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Unified storage systems showdown: NetApp FAS vs. EMC VNX

Unified storage systems that support concurrent block, file and in some cases object based access have become popular in terms of industry adoption as well as customer deployments with solutions from many vendors across different price bands, or market (customer) sectors. Two companies that are leaders in this space are also squared off against each other (here and here) to compete for existing, each others, as well as new customers in adjacent or different markets. Those companies are EMC and NetApp that I have described as two similar companies on parallel tracks offset by time.

Two companies on parralel tracks offset by time

Recently I was asked to provide some commentary about unified storage systems in general, as well as EMC and NetApp that you can read here, or view additional commentary on related themes here, here and here. EMC has a historical block based storage DNA that has evolved to file and object based while NetApp originated in the file space having moved into block based storage along with object based access. EMC converged various product technologies including those developed organically (e.g. internally) as well as via acquisition as part of their unified approach. NetApp who has had a unified produce has more recently added a new line of block products with their acquisition of Engenio from LSI. Obviously there are many other vendors with unified storage solutions that are either native (e.g. the functionality is built into the actual technology) or by parterning with others to combine their block or file based solutions as a unified offering.

What is unified storage, what does it enable, and why is it popular now?
Over the past couple of years, multifunction systems that can do both block- and file-based storage have become more popular. These systems simplify the acquisition process by removing the need to choose while enabling flexibility to use something else later. NAS solutions have evolved to support both NFS and CIFS and other TCP-based protocols, including HTTP and FTP, concurrently. NAS or file sharing–based storage continues to gain popularity because of its ease of use and built-in data management capabilities. However, some applications, including Microsoft Exchange or databases, either require block-based storage using SAS, iSCSI, or Fibre Channel, or have manufacture configuration guidelines for block-based storage.

Multi protocol storage products enable the following:

  • Acquisition and installation without need for a specialist
  • Use by professionals with varied skills
  • Reprovisioning for different applications requirements
  • Expansion and upgrades to boost future capacity needs

    • Figure 1 shows variations of how storage systems, gateways, or appliances can provide multiple functionality support with various interfaces and protocols. The exact protocols, interfaces, and functionality supported by a given system, software stack, gateway, or appliance will vary by specific vendor implementation. Most solutions provide some combination of block and file storage, with increasing support for various object-based access as well. Some solutions provide multiple block protocols concurrently, while others support block, file, and object over Ethernet interfaces. In addition to various front-end or server and application-facing support, solutions also commonly utilize multiple back-end interfaces, protocols, and tiered storage media.

    Unified and multiprotocol storage, learn more in Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press, 2011)

    Figure 1: Multi protocol and function unified storage examples

    For low-end SMB, ROBO, workgroup, SOHO, and consumers, the benefit of multi protocol and unified storage solutions is similar to that of a multifunction printer, copier, fax, and scanner—that is, many features and functionality in a common footprint that is easy to acquire, install, and use in an affordable manner.

    For larger environments, the value proposition of multi protocol and multi functionality is the flexibility and ability to adapt to different usage scenarios that enable a storage system to take on more personalities. What this means is that by being able to support multiple interfaces and protocols along with different types of media and functionality, a storage system becomes multifunctional. A multifunction storage system may be configured for on-line primary storage with good availability and performance and for lower-cost, high-capacity storage in addition to being used as backup target. In other scenarios, a multifunction device may be configured to perform a single function with the idea of later redeploying it to use a different personality or mode of functionality.

    An easy way to determine whether you need multi protocol storage is to look at your environment and requirements. If all you need is FC, FCoE, SAS, iSCSI, or NAS, and a multi protocol device is going to cost you more, it may not be a good fit.

    If you think you may ever need multi protocol capability, and there’s no extra charge for it, go ahead. If you’re not being penalized in performance, extra management software fees, functionality or availability, and you have the capability, why wouldnt you implement a unified storage system?

    Look for products that have the ability to scale to meet your current and future storage capacity, performance, and availability needs or that can coexist under common management with additional storage systems.

    Vendors of unified storage in addition to EMC and NetApp include BlueArc, Fujitsu, Dell, Drobo, HDS (with BlueArc), HP, IBM, Huawei, Oracle, Overland, Quantum, Symantec and Synology among others.

    So what does this all mean? Simple, if you are not already using unified storage in some shape or form, either at work or perhaps even at home, most likely it will be in your future. Thus the question of not if, rather when, where, with what and how.

    Ok, nuff said for now.

    Cheers gs

    Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press, 2011), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press, 2009), and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier, 2004)

    twitter @storageio

    All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2011 StorageIO and UnlimitedIO All Rights Reserved

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    What do NAS NASA NASCAR have in common?

    What do NAS NASA NASCAR have in common?

    server storage I/O data infrastructure trends

    Updated 2/10/2018

    The other day it dawned on me what do NAS, NASA NASCAR have in common?

    Several things in addition to all starting with the letters NAS it turns out.

    For example, they all deal with round objects, NAS or Network Attached storage involved with circular spinning disk drives, NASA or National Aeronautical Space Administration besides involved with aircraft that have tires that go round and round, or airplanes circling waiting for landing.

    In the case of NASA they are also involved with sending craft or devices to circle other planets or moons and land or crash into them. Sometimes NAS along with other storage systems have disk drives that crash, similar to how NASCAR events see accidents.
    NAS

    Ceder Lake 3M NASCAR at dirt track - Photo (C) 2008 Karen Schulz all rights reserved

    Ceder Lake dirt track 3M NASCAR night (Photo (C) 2008 Karen Schulz)

    NASCAR is also involved with vehicles that dont or at least should not fly, however they do go round and round on a track, often paved however sometimes mud or dirt tracks plus high tech exists with computers and various data models, not to mention the NASCAR air force.

    In addition to being involved with round objects and activities, all three are also involved in computing, generating, processing, storing and retrieving for analysis of data, not to mention high performance requirements.

    NAS based storage can also be relied upon for serving the needs of NASA and NASCAR data and informational needs.

    And FWIW, just for fun, look at what you get when you spell NAS, NASA or NASCAR backwards:

    RACSAN
    ASAN
    SAN

    Where To Learn More

    View additional NAS, NVMe, SSD, NVM, SCM, Data Infrastructure and HDD related topics via the following links.

    Additional learning experiences along with common questions (and answers), as well as tips can be found in Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials book.

    Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

    What This All Means

    Not much actually other than to stimulate some thought, discussion as well as perhaps have some fun with technology during the holiday season.

    Im sure if I put some more thought to it, more similarities would or will come to mind.

    However, for now, thats it for a quick thought, what similarities do you see or know about with NAS, NASA and NASCAR?

    Ok, nuf fun for now, time to work on some other posts, content and projects.

    Ok, nuff said, for now.

    Gs

    Greg Schulz – Microsoft MVP Cloud and Data Center Management, VMware vExpert 2010-2017 (vSAN and vCloud). Author of Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials (CRC Press), as well as Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press), Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier) and twitter @storageio. Courteous comments are welcome for consideration. First published on https://storageioblog.com any reproduction in whole, in part, with changes to content, without source attribution under title or without permission is forbidden.

    All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO. All Rights Reserved. StorageIO is a registered Trade Mark (TM) of Server StorageIO.

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    Clarifying Clustered Storage Confusion

    Clustered storage can be iSCSI, Fibre Channel block based or NAS (NFS or CIFS or proprietary file system) file system based. Clustered storage can also be found in virtual tape library (VTL) including dedupe solutions along with other storage solutions such as those for archiving, cloud, medical or other specialized grids among others.

    Recently in the IT and data storage specific industry, there has been a flurry of merger and acquisition (M&A) (Here and here), new product enhancement or announcement activity around clustered storage. For example, HP buying clustered file system vendor IBRIX complimenting their previous acquisition of another clustered file system vendor (PolyServe) a few years ago, or, of iSCSI block clustered storage software vendor LeftHand earlier this year. Another recent acquisition is that of LSI buying clustered NAS vendor ONstor, not to mention Dell buying iSCSI block clustered storage vendor EqualLogic about a year and half ago, not to mention other vendor acquisitions or announcements involving storage and clustering.

    Where the confusion enters into play is the term cluster which means many things to different people, and even more so when clustered storage is combined with NAS or file based storage. For example, clustered NAS may infer a clustered file system when in reality a solution may only be multiple NAS filers, NAS heads, controllers or storage processors configured for availability or failover.

    What this means is that a NFS or CIFS file system may only be active on one node at a time, however in the event of a failover, the file system shifts from one NAS hardware device (e.g. NAS head or filer) to another. On the other hand, a clustered file system enables a NFS or CIFS or other file system to be active on multiple nodes (e.g. NAS heads, controllers, etc.) concurrently. The concurrent access may be for small random reads and writes for example supporting a popular website or file serving application, or, it may be for parallel reads or writes to a large sequential file.

    Clustered storage is no longer exclusive to the confines of high-performance sequential and parallel scientific computing or ultra large environments. Small files and I/O (read or write), including meta-data information, are also being supported by a new generation of multipurpose, flexible, clustered storage solutions that can be tailored to support different applications workloads.

    There are many different types of clustered and bulk storage systems. Clustered storage solutions may be block (iSCSI or Fibre Channel), NAS or file serving, virtual tape library (VTL), or archiving and object-or content-addressable storage. Clustered storage in general is similar to using clustered servers, providing scale beyond the limits of a single traditional system—scale for performance, scale for availability, and scale for capacity and to enable growth in a modular fashion, adding performance and intelligence capabilities along with capacity.

    For smaller environments, clustered storage enables modular pay-as-you-grow capabilities to address specific performance or capacity needs. For larger environments, clustered storage enables growth beyond the limits of a single storage system to meet performance, capacity, or availability needs.

    Applications that lend themselves to clustered and bulk storage solutions include:

    • Unstructured data files, including spreadsheets, PDFs, slide decks, and other documents
    • Email systems, including Microsoft Exchange Personal (.PST) files stored on file servers
    • Users’ home directories and online file storage for documents and multimedia
    • Web-based managed service providers for online data storage, backup, and restore
    • Rich media data delivery, hosting, and social networking Internet sites
    • Media and entertainment creation, including animation rendering and post processing
    • High-performance databases such as Oracle with NFS direct I/O
    • Financial services and telecommunications, transportation, logistics, and manufacturing
    • Project-oriented development, simulation, and energy exploration
    • Low-cost, high-performance caching for transient and look-up or reference data
    • Real-time performance including fraud detection and electronic surveillance
    • Life sciences, chemical research, and computer-aided design

    Clustered storage solutions go beyond meeting the basic requirements of supporting large sequential parallel or concurrent file access. Clustered storage systems can also support random access of small files for highly concurrent online and other applications. Scalable and flexible clustered file servers that leverage commonly deployed servers, networking, and storage technologies are well suited for new and emerging applications, including bulk storage of online unstructured data, cloud services, and multimedia, where extreme scaling of performance (IOPS or bandwidth), low latency, storage capacity, and flexibility at a low cost are needed.

    The bandwidth-intensive and parallel-access performance characteristics associated with clustered storage are generally known; what is not so commonly known is the breakthrough to support small and random IOPS associated with database, email, general-purpose file serving, home directories, and meta-data look-up (Figure 1). Note that a clustered storage system, and in particular, a clustered NAS may or may not include a clustered file system.

    Clustered Storage Model: Source The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC)
    Figure 1 – Generic clustered storage model (Courtesy “The Green and Virtual Data Center  (CRC)”

    More nodes, ports, memory, and disks do not guarantee more performance for applications. Performance depends on how those resources are deployed and how the storage management software enables those resources to avoid bottlenecks. For some clustered NAS and storage systems, more nodes are required to compensate for overhead or performance congestion when processing diverse application workloads. Other things to consider include support for industry-standard interfaces, protocols, and technologies.

    Scalable and flexible clustered file server and storage systems provide the potential to leverage the inherent processing capabilities of constantly improving underlying hardware platforms. For example, software-based clustered storage systems that do not rely on proprietary hardware can be deployed on industry-standard high-density servers and blade centers and utilizes third-party internal or external storage.

    Clustered storage is no longer exclusive to niche applications or scientific and high-performance computing environments. Organizations of all sizes can benefit from ultra scalable, flexible, clustered NAS storage that supports application performance needs from small random I/O to meta-data lookup and large-stream sequential I/O that scales with stability to grow with business and application needs.

    Additional considerations for clustered NAS storage solutions include the following.

    • Can memory, processors, and I/O devices be varied to meet application needs?
    • Is there support for large file systems supporting many small files as well as large files?
    • What is the performance for small random IOPS and bandwidth for large sequential I/O?
    • How is performance enabled across different application in the same cluster instance?
    • Are I/O requests, including meta-data look-up, funneled through a single node?
    • How does a solution scale as the number of nodes and storage devices is increased?
    • How disruptive and time-consuming is adding new or replacing existing storage?
    • Is proprietary hardware needed, or can industry-standard servers and storage be used?
    • What data management features, including load balancing and data protection, exists?
    • What storage interface can be used: SAS, SATA, iSCSI, or Fibre Channel?
    • What types of storage devices are supported: SSD, SAS, Fibre Channel, or SATA disks?

    As with most storage systems, it is not the total number of hard disk drives (HDDs), the quantity and speed of tiered-access I/O connectivity, the types and speeds of the processors, or even the amount of cache memory that determines performance. The performance differentiator is how a manufacturer combines the various components to create a solution that delivers a given level of performance with lower power consumption.

    To avoid performance surprises, be leery of performance claims based solely on speed and quantity of HDDs or the speed and number of ports, processors and memory. How the resources are deployed and how the storage management software enables those resources to avoid bottlenecks are more important. For some clustered NAS and storage systems, more nodes are required to compensate for overhead or performance congestion.

    Learn more about clustered storage (block, file, VTL/dedupe, archive), clustered NAS, clustered file system, grids and cloud storage among other topics in the following links:

    "The Many faces of NAS – Which is appropriate for you?"

    Article: Clarifying Storage Cluster Confusion
    Presentation: Clustered Storage: “From SMB, to Scientific, to File Serving, to Commercial, Social Networking and Web 2.0”
    Video Interview: How to Scale Data Storage Systems with Clustering
    Guidelines for controlling clustering
    The benefits of clustered storage

    Along with other material on the StorageIO Tips and Tools or portfolio archive or events pages.

    Ok, nuff said.

    Cheers gs

    Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press) and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier)
    twitter @storageio

    All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO LLC All Rights Reserved