Case Studies, P. Rinnen, R. Passmore Research Note 11 November 2003 Unified Storage Connects Storage Fragments for ONI The U.S. Office of Naval Intelligence is using unified storage to connect file and block storage with one simplified management platform. Core Topic Hardware and Systems: Storage Key Issue What emerging storage technologies and products will enable new business opportunities, and how will they affect already-established storage markets? What You Need to Know By definition, unified storage combines two types of networked storage with different access protocols: file and block. File-based networked storage is typically called networked-attached storage (NAS), whereas block-based network storage is known as storage area networks (SANs), using Fibre Channel (FC) or Internet over SCSI (iscsi) protocols. Unified storage is an emerging technology area with limited product availability. The major vendor for unified storage is Network Appliance (). Some other major storage vendors are trying to create unified storage by leveraging SAN file systems or using virtualization servers in the network that support file and block protocols with software from vendors, such as FalconStor. Problem: The Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI), located in Washington D.C., is responsible for gathering, delivering and managing intelligence information and assets, including warfare operations for the U.S. Department of Defense. ONI customers include the U.S. intelligence community, military personnel and federal agencies, such as the U.S. Customs Service, on a global basis. ONI's main campus supports 2,500 users using Windows PCs, Unix and Macintosh workstations. Since 1997, ONI has been using NAS filers to provide file sharing for its heterogeneous environment. To simplify desktop storage management, ONI also used filers to replace and centralize desktop storage for individual users. In 1998 and 1999, ONI implemented metropolitan-area replication for its two customer sites (one being at the Pentagon) where data was mirrored to NAS filers located in ONI's data center. During the Sept. 11 terrorist attack, ONI's primary and secondary NAS filers kept its own and its customers' business continuity at 100 percent. However, after Sept. 11, ONI being a critical player in Gartner Reproduction of this publication in any form without prior written permission is forbidden. The information contained herein has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable. Gartner disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of such information. Gartner shall have no liability for errors, omissions or inadequacies in the information contained herein or for interpretations thereof. The reader assumes sole responsibility for the selection of these materials to achieve its intended results. The opinions expressed herein are subject to change without notice.
national security was mandated to enhance its disaster recovery coverage and mirror all mission-critical applications and data from its data center to a remote site hundreds of miles away. Those mission-critical data and applications include: All user data and files stored in older versions of filers Microsoft Exchange 2000 An enterprise e-mail application running on the former Compaq DL580 servers with Compaq StorageWorks storage in a SAN topology Mission-critical applications with the associated Oracle databases running on Sun Microsystems Fire 6800 servers and Sun T3 direct-attached FC storage Satellite imagery Stored in SGI direct attached storage with SGI servers Acoustic and signal intelligence data Stored in Sun direct attached T3 storage systems with Sun servers Objective: Triggered by the post-sept. 11 disaster recovery requirement, ONI started reviewing its fragmented storage resources and designed an enterprise storage architecture that connects storage islands with a faster recovery plan. ONI called its new architecture "Enterprise Storage in Simplistic Terms." With the new architecture, ONI aimed to achieve the following: Business continuity with a centralized disaster recovery site Simplified storage management with the same number of (or fewer) storage administrators Large storage scalability and better storage use Approach: In October 2001, ONI began drafting its new enterprise storage blueprint, under which ONI intended to mirror all its production filers within its metropolitan-area network to a central filer and then cascade the mirrored data to clustered filers in a brand-new remote disaster recovery site. Figure 1 shows ONI's new storage architecture. 11 November 2003 2
Figure 1 ONI's New Enterprise Storage Architecture Oracle database servers (Sun) Brocade FC switches Exchange servers (Compaq) ATM Backbone; OC12 IP/ CIFS Filer 880s Brocade FC switches Public files/folders Home directories TCP/IP/ CIFS/NFS Acoustical and signals intelligence data Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) switches MAN: ATM/IP Filer 880s Metropolitan mirror Async Mirror WAN: ATM/IP Disaster recovery site: Multiple pairs of for backup Two NearStore R150s for additional layer of backup Source: ONI As ONI had satisfactory experience with filers and enjoyed their appliancelike simplicity, it decided to continue its relationship for the new disaster recovery center. When launched its unified storage FAS 900 series in October 2002, ONI decided that it would adopt the, rather than the older model F880c as originally planned. The agency particularly liked the flexibility of the new FAS product, which can support simultaneous file and FC block access. With the new unified file and block storage, ONI also realized that it could now standardize on one core technology to connect its file and block storage, as well as its disaster recovery plan. Although it has 11 November 2003 3
considered SAN storage from the same server vendors for its Exchange 2000 and Oracle applications, ONI decided that it was more important to simplify management by using tightly integrated software tools from one disk storage vendor. In October 2002, ONI began its engineering and integration of the for the production and the new disaster recovery storage. So far, ONI has installed 54TB of production storage on four clusters of to replace and expand the old, scattered file and block storage. For the disaster recovery site, ONI has installed three clusters of, one FAS 960 and one NearStore R150 with a total of 64TB of backup and archiving storage. Local snapshots of the production data are created, and those snapshots are mirrored asynchronously to the disaster recovery site. Specific file and block data stored on FAS 960 products include: File data with Network File System (NFS) and Common Internet File System (CIFS) protocols Acoustic data and satellite imagery (replacing the Sun T3 and SGI direct attached storage); mission-critical public files (upgrading older filers); remote mirror of all the aforementioned file data at the disaster recovery site Block data with the FC protocol Exchange 2000 (replacing Compaq StorageWorks); remote mirror of Oracle applications and Exchange at its disaster recover site ONI uses two NearStore R150s within the same disaster recovery site to further backup and archive the on-site FAS 960s. This extra layer of backup is to prepare for the event when the disaster recovery site becomes a live production site. No tape backup is set up at the disaster recovery site. Results: With the carefully designed disaster recovery center, ONI has created more layers of recovery plans for business continuance. Under the current architecture, with systems, 's file system, with its integrated redundant array of inexpensive disk (RAID) groups, protects against disk failure and offers data consistency. Active-active clusters provide system failover with no user downtime. Local snapshots can be easily and quickly rolled back in case of data corruption. In case of the cluster failure, remote mirrors at the metropolitan area and the disaster recovery site provide 24x7 business continuance. Using unified storage for file and FC block storage, ONI is standardizing disk storage entirely on one vendor, whose major products come from the same core technology. The tight integration of technologies allows for simplified management. Although ONI's storage capacity has tripled in the past 18 11 November 2003 4
months to dozens of terabytes, ONI has not increased its storage management staff as a result of consolidating storage on the platform and leveraging 's professional services. Its Unix administrators now spend less time managing storage because of simplified storage management and focus more on the Unix application issues. ONI believes that it has saved about two and one-half man-years. Simplified storage management goes beyond managing production storage at ONI. Using disk backup and archiving technologies from the same vendor allows for easier implementation and integration. The use of ATA-based NAS for further backup at the disaster recovery site provides ONI with very high availability and fast recovery with relatively low cost, ensuring business continuance. Critical Success Factors/Lessons Learned: ONI is one of the pioneer users for unified NAS/SAN storage. In the past, ONI has benefited from using NAS to centralize file storage for servers and PCs, saving disk storage and simplifying file storage management, including capacity scaling and backup. ONI is extending the simple management to block-level storage (such as Exchange and Oracle databases), as well as disaster recovery by using the unified storage product; however, standardizing on one unified storage platform has its pros and cons. Gartner believes that ONI's experiences have taught the user community the following lessons: Simplified storage management is one key element in achieving better total cost of ownership (TCO). Today, with heterogeneous storage management still in its infancy, standardization on the same disk storage platform is the easiest route to achieve the goal of simple management. Unified file and block storage is an important tool to help achieve such standardization. Acronym Key ATM CIFS FC iscsi NAS NFS ONI RAID SAN TCO asynchronous transfer mode Common Internet File System Fibre Channel Internet over SCSI network-attached storage Network Appliance Network File System Office of Naval Intelligence redundant array of inexpensive disk storage area network total cost of ownership Such standardization likely requires more initial budget than applying individual patchwork. Users should calculate how long it takes to recoup the initial costs and how much savings the new architecture will generate by the end of its life cycle. Such standardization also results in vendor lock-in and may put users at a disadvantage when negotiating prices in the future. Bottom Line: Unified storage offers block or file services with the same storage management tools. It can help users manage more storage with the same or less staff. However, few vendors can offer unified storage products. Users should carefully compare unified storage with other available choices. 11 November 2003 5