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The FAN has Started Spinning
Continued from page: 1
Manu Priyam
Friday, August 10, 2007
The heart of a FAN
The way a file system object is kept and retrieved in a FAN framework is
referred to as the object's namespace. This is the heart of a FAN. Today, we
find three kinds of namespaces in a FAN infrastructure. Most enterprises use a
combination of these to address the issues involved.
1. Non-shared namespaces: This is a user-level presentation of information
corresponding to a file system image belonging to a particular physical machine.
Sharing of information across multiple file system images is not possible in
this case.
2. Shared namespaces: These are platform-specific and not intended for
deployment across all end clients in an enterprise, rather they are targeted at
a subset of this volume. They result in file visibility, collaboration, and
performance issues for this subset of client devices/applications. Clustered NAS
environments and clustered or distributed file system deployments are an example
of such a kind of namespaces.
3. Global unified namespaces (GUN): They enable a true heterogeneous FAN.
They offer a complete abstraction of all file-level information present in an
enterprise. Once you have a unified namespaces well-defined, you can think of a
significantly improved management control over storage and also will be able to
leverage it in the best possible manner.
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Area File Services (WAFS) WAFS aims at consolidating the storage spread across an enterprise. It
simplifies branch office IT services (requiring lesser number of
less-skilled persons) and optimizes file traffic on WANs, which in turn
reduces operational costs and management hassles. It helps reduce hardware
and software requirements at branch offices, as well. It provides file
services and speedy read-write access to shared files across WANs, which
enables enterprises to have significant productivity gains with LAN-like
service levels.
Generally, WAFS is implemented in this way-the core appliance is placed at a
central site where the file server and remote sites are equipped with edge
appliances. This kind of architecture on one hand, results in a significant
improvement in the performance of applications, and on the other, enables
global file sharing for data residing at the central location. On top of
file management, print and network services, it offers Web caching services
to
speed up data fetching. |
FAN services
These are some basic services which we expect a FAN to deliver, apart from
advanced services which it will provide with time. The basic set of services
includes: a global unified namespace to organize storage in an overlay
namespace; migration of files from one server to another; moving files via
policy to the right storage at a point in time (ILM), moving files to better
distribute load or capacity; and replicate files to support any kind of
failover.
A FAN supporting all of the above services is very useful. It supports the
day-to-day cause of a storage administrator in an enterprise. Apart from these,
a FAN can also enable a wide-range of advanced services that will take storage
management to new levels. These advanced services include data classification
and optimized placement of data, application acceleration, and access control
and auditing. The Information Classification and Management (ICM) software,
enables content-level indexing of all information contained in a file
infrastructure, which in turn supports policy-based controls, access and
retention. This optimizes the alignment between storage characteristics and
business needs. Optimal data placement ensures appropriate performance and
utilization levels for servers and storage. This can either be achieved through
some in-band network resident approach, like Network File Management (NFM) and
ICM, or through a distributed software approach.
Application acceleration is another advanced service which is designed to
optimize the performance of critical applications. As FAN extends through
geographies, it's necessary for it to support wide-area connectivity into its
namespaces. There should not only be a connection, but a connection as fast as a
LAN. Various WAN optimization technologies along with WAFS are making this a
possibility.
State of the art
The concept of File Area Networks is still in its infancy and will continue
to evolve in coming times. It took SANs almost seven years to settle down and
become as effective and common, as they were initially planned to be. Similar is
the case for FANs, though they may take a little less time to become popular.
For the time being, IT managers, who are seriously viewing at investing in a
file networking based solution, need to seriously weigh the options available
and study their pros and cons. Thankfully, today there are a bunch of solutions
available and the good news is that tier one vendors such as Brocade, EMC, HP,
Microsoft and NetApp are all lined up with FAN-based solutions. It seems as if
the FAN has well and truly started to spin. Page(s) 1 2
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