BlueArc s Architecture for NFS v4.1 and pnfs. Delivering Performance Through Standards

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1 W H I T E P A P E R BlueArc s Architecture for NFS v4.1 and pnfs Delivering Performance Through Standards

2 W H I T E P A P E R Table of Contents Introduction...1 File I/O: Addressing the (New) HPC Bottleneck...1 Parallel File Systems...1 pnfs: An Open Industry-Standard Parallel...2 BlueArc s Commitment to Performance Through Standards...3 BlueArc pnfs...3 BlueArc pnfs Architecture and Approach...3 BlueArc Mercury Hybrid Core Architecture...4 SiliconFS for Robust NFS Performance...5 Designing an Effective NFS Architecture for NFS v4.1 and pnfs...5 General Design Requirements...5 Responding to a Variety of Client Loads...6 Overcoming to the Limitations of Traditional NAS...6 BlueArc NFS v4.1 and pnfs Architecture...7 Architecture Overview...8 Breaking the One-to-One Restriction...9 Achieving True Multidimensional Scalability...9 BlueArc Professional Services: A Complete pnfs Solution Conclusion TOC

3 Introduction The Network File System (NFS) has served the industry well since its introduction and establishment as a standard in 1986, and the standard has continued to evolve to meet the changing needs of an increasingly dynamic industry. As a company dedicated to standards, BlueArc supplies considerable innovation and scalable NFS performance, and has delivered continual world-record performance and line speed to storage. At the same time, larger highperformance computing (HPC) environments have demanded throughput levels that could only be delivered by parallel file systems which were largely proprietary. With the advent of NFS Version 4.1, parallel NFS (pnfs) becomes a truly industry-standard parallel file system a development whole-heartedly embraced by BlueArc. BlueArc is focused on building and selling industry-leading products, solutions, and services that address high-performance file serving at any scale. BlueArc pnfs is the latest incarnation of this scale-right approach, providing an extension for scaling storage while optimizing access to unstructured data through the development of the underlying SiliconFS file system. To this end the BlueArc architecture for NFS v4.1 and pnfs provides the advantages of an industrystandard pnfs implementation while eliminating the limitations of traditional network attached storage (NAS) architecture all supported as a comprehensive commercial offering. This paper provides information on BlueArc s architecture for NFS v4.1 and pnfs. BlueArc technology including the BlueArc Mercury hybrid core architecture and hardware-accelerated SiliconFS filesystem represents an ideal foundation for implementing pnfs. Adding BlueArc pnfs to BlueArc s existing technology portfolio further enhances the company s scale-right capabilities, promoting coexistence and improved infrastructure utilization. This document describes BlueArc s comprehensive architecture for NFS 4.1 and pnfs, and provides high-level examples of its anticipated application. Hardware and software that provide different aspects of the architecture will be delivered over a number of product releases in accordance with planned BlueArc release schedules. File I/O: Addressing the (New) HPC Bottleneck Compute clusters are everywhere, from traditional supercomputing and HPC markets to emerging commercial uses of HPC technology for enterprise uses. Whatever their purpose, clustered applications typically represent significant computational challenges requiring often massive levels of I/O both in terms of data consumption and creation. This trend has only accelerated as cluster technology has evolved with the availability of faster multi-core CPUs, larger interconnected clusters, and GPU-based compute acceleration. The need for storage capacity and throughput is felt most strongly in terms of temporary workspace (scratch) storage for the cluster, but home directories for cluster users are also starting to require bandwidth in the double-digit GB/second range an emerging trend with expected steady growth. As applications have been written (or rewritten) to take specific advantage of cluster resources, potentially thousands of cluster compute nodes can attempt to access storage pools simultaneously. Traditional file systems where bandwidth is limited by the connection to one or a few storage servers in a cluster simply cannot scale to the levels that are required for high-end HPC clusters. Without sufficient available storage throughput, powerful and expensive cluster resources can literally stall, waiting for I/O operations to complete. To address this issue, parallel file systems have evolved to scale bandwidth linearly with the size of the storage infrastructure. Parallel File Systems Parallel file systems support HPC applications by allowing compute nodes to have concurrent read and write access to the same set of files at the same time. Data for a single file is typically striped across multiple storage nodes to provide scalable performance to individual files. A number of competing parallel file systems have existed at the high end of the HPC space for some time. Page 1

4 W H I T E P A P E R Though capable in their own right, these early approaches posed several challenges for wide-spread adoption: All previous parallel file systems were either proprietary or experimental in nature, and not based on industry standards. To function, all of these parallel file systems require that specific client software be installed on every compute node in the cluster, presenting an expensive and time-consuming licensing, installation, and maintenance headache especially for large clusters. No interoperability has been provided between competing proprietary parallel file system solutions presenting a barrier to change, and practically limiting storage innovations to those of a single vendor for early adopters. Moreover, while open source parallel file systems such as Lustre have provided a solution for some, the technology has remained complex, and Lustre deployments have typically required considerable expertise to configure, tune, and operate. Open source ultimately does not equate to industry-standard, but at least Lustre has benefited some who have the skills and time to understand and influence the process. Unfortunately, changing ownership of open-source projects such as Lustre can rapidly distort the nature of related community efforts. pnfs: An Open Industry-Standard Parallel True industry standards allow vendors and customers alike to participate on a on a level playing field, avoiding both vendor lock-in and the complexities and risks of experimental technologies. As a part of the NFS v4.1 standard, pnfs benefits from the robustness of the standards process as well as from considerable private industry expertise and experience along with input from the open source community. A large number of very capable people and organizations have contributed technology and have been involved in the pnfs effort, including many with considerable experience building early proprietary parallel file systems. In the end, competition based on standards results in simplification for end users and better solutions, just as the original NFS efforts have led to a long-lived and thriving ecosystem of interoperable products. pnfs effectively combines the performance and scalability benefits of a parallel file system with the ubiquity of the NFS standard for network file systems. Organizations get increased performance and scalability in storage infrastructure as well as investment protection and the ability to choose and interact with best-of-breed solutions. As with other effective standards, pnfs allows vendors to standardize on protocol, with the ability to innovate through the implementations that support those protocols. Addressing one of the major issues with proprietary parallel file systems, pnfs clients are expected to be integrated and packaged with major operating systems, just as conventional NFS clients are today. pnfs clients are anticipated for major Linux distributions, the Solaris Operating System, and Microsoft environments, eliminating the need to license, install, and separately maintain client-side code on every node in the cluster. As with existing NFS clients, pnfs clients will be supported and tuned by operating system providers, and robust pnfs clients will be expected to work with pnfs solutions from multiple vendors. Client reference implementations are being written as a part of the standardization and testing process. Eventually, the advent of pnfs as a standard will drive the adoption of parallel file systems across a broad range of data-intensive industries and organizations. As these groups converge on a standard parallel file system, the demands on parallel file systems will change as well presenting new opportunities for vendors to innovate and solve unique problems. For example, new types of users and applications will introduce increasingly mixed workloads which will need to be supported. The eventual adoption of parallel file systems by more commercial HPC applications will also require additional enterprise capabilities. For example, enhanced reliability and availability will be necessary to protect valuable data and help ensure that important cluster applications continue to operate. This evolution of the standard is similar to the path taken by the NFS standard over time. Page 2

5 BlueArc s Commitment to Performance Through Standards As an innovator in high-performance high-capacity storage products, BlueArc has a long history of commitment to standards such as NFS. BlueArc has elected not to implement its own proprietary parallel file system, preferring an industry-standard approach to file system access, while continually innovating the underlying architecture of data and metadata storage. BlueArc has been involved in the pnfs standards process and has contributed technology. BlueArc has a history of providing very high-performance standards-based storage solutions, and has maintained considerable NFS performance leadership throughout its history. The BlueArc Mercury hybrid-core architecture and SiliconFS hardware-accelerated file system constitute an ideal foundation for building a high-performance pnfs solution. Given its strong record of providing record-setting performance through NFS, BlueArc is strategically committed to the success of pnfs. Unlike many who will be providing pnfs solutions, BlueArc s focus is not clouded with a competing parallel file system strategy. BlueArc is also not in the business of charging licensing fees for proprietary client-side software, and welcomes openly-available standard pnfs clients. BlueArc pnfs support will be delivered along with current standard protocols as a part of a comprehensive storage strategy allowing users to choose the protocols that best suit their needs. As a part of this commitment, BlueArc has been active in the pnfs standardization activities, and has been actively solving many of the challenges that must be solved in order for pnfs implementations to become commonplace throughout the spectrum of traditional HPC deployments and beyond. Specifically, the innovation present in BlueArc s Mercury hybrid-core architecture and SiliconFS file system position BlueArc well for a highly-competitive pnfs implementation capable of incremental performance and capacity without arbitrary limitations BlueArc pnfs As with other parallel file system implementations, pnfs provides greatly improved throughput to cluster applications by allowing clients to access storage directly, and in parallel. This parallelism is accomplished by separating content data and file metadata. Instead of a single NFS server that processes both data and metadata, pnfs moves the metadata out of the data path by defining separate Metadata Servers and Data Movers. pnfs specifies a standard parallel file system protocol that defines the communication between: Clients and Metadata Servers Clients and Data Movers The communication between Metadata Servers and Data Movers is left as an implementation detail and will differ from vendor to vendor. In this manner, vendors remain free to add value without jeopardizing the functionality and interoperability from the perspective of pnfs clients. BlueArc pnfs Architecture and Approach Beyond support for NFS v4.1 and pnfs protocols, BlueArc s architecture combines the parallel file system performance benefits of pnfs with BlueArc s traditional strengths, and extends these benefits to CIFS and NFS 3.0 clients. Metadata is held on Metadata Servers, including naming, ownership, permissions, location, and file system layout. Given their importance, Metadata Server support clustering to provide essential high availability. Close to linear scalability is achieved by striping the data across a number of Data Movers which may also be clustered for performance or availability. Metadata Servers and Data Movers require different performance characteristics, with Metadata Servers optimized for high levels of IOPS and Data Movers optimized for delivering bandwidth to and from storage. A high-level perspective of BlueArc s pnfs architecture is shown in Figure 1. pnfs clients communicate with the Metadata Server to find out where desired data is located, and then communicate directly, and in parallel, with the Data Movers. Data transfer takes advantage of the Page 3

6 W H I T E P A P E R aggregated bandwidth available to all of the involved Data Movers. Bandwidth performance scales with the performance of the data mover and with the number of Data Movers in the configuration (with no architectural upper limit). Assuming that the Metadata Servers are sufficiently powerful, BlueArc s architecture allows performance and capacity to grow incrementally in an independent fashion: Performance can be scaled by adding more Data Movers to the system. Capacity can be scaled by adding additional Data s to the system pnfs provides support for three storage protocols in the data path, blocks, objects, and files. BlueArc pnfs assumes the files protocol, consistent with a NAS model and with industry trends toward a predominance for unstructured data. pnfs Clients Metadata Metadata Servers (Clustered)... Direct, Parallel Data Paths... Management Data Movers (Clustered) Figure 1: BlueArc s architecture for NFS v4.1 and pnfs. BlueArc Mercury Hybrid Core Architecture The BlueArc Mercury hybrid-core architecture provides massive data path parallelization and serves as the hardware foundation for BlueArc s SiliconFS hardware-based filesystem. BlueArc Mercury currently provides pipelined hardware-accelerated NFS products that offer capacity, throughput, and industry-leading IOPS performance. BlueArc s approach utilizes flexible and cost-efficient field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) in conjunction with standard multi-core processors allowing the most appropriate processing resource to be used for a given task. For instance, high-speed data movement is a highly repeatable task that is best executed in the FPGAs, with functions such as higher-level protocol handling, out-of-band systems management, and error/exception handling best suited to a flexible multi-core processor. Moving core file system functionality into silicon dramatically improves the performance potential for network storage systems while adhering to established standards for both network and storage system access. FPGAs are even more suitable for accelerating core file system operations, which is the reason for BlueArc s very strong IOPS performance. IOPS scalability is key for providing truly scalable Metadata Servers in a pnfs implementation. BlueArc understands these issues well, and has a strong record as the industry leader in providing scalability in IOPS as demonstrated by the SPECsfs 2008 benchmark results shown in Figure SPEC and SPECsfs are registered trademarks of the Standard Performance Evaluation corporation (SPEC). Please see for the latest results. Page 4

7 Mercury Node 288 Drives Mercury 50 2-Node 144 Drives Mercury Node 144 Drives Mercury 50 1-Node 72 Drives SPECsfs2008 IOPS Figure 2. BlueArc Mercury consistently demonstrates IOPS performance leadership through the SPECsfs2008 benchmark. SiliconFS for Robust NFS Performance SiliconFS is BlueArc s hardware-accelerated file system supported by the Mercury hybrid-core architecture. SiliconFS offers specific advantages in terms of transparent data mobility, simplified management of a tiered storage architecture, providing a global namespace, and dynamic restriping and rebalancing. Specifically, SiliconFS provides: A parallel state machine, translating network protocols to block layouts on disk using an object-based filesystem Open protocols and an open storage ecosystem Robust Enterprise storage management features, Scalability to petabytes of data, millions of files, and many thousands of hosts Optimized metadata management While SiliconFS is unique to BlueArc, the company maintains an open philosophy when it comes to client operating systems, network access protocols, and back-end storage manufacturer choices. Users today are free to choose from NFS 3.0 or CIFS protocols in BlueArc storage solutions, and will be able to optionally select NFS v4.1 and pnfs in the future. Designing an Effective NFS Architecture for NFS v4.1 and pnfs NFS v4.1 provides substantial new technology including pnfs that changes the ways that high-capacity storage infrastructure can be designed and deployed. In designing an architecture for NFS v4.1, BlueArc wanted to take advantage of the opportunities provided by technologies such as pnfs, but also wanted to expand on the capabilities provided by traditional NAS products. General Design Requirements Beyond merely providing an effective pnfs implementation, BlueArc set out to design a complete next-generation NAS architecture that addresses the needs of a NAS implementation in highperformance environments. In order to be effective, NFS v4.1 architecture must provide: Optimum resource utilization. Contemporary storage architectures must provide a good value for the money spent, both in terms of initial acquisition costs as well as through the optimal use of both hardware and software. For example, consistently idle resources (CPUs, disk arrays, cluster nodes, file systems) during high NAS load clearly indicate that storage architecture can be improved. Dynamic load balancing. It is extremely important to distribute the load between NAS resources dynamically. Load should be distributed equitably based on resource performance characteristics and current usage levels. An architecture that allows for dynamic load balancing can cater to many diverse and varied workloads, datasets, and features while requiring relatively inexpensive but optimally used hardware. Load balancing must also take place at multiple levels, including disk subsystems, storage nodes, and the overall NAS system itself. Page 5

8 W H I T E P A P E R Multi-dimensional scalability. NAS platforms need to scale easily in multiple dimensions, horizontally, vertically, and in multiple combinations, an ability BlueArc calls scale-right storage. Performance should grow as more computational hardware or I/O capacity is added to the configuration. The resulting system must also be able to scale independently in terms of performance and capacity. Workload scalability should be available for both single clients and for the workloads generated by multiple clients. Simultaneous support for highly varied workloads should result in good and consistent performance. System management should be as simple as possible, and management too should scale to ensure that the need for additional storage (for example) does not translate to a proportional increase in IT administration. Low cost, easy and incremental expandability. A large initial investment is a barrier to many organizations that need to start small and scale quickly to address growing needs. Deployments need to be able to start with a scalable low-cost offering and keep adding to the storage platform as requirements change. The architecture must be able to scale incrementally in terms of both performance and capacity. Responding to a Variety of Client Loads. Beyond these general needs, effective parallel file system implementations must be able to respond effectively to a variety of client loads. Most large storage systems are inevitably shared by multiple users running diverse applications that generate a wide range of storage load types. Providing good performance in the face of variable storage load types is one of the technical challenges in building high-performance parallel file systems. File system loads can assume a number of forms, including:. Across File System Load is generated by many clients simultaneously operating on different exported file systems. File System Load is generated by many clients operating in parallel on different objects of the same exported file system. File System Object Load is generated when many clients send requests toward the file system object (file) within a particular file system. Of course, real-life client loads can be any combination of the loads described above. In particular, it is important to note that different clients can collide on the same exported file system or file system object. While read caching can provide some relief, most traditional NAS architectures do not scale particularly well in such circumstances, since machine and storage resources can be left under-utilized if all of the clients are working on the same file system. Overcoming to the Limitations of Traditional NAS Modern NAS solutions are comprised of multi-layered file systems, some visible to the end user, and some reserved as private implementation details. A number of constructs are useful in describing NAS architecture. An Implemented File System (IFS) represents a way to organize, access, and manipulate files that is typically hidden from end users/clients. BlueArc SiliconFS is an example of an IFS. An Exported File System (EFS) provides a file system that an be exported to a user, often through an industry-standard protocol such as NFS. An Abstract File System (AFS) represents a collection of exported file systems that have been exported to the user. One or more EFSs are combined under a united name space to construct and AFS. NAS architecture can introduce several AFSs and an AFS can serve different access protocols such as NFS, CIFS, etc. Typical NAS architecture has implied a one-to-one relationship between implemented file systems and exported file systems, as illustrated in Figure 3. A client sees the storage as an AFS that supports a number of protocols. For example, several exported file systems could be united under the same name space using the BlueArc Cluster Name Space (CNS). Each of the implemented file systems is very tightly coupled (in a one-to-one relationship) to an exported file system that supports a Page 6

9 protocol-independent API. While this one-to-one relationship has provided simplicity, it can prevent flexibility and scalability in the resulting NAS system because the implementation of the file system cannot adapt dynamically in response to changing loads or constraints. Clients: NFS, CIFS FS Abstraction and Common Name Space Layer Directory 1 Directory 2 Directory 3 FS Export Layer First Exported FS EFS1 Second Exported FS EFS2 Third Exported FS EFS3 FS Implementation Layer Software and Hardware Implementation of EFS1 IFS1 Software and Hardware Implementation of EFS2 IFS2 Software and Hardware Implementation of EFS3 IFS3 NAS Figure 3. Typical NAS architecture: An abstract file system is constructed from a collection of exported file Page 7 systems that have a one-to-one relationship with internal implemented file systems. BlueArc NFS v4.1 and pnfs Architecture BlueArc s approach to providing a complete NFS v4.1 NAS architecture breaks the traditional one-to-one correspondence between the exported filesystem and its implementation. In BlueArc s architecture, that correspondence is replaced with a many-to-many relationship where the exported file system corresponds to several implemented file systems, and each implemented file system generally corresponds to several exported file systems. As a result of this design, all of the resources of all of the implemented file systems are available when processing client requests to a particular exported file system, and new resources can be added dynamically. This many-to-many mapping enables new possibilities in terms of optimal resource utilization, parallel processing, and load distribution. In general, this approach allows better scalability since another implemented file system can be dynamically added and assigned to one or more existing and/or new exported filesystems to provide additional resources. The scalability in turn allows an inexpensive low-end system to grow into high-performance, high-capacity storage with the incremental addition of components. The result is a system that can adapt easily to different requirements, including price, performance, capacity, and load, all while parallelizing the processing of client tasks in the most appropriate fashion. Another key aspect of this architectural approach is that it breaks the coupling between the modules that interpret and keep state for various protocols, as well as the file system that stores the objects accessed using these protocols. Protocol modules can be either local or remote, allowing scalability by adding additional hardware resources as required. This comprehensive model essentially creates a tiered (or layered) storage software stack, with each layer encapsulating logically-related set of functionality.

10 W H I T E P A P E R Architecture Overview Figure 4 provides a high-level perspective of the modular BlueArc NFS v4.1 and pnfs architecture, highlighting the distribution of the anticipated modules that comprise the architecture. Leveraging the strengths of BlueArc s technology, the architecture brings innovation to the pnfs standard while delivering key BlueArc values. Clients/Tasks CIFS Clients NFS v3.0 Clients Other Clients/Tasks NFS v4.1 Clients NAS Platform Converters CIFS Server #1 CIFS Server #p NFS v3.0 Server #1 NFSV v3.0 Server #q Other Servers NFS v4.1 Client NFS v4.1 Client NFS v4.1 Client NFS v4.1 Client NFS v4.1 Client Server Metadata Server IMDFS Data Server #1 Data Server #2 Data Server #n IDFS #1 IDFS #2 IDFS #n Figure 4. BlueArc s approach to unified storage architecture breaks the traditional one-to-one mapping between exported file systems and their implementation. BlueArc s comprehensive architecture is comprised of several building blocks: The NAS Platform encompasses one or many physical storage systems and their hardware and software resources. The Platform layer is the only level of the system that is visible to external clients. The NAS Server is the core tier that implements NFS v4.1 functionality, including pnfs. NFS v4.1 is the only protocol that clients use to communicate with the NAS Server. NFS v4.1 clients communicate directly with the NAS Server, and the server may run across many physical systems. Converters allow access to the Server from many different protocols and management tasks. NFS v3.0, CIFS, and other clients and tasks interact with Converters that communicate via NFS v4.1 protocol with the NAS Server. This capability makes the scalability of pnfs accessible to non-parallel protocols such as NFS v3.0 and CIFS. Page 8

11 As a pnfs implementation, the NAS Server consists of two kinds of implemented file systems Metadata File Systems (MDFS) and Data File Systems (DFS). Each exported file system is comprised of at least one MDFS and one or more DFS s. The MDFS maintains the directories hierarchy, client file attributes, and metadata to locate client file data. The DFS contains files that correspond to a range of the client file data. A client file system is thus distributed between the MDFS and potentially many DFS s. Breaking the One-to-One Restriction Figure 5 represents a simple logical example of how BlueArc s architecture breaks the one-to-one correspondence between the implemented and exported file systems. Clients: NFS, CIFS Abstraction and Common Name Space Layer Directory 1 Directory 2 Directory 3 Export Layer First Exported (EFS1) Second Exported (EFS2) Third Exported (EFS3) MDFS for EFS1 MDFS for EFS2 MDFS for EFS3 Implementation Layer (Software and Hardware) (IMDFS1) (IMDFS2) (IMDFS3) DFS for EFS1 DFS for EFS1 DFS and EFS2 DFS and EFS3 (IDFS1_1) (IDFS1_2) (IDFS2_1) (IDFS3_1) NAS Figure 5. A simple representation of three exported file systems. The figure illustrates that each of the three exported file systems is implemented with one Metadata and one or more Data s. For example, Directory 1 is represented by an exported file system (ESF1) that consists of one Metadata (IMDFS1) and two Data s (IDFS1_1) and IDFS1_2). Additional performance scalability can be provided by adding additional Data s while additional storage capacity can be added independently. Achieving True Multidimensional Scalability BlueArc s pnfs architecture accommodates considerable flexibility. The example shown in Figure 6 extends the many-to-many relationship inherent in the BlueArc s architecture. As shown, components of all of the exported file systems can be distributed across multiple Metadata and Data Servers. In particular, a directory or file could be stored in several Metadata or Data s Page 9

12 W H I T E P A P E R respectively, yielding considerable flexibility. It is this capability that allows BlueArc s unified NAS approach to start small, scale as needed, and rapidly respond to emerging needs. Clients: NFS, CIFS Filesysem Abstraction and Common Name Space Layer Export Layer Implementation Layer Directory 1 Directory 2 Directory 3 First Exported (EFS1) Second Exported (EFS2) Third Exported (EFS3) EFS1 EFS1 EFS2 EFS2 EFS3 EFS1 EFS2 EFS3 EFS1 EFS2 EFS3 EFS3 EFS1 EFS2 NAS S Figure 6. In BlueArc s architecture, a single exported file system may be spread across many implemented file systems and an implemented file system may serve many exported file systems, allowing considerable flexibility and multi-dimensional scalability. In this example, two Metadata Servers are shown along with four Data Movers all deployed on BlueArc Mercury technology. Portions of the various exported file systems are distributed across multiple implemented file systems, depending on the needs of the individual file systems for capacity, performance, or redundancy. For example, Directory 1 is mapped into EFS1, which is internally spread across five physical systems (two Metadata Servers and three Data Movers). Metadata Servers and Data Movers alike can be based on BlueArc Mercury technology. A lowcost Linux-based Data Mover will also be available. The architecture inherits a number of distinct technological advantages from BlueArc Mercury technology, including: Performance and hardware-accelerated scalability including excellent metadata scalability, FPGA and multi-core acceleration, and proven IOPS performance Clustering for both availability and performance Virtualization to allow for the allocation and re-allocation of modules and resources across the platform to provide both scalable performance and ideal utilization Page 10

13 BlueArc Professional Services: A Complete pnfs Solution Beyond its technical advantages, BlueArc pnfs is a comprehensive solution, combining software, hardware and professional services. Whether organizations are moving from a current BlueArc environment or from another vendor s solution, BlueArc Professional Services offers a suite of offerings to help streamline the adoption of BlueArc pnfs. Assessment, design, and architecture. BlueArc professional engineers are available to assess any IT environment and design a solution to maximize productivity. Assessment will investigate the current workflow, capacity, performance, and applications needs within the target environment. Design and architecture will combine these needs with future performance goals to help provide choices around implementation trade-offs, ultimately leading to a balanced solution prioritized against processing goals. This phase of the program goes well beyond sizing processing requirements, instead focusing on the design aspects of ongoing growth, supportability, reliability, performance analysis, and troubleshooting so that all aspects of sustaining the system are addressed. Installation, implementation, and migration. BlueArc Professional Services can provide the onsite services required to support both installation and implementation. Installation services address the preproduction systems staging to ensure that the delivered platform is verified as being operationally ready for deployment. Implementation services build on the initial installation, and begin the process of configuring the system according to the design and architecture needs of the customer environment. This phase initiates much of the software configuration process specific to the feature content and design goals of each customer through example and demonstration. Implementation services can be used to verify the successful achievement of design goals and to address any unplanned onsite integration requirements. Migration services. The purchase of a new storage system often leads to the need for migration services. BlueArc Professional Services can provide planning, data migration, and validation testing support to minimize impact to critical applications. Flexible data migration tools and services enable BlueArc to accommodate a variety of requirements and optimize service delivery. As part of the service BlueArc will assist with consolidating and optimizing new data layout requirements, ensuring that post-transfer accessibility is verified. When needed, BlueArc can also help to ensure that any changes or adjustments to users, groups, security, or network services are working as expected. Education. BlueArc provides administrative training courses that are designed to enable operational excellence and best practices designed for systems administrators within customer accounts. These classes provide hands on experience, lab exercises, and testing to confirm student progress and understanding. BlueArc also offers custom onsite training that can be tailored to individual business and technology environments. BlueArc s education specialists work with each organization to evaluate their application requirements, staffing, facilities, and equipment, tailoring content to specific requirements. Training is optimized to emphasize the content each team needs to be effective. If required, advanced classes are offered to allow customers to become more self-sufficient in terms of performance optimization, supportability, and maintenance. Performance optimization. BlueArc understands how to obtain maximum performance from BlueArc technologies, and can help organizations get the most from their investments in BlueArc pnfs technology. Optimization of performance starts with assessing the existing system and collection of data to allow BlueArc experts to analyze an existing system. This process results in the recommendation of corrective action, better information about systems limits, and interactions and education about the related performance principals affecting the system. As required a thorough explanation is provided to ensure the customer gain a better understanding of the behavior of the system related to their workload performance and growth over time. Page 11

14 W H I T E P A P E R Custom assistance. Custom engagements can be designed to address unique requirements for any organization. A custom statement of work (SOW) can be drafted to combine any of the above services and define services that are unique to a particular customer environment. Custom assistance is often provided for complimentary services regarding backup, replication, disaster recovery, availability, and so on. Conclusion The availability of the pnfs standard as a part of NFS v4.1 represents a key opportunity for both traditional HPC applications, and the many emerging commercial HPC environments that will look toward parallel file systems in the years to come. The ubiquity of an open industry standard combined with the throughput benefits of a parallel file system represent a potent combination. As a high-performance storage vendor who has always been committed to providing performance through open standards, BlueArc will accelerate pnfs as a part of its comprehensive storage strategy. In short, BlueArc is committed to pnfs and it will do for pnfs what it has always done for NFS namely provide an efficient, high-performance, and differentiated implementation. Organizations can start small with cost-efficient Linux Data Movers, upgrading to more powerful Data Movers based on BlueArc Mercury technology as required. Resources can be dynamically assigned and reassigned to meet the performance or capacity needs, while ensuring maximum utilization of resources. BlueArc Mercury s massive hardware-assisted IOPS performance provides considerable head-room for building very large storage clusters, and the ability to cluster BlueArc Mercury nodes provides failover protection and performance scalability. Capacity can be increased by adding a wide range of leading disk storage systems. Perhaps best of all, the BlueArc Mercury architecture for NFS v4.1 and pnfs retains the simple management profile of NAS so that administration stays manageable even as the system scales to multi-petabyte deployments. Page 12

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16 W H I T E P A P E R About BlueArc BlueArc is a leading provider of high performance unified network storage systems to enterprise markets, as well as data intensive markets, such as electronic discovery, entertainment, federal government, higher education, Internet services, oil and gas and life sciences. Our products support both network attached storage, or NAS, and storage area network, or SAN, services on a converged network storage platform. We enable companies to expand the ways they explore, discover, research, create, process and innovate in data-intensive environments. Our products replace complex and performance-limited products with high performance, scalable and easy to use systems capable of handling the most data intensive applications and environments. Further, we believe that our energy efficient design and our products ability to consolidate legacy storage infrastructures, dramatically increases storage utilization rates and reduces our customers total cost of ownership. BlueArc Corporation Corporate Headquarters 50 Rio Robles Drive San Jose, CA t f BlueArc UK Ltd. European Headquarters Queensgate House Cookham Road Bracknell RG12 1RB, United Kingdom t +44 (0) f +44 (0) BlueArc Corporation. All rights reserved. The BlueArc logo is a registered trademark of BlueArc Corporation. 11/10 WP-MADA-00