Effective use of network storage technology is an important part of any data storage management strategy. Just relying on hard disk, JBOD and other types of local storage is not enough to protect the integrity of key business data. Network storage really shows great power at this time. It can not only accommodate the business data generated by the server, but also can accommodate the data generated by the PC and provide good protection for the data.

Many network storage vendors offer partner programs, including HP, EMC, Dell, IBM, and NetApp, but the most important thing is to understand every technology that makes up a storage network, such as NAS gateways, Fibre Channel SANs, RAID arrays. Wait, although you can go to the encyclopedia website to get to know them one by one, I still intend to use this article to make a unified introduction. If you don't know about the network storage technologies introduced in this article, you can insert them when you talk about storage networking topics. If you don't speak, let's learn more and learn more, or you will be OUT.

NAS system

The full name of NAS is network attached storage system. File storage and access need to go through the local area network (LAN). NAS devices allow multiple servers or PCs to access files stored on it through LAN. Ethernet technology is usually used, TCP/IP. Protocols, NAS also supports the addition of additional storage via Fibre Channel or SCSI-based switches.

In the traditional NAS architecture, when the disk space of the existing device is exhausted, the user must add additional NAS devices, and only a few high-end products allow capacity expansion.

NAS gateway

NAS gateways provide scalable data storage using capacity on external storage arrays. Essentially, NAS gateways are diskless file servers that use other storage arrays, primarily SAN arrays, to provide expanded storage capacity.

SAN architecture

The Storage Area Network (SAN) architecture connects multiple servers in a network to a central disk repository consisting of one or more storage arrays. You can think of the entire network as a single resource, greatly improving the system. Management and data backup work.

The NAS gateway uses a front-end Ethernet switch to connect to servers in the LAN and connect to the RAID array through Fibre Channel or other back-end protocols.

SANs connect servers to arrays through Fibre Channel or other types of network switches, which provide block-level data storage.

Fibre Channel

Fibre Channel is one of the primary networking technologies for carrying IP and other protocols in a SAN. Its primary function is to transfer data requests from the server to the disk array. Fibre Channel switches in the SAN are used to connect servers and storage arrays.

The Fibre Channel Protocol (FCP) is a TCP-like transport protocol that sends SCSI commands to Fibre Channel frames. Fibre Channel provides a high-performance storage network, but because of the high component cost, it is gradually replaced by other protocols. The most promising is the iSCSI protocol.

FCoE

The full name of FCoE is Ethernet-based Fibre Channel, a storage networking protocol that allows Fibre Channel frames to be sent over Ethernet, and IP communications and Fibre Channel communications use the same Ethernet ports.

In addition to increasing transmission speed, FCoE also reduces the number and cost of cables required by the SAN.

HBA

The full name of the HBA is the host bus adapter, which is a pluggable card that connects the host computer to the network/storage device and supports multiple storage network protocols. The HBA is usually an expansion card, such as a PCI Express card, which is inserted into the bus transfer SCSI of the host computer. Or FC agreement.

IP storage

IP storage uses an IP protocol to connect to a remote SAN. In a Fibre Channel SAN, the IP protocol is used to send FC frames within IP packets, and for non-Fibre Channel SANs, the SCSI data is converted to IP packets using the iSCSI protocol.

RAID

The full name of RAID is an independent redundant disk array. Usually, it requires multiple disks to improve performance and fault redundancy. It ensures that one disk fails without losing data. Some RAID also allows two or more disks to fail. For example, any RAID array contains several terabytes of storage capacity and a few megabytes of cache.

Due to the different ways of using redundancy, RAID is divided into multiple levels, such as mirroring, striping data across disks, and so on.

LANfree backup

LANfree backup refers to backing up data to a storage array, tape library or other storage device without going through a LAN or WAN network, so that data backup communication does not adversely affect the network speed. The most common LANfree backup method is to connect servers to each other. SAN, which performs disk-based backup over a Fibre Channel network, providing backup efficiency and reducing network traffic in the LAN.

Block level storage

Block-level storage refers to reading a file from disk/writing a file to disk, operating on a contiguous length of predefined length, rather than a complete file. In a SAN, the disk is outside the server, and the read/write is in the block. Level-executed, block-level access can be extended to remote locations using the IP protocol, which ensures that network users do not have to manage data, allowing network administrators to specify where data is stored to resolve performance issues.

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