more “purpose built” environment installations as you only can use one or the other. The CX3-10 offers both fibre and iSCSI in the combo model and the NS-22 takes it up another notch by offering FTP, HTTP, CIFS, NFS, iSCSI, and fibre in the same box.
c.) Everyone should be selling the full version of Navisphere Manager with the AX4-5. Honestly, there’s really no reason not to as it does allow for a bit more feature functionality within the box. As a matter of fact, none of my array designs will leave EMC’s dock without it installed. You’re not missing much with Navi Express, but, once your business grows and you move to commercial Clariion units (CX3-20 and up), you’ll be able to hit the ground running.
d.) Replication, while not as “complete” as the CX3-10 and NS-22 offerings, still covers a majority of the bases required by customers. Mirrorview, Sancopy (important especially with Replication Manager usage w/SQL, Exchange), and Replistor make a compelling entry level replication solution that most multi-site SMB IT shops should be able to afford. Listen, I’m not the money guy so my anticipation of “affordability” might be scoffed at by the market at large, but seriously…finance it.
All in all, the AX4-5 is a powerful offering for SMB and I look forward to bringing more awareness to it in the days ahead.
cheers,
Dave
Leave a Comment » | AX4-5, EMC, Fibre, SAS, SATA, SMB, perspective | Tagged: AX4, AX4-5, CIFS, clariion, Clariion AX4-5, CX3, EMC, Fibre, IP, iSCSI, NAS, NFS, NS-22, SAS, SATA, SMB, tiered storage | Permalink
Posted by flickerdown
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