Centrally Manage SAN Storage Configuration and Assignment for Microsoft Windows Servers

Using Sanbolic’s LaScala Cluster Volume Manager to Centrally Manage SAN Storage Configuration and Assignment for Microsoft Windows Servers SANBOLIC WHITE PAPER www.sanbolic.com sanbolic white paper LaScala, LaScala Disto and SILM are fully WMI compliant, and can easily be incorporated in existing management screens. Sanbolic’s products provide Windows administrators with new ability to centrally manage and assign and provision storage resources in large, dynamic data center environments. Sanbolic’s SILM - Simple Information Lifecycle Manager provides policy-based copies or migrations of files among any of the volumes within the storage infrastructure. As an example, SILM could migrate infrequently used files from Fibre Channel to SATA storage, or copy files that have recently been accessed to a secondary location. LaScala supports Active Directory, so that multiple nodes and accounts can be provisioned centrally. In Active Directory environments, user accounts have consistent access rights to a volume from any physical server. A user can log into any physical machine, and the volumes for which the user has access rights will be mounted. This functionality removes the current limitations of SAN storage, where a LUN is assigned to a specific HBA and a specific server at all times, and storage reassignment requires proprietary array-based management tools. As a clustered volume manager designed for shared storage environments, LaScala allows multiple servers to have access to one or multiple large shared partitions on an iSCSI or Fibre Channel storage array. Storage LUN(s) can be configured into mountable volumes using LaScala volume manager on each host server. Access to the volumes is assigned using native Windows security (ACL) and the native Windows security interface. By using LaScala Disto, any operation available on LaScala can also be performed remotely for any server. Microsoft System Management Server 2003 and Microsoft Operations Manager 2005 have provided administrators with tools to centrally manage and monitor Windows Client and Server Infrastructure. Sanbolic’s LaScala clustered volume manager and related software products provide a complementary tool kit which enables administrators to centrally configure and assign storage assets in a SAN storage environment. Overview Although the storage array is typically shared via the SAN fabric, each partition becomes part of a storage-serverapplication silo. These silos are typically fairly cumbersome to resize or reassign, and often requires the administrator to use separate GUIs for the storage, storage switch, and server. In environments utilizing heterogeneous storage arrays, the administrator may need to learn a separate management platform for each piece of hardware. LaScala is designed to allow users to elevate the configuration and assignment of storage to the host level (and LaScala Disto to a central or remote GUI), greatly simplifying the management of storage resources and providing flexibility to dynamically expand or reassign storage as needed. Block storage access provides important performance advantages for many applications, but it often adds administrative complexity. Typically the storage pool on an ISCSI or Fibre Channel storage array must be partitioned into multiple virtual disks or LUNs. Each server must be assigned unique access to a virtual disk or LUN, which is then managed with a local volume manager and file system. Fibre Channel or iSCSI storage is becoming increasingly pervasive in data centers deploying applications on Microsoft Windows Server platforms. With the recent launch of Microsoft’s Storage Server 2003 R2 with an embedded iSCSI target, many more applications servers are likely to utilize block iSCSI storage. Background LaScala is a symmetrical clustered volume manager designed specifically for SAN storage. It installs on each SANattached Windows server in a few minutes. LaScala utilizes the same industry proven transaction management, distributed locking, and clustering technology as Sanbolic’s Melio clustered file system, and is designed to work in conjunction with Windows NTFS or with Melio FS. Once installed, LaScala provides an intuitive tool for centrally managing a large storage pool, while coexisting with the native volume manager. Copyright 2006 Sanbolic Inc. LaScala Clustered Volume Manager sanbolic white paper LaScala can aggregate both the bandwidth and the storage space of multiple heterogeneous storage arrays into a single pool of storage. LaScala uses only basic disks for all operations. Stripe sets across both Fibre Channel and iSCSI storage targets can be created, and LaScala maintains the native block size of applications and can align stripe sets with storage controller RAID sets—enabling multi-gigabyte per second bandwidth for performance sensitive applications running on multiple high performance storage arrays. With LaScala, LUNs from heterogeneous storage hardware can be aggregated into stripe sets or volume sets. When stripe sets span two different types of storage arrays, performance of the stripe set will be constrained by the slowest controller in the stripe set. It is recommended that stripe sets be created from partitions consisting of identical configurations (same type of storage controller, disk drives, and RAID level and stripe size on the underlying LUNs). LaScala Volume Manager is based on a 64bit architecture, thus removing any volume size limitations, and allowing administrators to create volumes of up to 18 Million Terabytes. Administrators can create volumes, volume sets, and stripe sets using an intuitive graphical user interface that allows all servers to see the entire common storage pool. LaScala simplifies administration by elevating storage pool management to the volume manager level, which many users are already familiar with, as opposed to requiring changes to zoning or LUN assignment when reconfiguring or reassigning storage. LaScala provides additional flexibility by allowing volumes to be non-disruptively expanded while storage remains accessible to applications. Volumes can be initially sized for current needs. If additional storage capacity is subsequently required, the volume can be dynamically expanded using either unassigned disk space or with capacity from an additional array. LaScala uses the standard Windows security permission GUI to assign access rights to any user account with access to the SAN. Using this method, access to a volume can also be quickly reassigned. For example, if a small server becomes a bottleneck, the volume can be assigned to a larger server running the same application. LaScala will prevent an NTFS-formatted logical volume from being simultaneously mounted by more than one server in order to prevent any possible data corruption, as NTFS is not a SAN-aware FS. The NTFS/LaScala volume can easily be reassigned by the administrator to any server using standard security permissions. If volumes are formatted with Sanbolic’s Melio Clustered File System, multiple servers can have simultaneous read and write access to the volume. Copyright 2006 Sanbolic Inc. sanbolic white paper In Active Directory environments, consistent user account access rights will be enforced across all servers accessing the shared storage. When a user account logs off one server, and logs on to another server, LaScala will mount all volumes that a user has been assigned access rights to onto the second server. LaScala Disto is a network-based management tool that supports remote configuration and assignment of the SAN volumes on any machine running LaScala. It is accessible from any server in the cluster or from a remote terminal over VPN. LaScala Disto allows the entire disk structure for each server to be seen, including local LDM disks. All LaScala features are available from the remote terminal for LaScala disk. Using LaScala Disto, LDM disks can be formatted with Melio, deleted, or have drive letter and path changed from the remote terminal LaScala Disto Copyright 2006 Sanbolic Inc. sanbolic white paper 1) 2) 3) Typical applications include: SILM provides an intuitive tool for copying or moving file across logical volumes within a shared storage infrastructure. Administrators can set up tasks to move data to any other drive accessible by the system, and SILM will selective move data based on file type, creation data, or last data accessed. Tasks can be executed at a defined time, or periodically at a defined interval. Moving old or unused files off of high performance storage to lower cost near line store. Copying specific files to a second array for availability or to consolidate files for back up to tape. Migrating data to a new storage array during hardware upgrades. Since Sanbolic’s Software is fully WMI compliant, solution providers can utilize the Sanbolic GUI, or integrate these products into existing management tools. As more users deploy Windows Server infrastructure together with iSCSI or Fibre Channel SAN storage, the dynamic, central management of storage resources has become a critical element of administrative cost, system availability, and application performance. Sanbolic’s software products provide an important complement to Microsoft System Center and Operations Manager, and provide an intuitive tool for centrally configuring and assigning storage assets. LaScala enables administrators to see the entire storage environment, aggregate multiple storage arrays into a single pool for capacity an/or bandwidth, configure logical storage volumes, dynamically expand storage volumes, and easily reassign storage among servers. LaScala Disto allows these operations to be managed remotely, and SILM provides an intuitive tool for copying or migrating files among volumes. Summary Sanbolic software supports all Windows server and workstation platforms supported by Microsoft, and Windows server technology including Active Directory, Microsoft Clustering Services, MPIO, DFS, DiskPart and Windows cache management. It is also compatible with storage vendor path failover products such as PowerPath and SecurePath. Sanbolic Inc. 304 Pleasant Street, 2nd Floor Watertown, MA 02472 phone: 617 833 4249 fax: 617 926 2808 url: www.sanbolic.com email: sales@sanbolic.com Copyright 2006 Sanbolic Inc.