SUMMER TRAINING

ON

STORAGE AREA NETWORK

Submitted in partial fulfillment for the award of

Bachelor of Technology
In
Computer Science

By:
ANAND BAYANBAT (0851643207)

UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

GURU GOBIND SINGH INDRAPRASTHA UNIVERSITY, DELHI
SAN (Storage Area Network)

A SAN (Storage Area Network) is a network specifically dedicated to the task of

transporting data for storage and retrieval. SAN architectures are alternatives to storing
data on disks directly attached to servers or storing data on Network Attached Storage
(NAS) devices which are connected through general purpose networks.
In order to meet the demands of the storage system, enterprises apply SAN to increase the
system efficiency and capacity expansion. According to SNIA (Storage Networking
Industry Association), SAN is:

1. The purpose of the SAN is transmitting data between storage systems and
storage systems or storage systems and client servers. The SAN fabric contains
physical connections from storage systems to client, and then storage management
devices, servers, and network devices. However, SAN is usually defined as block
I/O services provider.
2. The storage system contains storage components,

devices, computer equipments, software applications, and network devices.

SAN is able to attach with various kinds of storage devices, such as disk-array
subsystems, CD towers, magnetic tape drivers and libraries, and provides data I/O
services via hub or switches through network connections.

A SAN alone does not provide the "file" abstraction, only block-level operations.
However, file systems built on top of SANs do provide this abstraction, and are known
as SAN file systems or shared disk file systems.
Storage sharing

Historically, data centers first created "islands" of SCSI disk arrays asdirect-attached
storage (DAS), each dedicated to an application, and visible as a number of "virtual hard
drives" (i.e. LUNs). Essentially, a SAN consolidates such storage islands together using a
high-speed network.

Operating systems maintain their own file systems on them on dedicated, non-shared
LUNs, as though they were local to themselves. If multiple systems were simply to
attempt to share a LUN, these would interfere with each other and quickly corrupt the
data. Any planned sharing of data on different computers within a LUN requires
advanced solutions, such as SAN file systems or clustered computing.

Despite such issues, SANs help to increase storage capacity utilization, since multiple
servers consolidate their private storage space onto the disk arrays.

Common uses of a SAN include provision of transactionally accessed data that require
high-speed block-level access to the hard drives such as email servers, databases, and
high usage file servers.

SAN and NAS

Network-attached storage (NAS), in contrast to SAN, uses file-based protocols such

as NFS or SMB/CIFS where it is clear that the storage is remote, and computers request a
portion of an abstract file rather than a disk block. Recently, the introduction of NAS
heads has allowed easy conversion of SAN storage to NAS.

Network-attached storage (NAS) is file-level computer data storage connected to

a computer network providing data access to heterogeneous clients. As of 2010 NAS
devices are gaining popularity, as a convenient method of sharing files between multiple
computers. Potential benefits of network-attached storage, compared to file servers,
include faster data access, easier administration, and simple configuration.

NAS systems are networked appliances which contain one or more hard drives, often
arranged into logical, redundant storage containers or RAID arrays. Network-attached
storage removes the responsibility of file serving from other servers on the network. They
typically provide access to files using network file sharing protocols such
as NFS, SMB/CIFS, or AFP.

Description
A NAS unit is a computer connected to a network that only provides file-based data
storage services to other devices on the network. Although it may technically be possible
to run other software on a NAS unit, it is not designed to be a general purpose server. For
example, NAS units usually do not have a keyboard or display, and are controlled and
configured over the network, often using a browser.

A fully-featured operating system is not needed on a NAS device, so often a stripped-

down operating system is used. For example, Free NAS, an open source NAS solution
designed for commodity PC hardware, is implemented as a stripped-down version
of FreeBSD.

NAS systems contain one or more hard disks, often arranged into logical, redundant
storage containers or RAID arrays. NAS removes the responsibility of file serving from
other servers on the network.

NAS uses file-based protocols such as NFS (popular on UNIX systems), SMB/CIFS
(Server Message Block/Common Internet File System) (used with MS Windows
systems), or AFP (used with Apple Macintosh computers). NAS units rarely limit clients
to a single protocol.
NAS vs DAS
The key difference between direct attached storage (DAS) and NAS is that DAS is
simply an extension to an existing server and is not necessarily networked. NAS is
designed as an easy and self-contained solution for sharing files over the network.

Both DAS and NAS can potentially increase availability of data by

using RAID or clustering.

When both are served over the network, NAS could have better performance than DAS,
because the NAS device can be tuned precisely for file serving which is less likely to
happen on a server responsible for other processing. Both NAS and DAS can have
various amount of cache memory, which greatly affects performance. When comparing
use of NAS with use of local (non-networked) DAS, the performance of NAS depends
mainly on the speed of and congestion on the network.

NAS is generally not as much customizable in terms of hardware (CPU, memory, storage
components) or software (extensions, plug-ins, additional protocols) as a general purpose
server supplied with DAS.

NAS vs SAN

Visual differentiation of NAS vs. SAN use in network architecture.

NAS provides both storage and a file system. This is often contrasted with SAN (Storage
Area Network), which provides only block-based storage and leaves file system concerns
on the "client" side. SAN protocols are SCSI, Fibre Channel, iSCSI, ATA over
Ethernet (AoE), or HyperSCSI.

Despite their differences, SAN and NAS are not mutually exclusive, and may be
combined as a SAN-NAS hybrid, offering both file-level protocols (NAS) and block-
level protocols (SAN) from the same system. An example of this is Openfiler, a free
software product running on Linux based systems.

Benefits
Sharing storage usually simplifies storage administration and adds flexibility since cables
and storage devices do not have to be physically moved to shift storage from one server
to another.

Other benefits include the ability to allow servers to boot from the SAN itself. This
allows for a quick and easy replacement of faulty servers since the SAN can be
reconfigured so that a replacement server can use the LUN of the faulty server. This
process can take as little as half an hour and is a relatively new idea being pioneered in
newer data centers. There are a number of emerging products designed to facilitate and
speed this up still further. While this area of technology is still new many view it as being
the future of the enterprise datacenter.

SANs also tend to enable more effective disaster recovery processes. A SAN could span
a distant location containing a secondary storage array. This enables storage
replication either implemented by disk array controllers, by server software, or by
specialized SAN devices. Since IP WANs are often the least costly method of long-
distance transport, the Fibre Channel over IP (FCIP) and iSCSI protocols have been
developed to allow SAN extension over IP networks. The traditional physical SCSI layer
could only support a few meters of distance - not nearly enough to ensure business
continuance in a disaster.

SAN infrastructure

Qlogic SAN-switch with optical Fibre Channel connectors installed.

SANs often utilise a Fibre Channel fabric topology - an infrastructure specially designed
to handle storage communications. It provides faster and more reliable access than
higher-level protocols used in NAS. A fabric is similar in concept to a network
segment in a local area network. A typical Fibre Channel SAN fabric is made up of a
number of Fibre Channel switches.

Today, all major SAN equipment vendors also offer some form of Fibre Channel routing
solution, and these bring substantial scalability benefits to the SAN architecture by
allowing data to cross between different fabrics without merging them. These offerings
use proprietary protocol elements, and the top-level architectures being promoted are
radically different. They often enable mapping Fibre Channel traffic over IP or
over SONET/SDH.
SAN (Storage Area Network) Protocols
Storage Area Networks are traditionally connected over Fibre Channel networks. Storage
Area Networks have also been built using SCSI (Small Computer System
Interface)technology. An Ethernet network which was dedicated solely to storage
purposes would also quality as a SAN.
Internet Small Computer Systems Interface (iSCSI) is a SCSI variant which encapsulates
SCSI data in TCP packets and transits them over IP networks.
Fibre Channel over TCP/IP (FCIP) tunnels Fibre Channel over IP-based networks.

The Internet Fibre Channel Protocol (iFCP) transports Fibre Channel Layer 4 FCP on IP
networks.

Advantages of SAN

By integrating storage devices, SAN increases the storage space usability and cost
efficiency.

• SAN is the high-speed storage sharing system.

• SAN increases the network bandwidth and reliability of data I/O.
• SAN is separated from the regular network system, and has an ability to
expand the storage capacity.
• SAN reduces the cost of the storage management since it simplifies the system
fabric and devices management.
SANs in media and entertainment
Video editing workgroups require very high data transfer rates. Outside of the enterprise
market, this is one area that greatly benefits from SANs.

Per-node bandwidth usage control, sometimes referred to as Quality of Service (QoS), is

especially important in video workgroups as it ensures fair and prioritized bandwidth
usage across the network if there is insufficient open bandwidth available. Avid Unity,
Apple's Xsan and Tiger Technology MetaSAN are specifically designed for video
networks and offer this functionality.

Storage virtualization
Storage virtualization refers to the process of completely abstracting logical storage from
physical storage. The physical storage resources are aggregated into storage pools, from
which the logical storage is created. It presents to the user a logical space for data storage
and transparently handles the process of mapping it to the actual physical location. This is
implemented in modern disk arrays, using vendor proprietary solutions. However, the
goal is to virtualize multiple disk arrays from different vendors, scattered over the
network, into a single monolithic storage device, which can be managed uniformly.
SAN Fabric
1. Local Area Network (LAN) to connect servers and client computers.
2. Servers.
3. Storage management application software – apply a single console to monitor
storage systems.
4. High capacity and efficient storage devices.
5. SAN devices – hubs, switches, severs and storage devices implements a storage
resource environment.

Advantages of SAN Solution

6. By integrating storage devices, SAN increases the storage space usability and cost
efficiency.
7. SAN is the high-speed storage sharing system.
8. SAN increases the network bandwidth and reliability of data I/O.
9. SAN is separated from the regular network system, and has an ability to expand
the storage capacity.
10. SAN reduces the cost of the storage management since it simplifies the system
fabric and devices management.

From the early SAN fabric, fiber optic is the common material used for data transmitting
channels; however, SNIA does not define which network techniques would be used for
SAN fabric. Therefore, storage network which is based on fiber optics is called Fibre
Channel SAN (FC SAN), and IP SAN is the storage network based on Ethernet, such as
iSCSI. Besides above two techniques, other interfaces, like SAS or Infiniband, produce
different storage systems.
Fibre Channel SAN vs. IP SAN
Fibre Channel SAN (FC SAN)
Fiber optics is usually applied to high-speed storage area network, and the related
techniques are defined by T11 technology committee of INCITS. FC SAN has the
advantages, like high-speed and long-distance transmission, high reliability, and so on. In
addition, fibre channel with 8Gbps would appear to market in 2008.

HostStorageHostStorageStorageSwitchSwitchHostHostStorageStoragePoint-to-
PointArbitrated Loop Switched Fabric

FC SAN topologies

(1).Point-to-point

This is the simplest topology of the FC SAN, which allows the host and storage to
connect directly. With point-to-point topology, the pro is transmitting speed is high, but
the con is the limitation of the system expansion. Hence, several HBA cards are involved
to connect from the server to storage devices in order to make the system expansion.

(2).Arbitrated Loop

One-way loop fashion enables transmitting events between nodes and nodes; in other
words, the transmitter of one node transmits data to the receiver of the next node.
However, once one node would do the transmitting event to another node, the permission
is required between the transmitter and receiver. Arbitrated loop topology enables 127
storage devices attached but still has some limitations; for instance, the bandwidth is
shared by all devices in the loop, and only two devices can communicate at the same
time. The limitation will reduce the system efficiency.
(3).Switched Fabric

Switched fabric is a computer network topology where many storage devices connect
with each other via switches. Advantages are:
� Nodes among the devices are allowed to work at the same time to increase the
efficiency of the subsystem.
� Switched fabric supports redundant path between multiple devices to increase the
system availability.

Fibre Channel Topology

Storage Area Network
� Zoning functions the data protection.
� The Subsystem is allowed to add more switches to increase the route length.

IP SAN
IP SAN is the storage area network doing data transmitting processes through TCP/IP
protocols. Since the protocol commands are embedded the IP address where the data is
transmitted to, IP SAN is the high-efficient and point-to-point storage solution. There are
some ways to implement SAN by TCP/IP, such as FCIP (Fibre Channel over IP), iFCP
(Internet Fibre Channel Protocol), and the iSCSI (Internet SCSI), which is more cost-
efficient than Fibre SAN.
iSCSI technology
iSCSI is a internet protocol standards are officially ratified by Internet Engineering Task
Force, IETF; furthermore, iSCSI technology simplify the storage area network solution,
such as setting time, equipments, and techniques, via the Ethernet interface. From the
view of the IP SAN topology, hosts are required to receive and process iSCSI IP
packages. Two ways to do it; first is installing the application software (initiators) and
processing the related commands and data through CPU, or using the TCP/IP Offload
Engine (TOE) to process IP packages in order to reduce the CPU loading efforts and
increase its operating efficiency. Then, IP SAN is not required to install any additional
switches. Contract to FC SAN, IP SAN keeps the original circuits to avoid the additional
wiring expanses. Comparing with FC SAN, IP SAN reduces not only the complexity of
SAN building, but also the actual costs of equipments and cables.

iSCSI Topology Storage Area Network Page 6

iSCSI and Fibre Channel comparison Fibre Channel
table iSCSI
Speed 1G bps 4G bps
Connecting Distance Up to 10km(same as LAN Up to 40km
Material Cat-5e cables Fibre optic, copper
Mode Data block Data block
Frame 0~1.5KB 0~2KB
Topology Point-to-Point Point-to-Point
Hub/Switched Arbitrated Loop
Switched Fabric
Transport Ethernet, ATM, Packet-over- Fibre Channel, DWDM
SONET, T-1, T-3, DS-3,
DWDM
Host Interface iSCSI initiator FC HBA card
TOE card
Switch Ethernet switch Fibre Channel Switch
Electromagnetic Interference Yes No
(EMI)
Cost Low high
Market Medium enterprises Large enterprises
Efficiency fair good
Next Generation 10G bps 8G bps