SVM Introduction
Storage Virtualisation is the technology that separates the logical representation of storage from the actual physical storage components and thus delivers the true benefits of Storage Area Networks. With its innovative, "off the data path" architecture, StoreAge's Storage Virtualisation Manager (SVM(TM)) appliance provides centrally managed storage pooling and virtual volume allocations for the entire SAN. It enables the independent scalability, top performance, and high availability of all SAN resources. The SVM brings a substantial improvement to managing enterprise-class storage networks, reducing administration cost and improving utilisation of expensive storage resources as well as enabling the implementation of advanced disaster recovery and back up applications.
SVM is server and storage device agnostic and works in a heterogeneous
SAN environment. With SVM, storage can be flexibly allocated to the servers and applications. Managed via a web-based GUI, storage can be organised into stripe sets, storage pools, and then selectively allocated to one or more servers. The SVM appliance (or a redundant pair) is connected to a Fibre Channel loop or switched fabric, and is capable of monitoring the status of physical devices connected to the SAN.
The SVM manages storage off the data path, acting as a SAN metadata centre. This design allows a full utilisation of network performance and provides superior scalability and reliability.
SVM is a key enabler for advanced disaster recovery strategies and other enterprise storage applications, implemented above the virtualisation layer.
Operation Principle
The SVM provides a central point of storage management across the entire SAN without imposing performance penalty. By separating the control path and the handling of metadata from the actual data path, the SVM provides centrally managed mapping and other SAN functions while keeping the distributed nature of servers and storage subsystems. This architecture enables the full bandwidth of the SAN fabric to be utilised. A variety of host platforms are supported through volume drivers. Each such driver retrieves the volume information from the SVM appliance and communicates directly with the physical storage devices for read/write operations.Architecture
- A stand alone SVM appliance connected to the SAN fabric
- Servers are connected to the SAN with standard HBAs
- Volume driver in each server supporting failover and load levelling across multiple HBAs
- Standard FC RAID subsystems/ JBODs and FC tapes or libraries
- Web-enabled management.
Key Attributes
SAN Managability SVM simplifies storage management by providing a central point for managing all enterprise SAN resources. Web-enabled intuitive GUI accessible through any standard browser. Interoperability and Sharing Volumes can be allocated to multiple servers, which enables sharing of storage between them, using cluster management software, SAN file systems, and shared database managers. Volumes can be reallocated from host to host, without copying. San Scalability The SVM enables virtually limitless growth in storage capacity, I/O performance and bandwidth, as well as storage domain hierarchy for constructing very large SAN configurations. San Security Volumes must be explicitly allocated to servers before they are accessible. SVM can automatically configure zoning of SAN switches, preventing access from servers not running the SVM driver. High Performance Direct data transfer between servers and storage resources. Striping across RAID arrays and JBODs further increases total storage performance. High Availability Complete redundancy is supported. Modifications to system configuration (add or delete servers or storage resources; create or reallocate volumes) are done on the fly without system re-boot. Volume driver on each server supports multiple paths with automatic fail-over. Storage Applications The SVM provides a foundation for advanced enterprise disaster recovery, back up and other SAN aware storage applications.Cost Effective Disaster Recovery White Paper
Other Products in this category:
|
Top
