E5600 White Paper - UCLouvain

Today’s open systems environments create unique challenges for storage systems. Round-the-clock processing requires the highest availability and online administration. Varying applicationsresult in a range of performance requirements — from transaction-heavy (IO/sec) to bandwidth-intensive (MB/sec). Unpredictable capacity growth demands efficient scalability. And finally, thesheer volume of storage in today’s enterprise requirescentralized administration and storage management simplicity.

There is a storage system designed specifically to addressthe needs of the open systems environment: the E5600 fromLSI Logic Storage Systems. The E5600 is a high-performance,enterprise-class, full 2 gigabit Fibre Channel solution thatdelivers the highest performance, reliability, availability,flexibility and manageability. Its 2Gb host-side connectivitysupports direct-attachment to hosts or storage area networks(SANs). And with more than 32 TB of storage, the E5600easily meets the most demanding capacity requirements.

SANtricity™ Storage Manager software controls the E5600and provides administrators a powerful, yet simplemanagement interface. With SANtricity software, alladministrative tasks, including configuration, re-configuration,expansion, maintenance and performance tuning, can beperformed with no system downtime and no interruption tosystem I/O. And its run-anywhere GUI enables administrationof all E-Series storage systems from any location on thenetwork — regardless of host or client platform.

SANtricity software also provides premium features to create even more powerful storage. TheSANshare™ Storage Partitioning feature enables storage consolidation in heterogeneousenvironments. With SANshare partitioning, a single storage system can function as multiple, logicalstorage systems for use by servers running a variety of operating systems. With SANtricity snapshotfeature, point-in-time volume images are created instantaneously, providing a logical volume foruse in file restoration, backup, application testing and data mining applications, among others. Andremote volume mirroring enables storage-based synchronous data replication from one system toanother to ensure data protection.

LSI Logic Storage Systems, Inc. June 2002

1. Introduction

2. Storage architecturea. Command module

i. Controllersii. Cache usageiii. Cache mirroringiv. Cache flushing

b. Drive module

3. Configurationa. Cablingb. OS supportc. Global Hot Sparesd. Volume groupse. Volumes

4. SANtricity Storage Manager softwarea. Online administration

i. Dynamic capacity expansionii. Dynamic volume expansioniii. Dynamic RAID level migrationiv. Dynamic segment size migrationv. Dynamic defragmentationvi. Volume group/volume configurationvii. Performance monitoring and tuningviii. Non-disruptive firmware upgrades

b. Centralized administrationc. Storage partitioningd. Heterogeneous hostse. Snapshotf. Remote Volume Mirroring

5. Summary

The E5600 continues the LSI Logic storage heritage of a modular, building-block design. Withtwo primary components — command modules and drive modules — custom configurationscan be built to address specific performance or capacity requirements. Each module is fullyfault tolerant with automated I/O path failover and redundant, hot-swappable components toensure the highest availability.

E5600 Command Module

The E5600 command module houses the dual-active, intelligent array controllers, provideseight host connections and supports up to 224 Fibre Channel drives. Redundant controllersand a host-based, multi-path, failover driver provide automated I/O path protection and ensurecontinued data access. In the event of a component failure anywhere in the data path betweenthe server and the disk drives, including host adapters, cables, or a switch in the SAN, I/O isre-routed down the surviving path for uninterrupted access to the data.

The E5600 supports SAN attachment (fabric and/or arbitrated loop), as well as direct hostconnections. The E5600 has four 2Gb host interface cards, each with two ports and eachcapable of 200 MB/sec. With its eight total host ports, up to four hosts can attach directly tothe E5600 with redundant paths, enabling small-scale storage consolidation without theexpense of a SAN switch or hub.

Four 2Gb drive channels are configured as two redundant FC-AL loops to the backend drivemodules. All channels are active for an aggregate bandwidth of 800 MB/s. The E5600 commandmodule supports up to 224 low-profile, Fibre Channel disk drives in 14-drive modules.

The E5600 command module has two Ethernet ports, one per controller, for remote managementof the E5600 from anywhere on the network through SANtricity software. Additionally, eachcontroller has an RS-232 interface connector for troubleshooting and running diagnostics.

All primary components of the E5600 command module are hot-swappable, customer-replaceable units, or CRUs. Each CRU can be accessed either from the front or back of thecommand module and easily removed/replaced.


E5600 Command Module CRUs

1 – RAID controllers2 – Host interface card3 – Drive interface cards4 – Communications module (with fans)5 – Controller fan6 – Power supply modules7 – Battery backup unit



5884 Controller

LSI Logic Storage Systems has been designing and manufacturing RAID storage controllerssince 1990, and introduced the industry’s first Fibre Channel controller in 1994. The 5884controller benefits from more than a decade of design knowledge and firmware developmentto enable the E5600’s industry-leading performance and functionality.

Designed specifically for the open systems environment, the fifth generation 5884 controllerintegrates the multi-pathing design of the fourth generation architecture — where separatedata, control and management busses focus on dedicated tasks — into the 5884’s BuzzMemory Controller. The Buzz memory controller now performs at chip speeds what once wasdone at bus speeds, significantly improving performance.

Separate busses from the Buzz memory controller to the Tachyon chips enable the 5884controller to take full advantage of its 2Gb host and drive interfaces and maximize throughput(MB/sec) performance. In fact, the dual-controller E5600 can deliver 772 MB/sec performanceon disk reads — more than 96 percent of the theoretical 800 MB/sec maximum host-sidebandwidth.

The 5884 architecture integrates multiple, specialized processing elements, each with its ownmemory, to optimize processing power by reducing contention and letting each element focuson its specific job. The LSI Logic unique Buzz ASIC generates parity with no performancepenalty. And a core processor focuses on data movement control, allowing setup and controlinstructions to be processed and dispatched independent of data.

This unique multiple processor design and full-2Gb architecture enables the 5884 controllerto easily handle large amounts of random, small-block I/O and deliver exceptional I/O persecond (IOPS) performance to transaction-heavy applications. With 148,000 IOPS on readsfrom cache and 53,200 IOPS on reads from disk, the E5600 can easily satisfy the mostperformance hungry applications.

5884 Controller Architecture


Cache Design and Usage

While older mainframe-architected storage systems are finding their way to the open systemsmarket, LSI Logic storage systems were designed from the outset with open system I/Orequirements in mind. One of the longstanding trademarks of LSI Logic storage technologyis the high performance provided to open systems environments. The RAID and cachealgorithms in the E5600 have been designed to orchestrate the management of RAID algorithmswith the cache algorithms to provide best possible performance without the need for extremelylarge cache. This is accomplished with a cache management design that recognizes thatstorage system cache in the open environment serves the following primary purposes:

• Write acceleration through improved response times — LSI Logic storage cache algorithmsare designed to provide the lowest latency I/O access possible when securing the user'sdata in storage system cache. These algorithms, combined with the E5600’s highly tunedhardware platform, provide the industry’s best write cache performance. In addition, theE5600 ensures that write data is efficiently written to disk in a manner that minimizes diskI/O (as described below) and maximizes disk utilization. This ensures that cache is readyto receive the next write request from the host.

• Minimization of disk I/Os — the E5600’s RAID and cache algorithms minimize disk I/O usingtwo basic techniques.

• First, the E5600 seeks to identify high locality of write data in its cache and to groupall data in a RAID stripe to eliminate the need for disk read operations in the computationof parity in RAID 5. This ensures that disk utilization is minimized for a particular usagepattern, allowing maximum I/O throughput per spindle available.

• Second, the E5600 employs a logical multi-cache scheme that manages cache dataand parity cache as it can be associated with RAID stripes. This further enhances theability of the storage controller to minimize the required disk read data for RAID 5 writesto disk.

• Dynamic cache usage — the E5600 dynamically utilizes cache as either read or write cache.This allows the adaptation of the cache to suit the particular needs of the I/O requests fromthe hosts it's attached to as the needs of the application change during the computing day.This is particularly useful in an environment in which multiple servers place changing I/Orequests streams on the system during the course of the day, week or month.

• Anticipatory read-ahead caching — the E5600 uses anticipatory read-ahead algorithms thatare used to maximize disk utilization for the given host I/O request stream. These algorithmsbalance the ability of the E5600 to pre-fetch data with the ability of the host to take the datausing patent-pending techniques.

Cache Mirroring

Cache mirroring protects unwritten data during a controller or cache memory failure. Whencache mirroring is enabled, the data written to the cache memory of one controller is alsowritten to the cache memory of the other controller. Therefore, if one controller fails, the othercan complete all outstanding write operations. This cache memory parameter is set on a per-volume basis.


Cache Flushing

To prevent data loss or corruption, the controller periodically writes unwritten data residing inits cache to disk (flushes the cache) based on one of two factors:

• A time-based flush writes cache data to disk after a user-defined period of time (in seconds).This value can range from immediate to infinite, with a value of 10 seconds or less recommendedfor optimal data protection.

• A threshold-based flush occurs when the amount of unwritten data in cache reaches a certainlevel, called a start percentage. The controller writes cache data to disk until the amount ofdata in cache drops to a stop percentage level. For example, the controller can start flushingthe cache when the cache reaches 80 percent full, and stop flushing the cache when thecache reaches 20 percent full. The start and stop percentage levels are user-defined tomaximize data protection and/or performance.

E5600 Drive Module

The E5600 drive module supports up to 14 low-profile Fibre Channel disk drives in a 3Uenclosure, enabling the E5600 to maximize ‘‘spindle density’’ and capacity in a minimumamount of space. A single 19-inch, 39U cabinet supports an E5600 command module and 11drive modules for 154 spindles in a single data center floor tile. And as the E5600 supportsa range of drive capacities and rotational speeds, both spindle density ($/IOPS/sq. ft.) andstorage capacity ($/MB/sq. ft.) can be maximized in a single system.

The dual-ported disk drives in the E5600 drive module are accessed through redundant 2GbFibre Channel drive loops. Each loop is active, ensuring maximum performance, and canaccess all its drives in the event of a loop or cable failure.

E5600 Drive Module

E5600 Drive Module CRUs

1 – Dual-ported Fibre Channel disk drives2 – Environmental services modules3 – Cooling fans4 – Power supplies

Like the command module, all the primary components in the E5600 drive module are customerreplaceable and hot-swappable. This includes the Fibre Channel disk drives, cooling fans,power supplies and environmental services modules (ESMs). The ESMs make the E5600drive module more than ‘‘just a bunch of disks’’ by delivering online information about componentstatus, such as temperature, fan speed, or faults, and providing the ability to cascade multipledrive modules to a single command module.


Additional trademark features of LSI Logic storage are flexibility and pay-as-you-grow scalability,and the E5600 delivers on both. Its unequalled flexibility includes the ability to mix drivecapacities, drive RPM speeds, RAID levels, segment sizes and volume settings all within asingle storage system. Its configuration flexibility enables a single storage system to supportmultiple, heterogeneous servers with vastly different performance and/or capacity demands.And the E5600 delivers scaling flexibility as it can provide online expansion from 90 GB tomore than 32 TB — one drive at a time or 14 drives at a time.

Cabling

Each E5600 command module and drive module fibre port, and all fibre interface cablessupport full-duplex serial communications, meaning data is transmitted in two directionssimultaneously. Therefore, a single cable from one component to another creates a completefibre loop.

The standard E5600 configuration includes all four host and drive interface cards. Eachinterface card delivers 200 MB/s of bandwidth and has dual ports with optical Small Form-factor Pluggable (SFP) connections. The interface cards are interchangeable and can beinstalled on either the host or drive sides.

The first and third host interface cards are connected to controller ‘‘A’’ (top controller), withthe second and fourth connected to controller ‘‘B’’ (lower controller). When attaching the E5600to a host or a SAN, paths to each controller should be established by having one connectionto a host interface card on controller ‘‘A’’ and the other connection to a host interface card oncontroller ‘‘B.’’ This ensures data availability in the event of a path failure.


Hostinterface

cards

Driveinterface

cards

Power SupplyCRU

Power SupplyCRU

Communications(With Fan)

CRU


Drive modules have redundant, dual-active drive loops running to the dual-ported Fibre Channeldisk drives. Each 2Gb drive loop comes ‘‘in’’ through one port on the ESM and goes ‘‘out’’through the other — if additional drive modules are attached. Like the interface cards on theE5600 command module, the ESM connections are optical SFPs.

E5600 Host Connections

2Gb Drive Module

Host 1

Host 2

Host 3

Host 4

ESM CRUs

CoolingFan CRU

CoolingFan CRU

Power Supply CRUs


Drive modules are configured with redundant, dual-active loops from the command module.This again ensures data access in the event of a path/loop failure. Each controller has accessto all four drive interface cards for the highest performance and availability.

When additional drive modules are added, a ‘‘top-down/bottom-up’’ cabling scheme isimplemented. This ensures data access to surviving drive modules even in the unlikely eventthat a full drive module is unavailable.

All E5600 interface cards and environmental services modules are designed with LSI Logic’sunique port bypass technology. Port bypass technology maintains fibre loop integrity whennew Fibre Channel connections are made — or if existing ones are removed — by automaticallyopening and closing ports as needed. This means new hosts can be added, or SAN connectionscan be reconfigured, without affecting I/O of the existing attached host(s). And full drive modulescan be added or removed without interrupting access to data.

HotScale™ technology combines the port bypass features of the E5600’s interface cards andESMs with SANtricity software’s online administrative capabilities to deliver unsurpassedstorage system availability. HotScale technology enables storage capacity to be added,configured, and assigned to a host with no system downtime, no interruption to existing I/O,and no server or storage re-boot.

Operating System Support

The E5600 storage system provides a broad range of platform support for open systemsenvironments including Windows® NT, Windows® 2000, Sun Solaris™, HP HP-UX, SGI IRIX,Linux®, IBM AIX and Novell NetWare®. Additionally, each of these operating systems canshare a single E5600 storage system without fear of data corruption and with the E5600responding as if it was dedicated, direct-attached storage.

Global Hot Spares

If a drive fails in the E5600, the controller uses redundancy data to reconstruct the data ontoa hot spare drive. The hot spare is automatically substituted for the failed drive without requiringuser intervention. And when the failed drive is physically replaced, the data from the hot spareis automatically copied back to the replacement drive. The E5600 supports up to 15 globalhot spare drives, and each can be a spare for any disk in the array. Generally, the drive thatyou assign as a hot spare should have a capacity that is equal to or greater than the capacityof the largest drive on the storage system.

Volume Group Configuration

A volume group is a set of drives that the controller logically groups together to provide oneor more volumes to an application hosts. Each volume group has an assigned RAID level,and typically all the drives in a volume group are the same capacity. Volume groups can becreated using drives of different capacities, however, the usable capacities of all the drivesin that volume group will be adjusted down to the disk drive of the smallest capacity.


DISK1

DISK2

DISK3

DISK4

Volume Group A


The drives that make up a volume group can be selected manually or automatically, and canreside in a single drive module or across multiple drive modules.

When using SANtricity software’s automatic configuration option, volume groups will beconfigured balancing the load across as many drive channels and drive modules as possible.This ensures maximum protection and performance.

C O N T R O L L E R A

C O N T R O L L E R B

C O M M A N D M O D U L E

The number of drives supported in a volume group varies by RAID level. While these numbersrepresent the maximum number of drives, SANtricity 8 software’s maximum volume groupcapacity is 2 TB. With today’s larger capacity drives, the volume group capacity maximummay be reached before the maximum number of drives.

0 301 15 + 151+0 15 + 153 29 + 15 29 + 1

Supported RAID level Maximum Volume Group Size(number of data + parity drives)

While multiple RAID levels can be intermixed in a single E5600 storage system, each volumegroup has a single, assigned RAID level. This RAID level can be dynamically migrated throughSANtricity software. SANtricity software also provides the ability to dynamically add additionaldrives, up to two at a time, to existing volume groups. Existing volumes are then re-stripedacross all drives in the newly expanded volume group. And like RAID level migration, thistakes place while the volume group and all its volumes remain online and accessible for I/O.


Volume Configuration

A volume is a logical structure on a storage system for data storage. A volume is created byslicing a volume group into a stripe set with a defined capacity. With SANtricity 8 software,each volume group supports up to 256 volumes, with a maximum of 2,048 volumes per E5600system.

DISK1

DISK2

DISK3

DISK4

Volume Group A

VolumeMarket ing

During the volume creation process, the user specifies the host type, capacity of the volume,the volume name and whether to use recommended advanced volume settings or customizethe advanced volume properties for this volume. Customizing the advanced volume settingsallows the volume I/O characteristics to be tailored to specific application needs (file system,database, multimedia or custom where the cache read-ahead multiplier and segment size areuser-defined). Additional settings include preferred controller ownership, and a volume-to-LUNmapping parameter.

The volume-to-LUN mapping preference is specified based on whether SANshare StoragePartitioning is being used or not. The following two settings are offered:

• Automatic — This setting specifies that a Logical Unit Number (LUN) be automaticallyassigned to the volume using the next available LUN within the default group. This settingwill grant volume access to host groups or hosts that have no specific volume-to-LUNmappings (designated by the default group node in the topology view). Specify the automaticsetting when SANshare Storage Partitioning will not be in use.

• Map later with SANshare Storage Partitioning — This setting specifies that a LUN not beassigned to the volume during volume creation. This setting allows definition of a specificvolume-to-LUN mapping and creation of storage partitions. Specify this setting when SANshareStorage Partitioning is in use.

From volume to volume, all settings can be configured individually to ensure the desiredcharacteristics for specific volume are met. Volume configuration settings include:

• capacity • enabled/disable write cache• controller ownership • enabled/disable write cache mirroring• segment size • enabled/disable battery-backed write cache• cache block size • modification priority• cache read-ahead multiplier • enabled/disable background media scan with or• enabled/disable read cache without redundancy check


SANtricity Storage Manager Software

SANtricity Storage Manager software provides a powerful, yet easy-to-use Java-based GUIfor administering the E5600 and all other E-Series storage systems. SANtricity software enablesonline administration, a consistent interface across all operating systems and E-Series systems,and the ability to manage the storage from any location on the network.

Online Administration

SANtricity software enables nearly all storage management tasks to be performed while thestorage remains online with complete read/write data access. This allows storage administratorsto make configuration changes, conduct maintenance, or expand the storage capacity withoutdisrupting I/O to its attached hosts. SANtricity software’s online capabilities include:

• Dynamic Capacity Expansion (DCE)DCE enables the capacity and number of drives to be increased for a given volume group.Up to two drives at a time can be added to existing volume groups, with the existing volumesthen being striped across the full set of drives now comprising the volume group.

• Dynamic Volume Expansion (DVE)This feature allows you to expand the capacity of an existing volume by using the free capacityon an existing volume group. (Note: Increasing the capacity of a standard volume is onlysupported on certain operating systems.)

• Dynamic RAID level migrationAllows the RAID level of a volume group, and all its volumes, to be changed. The volumegroup must have enough capacity and the appropriate number of drives to support the newRAID level.

• Dynamic segment size migrationA default segment size is set during volume creation, based on the volume group RAID leveland the volume usage specified. These two parameters should optimize the segment sizeappropriately for the environment. When monitoring the storage system reflects less thanoptimal performance, however, the segment size of a given volume can be changed.

• Dynamic defragmentationThis features enable all free capacity in a volume group to be consolidated, so that additionalvolumes can be created from the maximum amount of free capacity.

• Volume group/volume configurationHotScale technology enables full drive modules to be added to the E5600, volume groupsto be configured, and volumes to be created without disrupting access to existing data. Oncethe newly created volume is defined, SANtricity software’s immediate LUN availability and‘‘hot-add’’ features enable it to instantly be mapped and accessed by a host(s).

• Performance monitoring and tuningSANtricity software enables the storage system performance to be monitored in real-timeto assist in performance tuning decisions. The Performance Monitor data table tracks thefollowing parameters by device (controllers, volumes and storage system totals): total I/Os,read percentage, cache hit percentage, current KB/sec, maximum KB/sec, current IO/sec,and maximum IO/sec. Performance data can also be saved to a file for later analysis.


• Non-disruptive firmware upgradesSANtricity software enables controller firmware upgrades to occur with no interruption to dataaccess. The new firmware is transferred to the first controller, its flash memory is updated,and the controller is re-booted. The firmware is then passed from the first controller to thesecond, and the process is repeated. With a multi-path driver installed, access to all storagesystem volumes is maintained throughout the process.

Centralized Administration

SANtricity software enables all E-Series storage systems to be managed from a single interfaceat one or more locations on the network. Its Enterprise Management Window (EMW) providesa comprehensive view of all storage systems in the management domain. From the EMW,destination (e-mail and/or Simple Network Management Protocol [SNMP]) traps are configuredto receive alert notifications for nonoptimal storage systems. Additionally through the EMW,new storage systems to be managed can be manually or automatically detected and added,and batch management tasks can be performed using the Script Editor.

SANshare Storage Partitioning

SANtricity software’s SANshare StoragePartitioning feature enables a single E5600storage system to be logically partitionedand function as up to 64 virtual arrays.SANshare supports up to two host ports ineach host and up to eight ports in each hostgroup; allowing a four-way cluster of dual-adapter hosts. Partition access is maintainedat the controller level, ensuring completedata integrity in multihost, multi-OSenvironments.

A storage partition is a logical entity consistingof one or more storage system volumes thatare accessed by a single host or sharedamong hosts that are part of a host group.A storage partition is created when you definea single host or a collection of hosts, calleda host group, and then define a volume-to-LUN mapping. This mapping allows you todefine what host or host group will haveaccess to a particular volume in your storagesystem. Hosts and host groups can onlyaccess data through assigned volume-to-LUN mappings.

SANshare’s logical partitioning combined with SANtricity software’s configuration capabilitiesenable unparalleled consolidation flexibility. Volumes throughout the array can have uniqueconfigurations settings. And any volume, residing anywhere on the system, can map to anyattached host. This flexibility enables a range of hosts with different capacity, performance ordata protection demands to map to volumes with characteristics that exactly match itsrequirements.

L U N0

L U N1

L U N2

E 5 6 0 0 S t o r a g e S y s t e m

L o g i c a lp a r t i t i o n

A

u n m a p p e d v o l u m e s


C

L U N3

L U N1

L U N0

L U N2


B

H o s tA

H o s tB

H o s tG r o u p

C


Heterogeneous Hosts

The heterogeneous hosts feature allows the firmware on each controller in the storage systemto tailor its behavior (such as LUN reporting and error conditions) to the needs of the hostoperating system. This provides each individual host the view of the storage system that itwould experience if it had exclusive access to the array.

In a heterogeneous environment, you must set each host type to the appropriate operatingsystem during host port definition. A host type can be completely different operating systems,such as Solaris and Windows NT, or variants of the same operating system, such as WindowsNT — clustered and nonclustered.

Heterogeneous host settings are only available when SANshare Storage Partitioning is enabled.

Snapshot Feature

SANtricity snapshot feature provides an additional level of data protection and the means toimprove production data utilization. Snapshot enables nonproduction servers to access anup-to-date copy of production data for a variety of applications — including backup, applicationtesting, or data mining — while the production data remains online and user-accessible.

A snapshot volume is a point-in-time image of a volume. It is the logical equivalent of a completephysical copy, but is created much more quickly and requires less disk space. Snapshotvolumes appear and function as normal volumes. They are host-addressable and can be read,written to or copied.

SANtricity snapshot feature uses an innovativecopy-on-write technology to maintain the logicalsnapshot volume while minimizing disk utilization.When the snapshot is ‘‘taken,’’ the controllersuspends I/O to the base volume for a fewseconds while it creates a physical volume —called the repository volume — to store snapshotmetadata and copy-on-write data. When a datablock on the base volume is modified, a copy-on-write occurs, copying the contents of blocksthat are to be modified into the repository volumefor safekeeping. This repository volume combinedwith the original base volume creates the logicalsnapshot volume.

Since the only data blocks that are physicallystored in the repository volume are those thathave changed since the time of the snapshot,the snapshot technology uses less disk space than a full physical copy. The repository volumeis typically 10 to 20 percent of the base volume, but will vary depending on the amount ofchanges to the data. The longer a snapshot is active, the larger the repository is needed. TheSANtricity snapshot feature will provide notification when the repository volume nears a user-specified threshold (a percentage of its full capacity). And at any time, SANtricity DVE featurecan be used to dynamically expand the repository volume.

Sales - LUN1

Sales2 - LUN2

E 5 6 0 0

P h y s i c a l L o g i c a l

B a s eV o l u m eS a l e s

S n a p s h o tR e p o s i t o r y

S n a p s h o tV o l u m eS a l e s 2

A C

BA CBD CE


Open systems storage faces ever-evolving changes in today’s IT data center. The E5600storage system delivers the performance, scalability, availability, manageability and flexibilityto respond to the unique demands and provide companies maximum return on their storageinvestment. For more information on the E5600, SANtricity Storage Manager software andother E-Series storage systems, visit www.lsilogicstorage.com

Remote volume mirroring

Remote volume mirroring (RVM) furtherextends the capabilities of the E5600 byproviding remote data replication. Designedfor campus environments, volumes on oneE5600 are mirrored to volumes on anotherE-Series storage system across a fabricSAN. The synchronous data transfers occurat Fibre Channel speeds to maintain up-to-date information in a timely fashion. Andsince RVM is storage-based, there is noserver or application overhead.

With SANtricity RVM, valuable informationis protected through replication to a remotesite. And support for cross mirroring enablestwo separate systems to function as remoteDR sites for each other.

In addition to disaster recovery, remote volumes can be used for offline backups, applicationtesting, and data mining. SANtricity RVM is also useful as a high-performance volume copyapplication to move data from one system to another.

E 5 6 0 0

F a b r i c S A N

A 2A 1

B 1m i r r o r

E 5 6 0 0

B 1

A 1m i r r o r

A 2m i r r o r

The LSI Logic design is a registered trademark and SANtricity, SANshare and HotScale are trademarks of LSI Logic Corporation. All brandsand product names appearing in this document are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders. No part of this documentmay be reproduced in any form without the prior written consent of LSI Logic. The information contained in this document is subject to changewithout notice.

Documents

E5600 White Paper - UCLouvain