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Storage Systems Product Analysis

March, 2009 Page 1 of 25

Analysis of Fujitsu ETERNUS2000 Models 100 and 200 Analysts: Russ Fellows, Norlynn Nelson, Jane Wood

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The ETERNUS2000 was announced and immediately available in Japan in May, 2007 followed with a worldwide, phased rollout reaching North America in October, 2007. The rack mount ETERNUS2000 is the entry-level of the ETERNUS family of products.

Products and vendors that compete with the ETERNUS2000, include EMC AX4 or CX4 model 120; the Hitachi Data Systems SMS and WMS, the Hewlett Packard’s (HP) MSA 2000 and EVA 4100, along with IBM’s DS3000 systems, NetApp’s FAS2000 products and Sun’s ST2000 line.

HIGHLIGHTS

• New, smaller footprint and lower power profile from previous models (2U vs. 4U) • Support for intermix of 146, 300GB, 400GB, 450GB, 500GB, 750GB and 1TB SAS disk drives. • Support for RAID 0, 1, 5, 6 and RAID1+0 with global hot spare disks • Hot swappable, redundant components • Choice of host interfaces:

o Four Fibre Channel host interfaces with a maximum transfer speed of 4Gbps o Four iSCSI host interfaces with a maximum transfer speed of 1Gbps o Four SAS host interfaces with a maximum transfer speed of 3Gbps

• Two models, model 100 and 200 • Model 100:

o 2 GB of cache o Maximum of 24 disk drives (24TB w 1TB Nearline SAS)

• Model 200: o 4 GB of cache o Maximum of 120 disk drives (120 TB w/ 1TB Nearline SAS)

• Reduced power consumption for infrequently accessed data (MAID) • Replication and Disaster Recovery capability • Centralized web-based management software • Call home feature for proactive maintenance • Non-disruptive logical volume expansion • RAID Migration allows RAID levels and volumes to be hot switched • Support for failover and load balancing with server-based failover software • Resource sharing and access security with a LUN masking implementation called Host Affinity • Block level data protection with error detection codes added to every data block • Duplexed write cache with ECC protection • Disk Traffic Control (DTC) performance feature separates I/O based on sequential or random access. • Three (3) year maintenance with next business day (NBD) included; uplifted maintenance is available


Storage Systems March, 2009 Product Analysis Page 2 of 25



OVERVIEW

The ETERNUS2000 is the entry-level model of the Fujitsu ETERNUS family of storage products designed for SMB and distributed environments that require high reliability, availability and serviceability features. Particular attention was given to implementing a smaller footprint with lower power requirements over other family members.

There are two models of the ETERNUS2000 varying in capacity, performance and connectivity. These models support direct as well as SAN connectivity via Fibre Channel and iSCSI connectivity, along with direct connection to up to four systems via SAS connections. Heterogeneous server attachment is supported, with specific server operating systems support listed in Tables 4 and 5.

The ETERNUS2000 share design elements with the midrange ETERNUS4000 series and the data-center class ETERNUS8000 systems.

Model 100 Model 200

Figure 1: ETERNUS2000 Product Line

Fujitsu has reduced the footprint and power consumption for the ETERNUS2000 in comparison to the larger ETERNUS4000 product line. The E2K utilizes Raid on Chip (ROC) technology to shrink the enclosure size to 2U (from the 4U enclosures utilized by the ETERNUS4000). A single chip RAID controller minimizes the size and number of components and, consequently, reduces power needs.

Evaluator Group Comments: The smaller form factor and lower power consumption are particularly appealing in the entry level market, where size, power and cooling requirements are every bit as important as they are for data-center environments. Utilization of the large capacity SATA drives and MAID technology through Fujitsu’s Eco-Mode allow further opportunity to reduce power consumption.






Model Comparison

Model 100 Model 200

Form Factor Rack Mount Number of Controllers 2 (HA) RAID Levels 0, 1, 5, 6, 1+0 Maximum Disk Drives 24 120

Storage Capacity

SAS disk drive

Physical Capacity1 Max 10.8 TB Max 54.0 TB Logical Capacity2 Max 7.6 TB Max 39.0 TB

Nearline SATA disk

Physical Capacity1 Max 24.0 TB Max 120.0 TB Logical Capacity2 Max 17.0 TB Max 88.6 TB

Maximum Volumes / RAID group 128 128 Max Hosts per port (Host Affinity groups / port) 16 32 Maximum Logical Volumes 512 1,024 Maximum LUN Size 32 TB (concatenated) or 8 TB (regular LUN) Host Interface FC (4 Gbps); iSCSI (1 Gbps); SAS (3 Gbps) Number of Host Interfaces / controller pair 4 (all interfaces) Host Interface Speed (FC = 4 Gb, iSCSI = 1 Gb, SAS = 3 GB) Cache Capacity 2 GB 4 GB Drive Interface SAS (4X @ 3 Gbps) Dimensions (W x D x H) 18.98” x 25.98” x 3.64” (2U) Mínimum Config Additional Drive Enclosures Max 1 Max 9

1Calculated as 1k byte = 1,000 bytes and includes system disk capacity

2Calculated as 1k byte = 1,024 bytes and when formatted as RAID5. User capacity depends on system environment

Table 1: Model Comparison





PRODUCT ARCHITECTURE

The modular, rack mounted ETERNUS2000 starts with the Base Enclosure. The minimum configuration for both the Model 100 and Model 200 is contained in the Base Enclosure. This enclosure is 2U and contains dual controllers. Host attachment to the base unit is through the Host Bus Adapter (HBA) connections of either four fibre connections or four iSCSI connections with the host connections allocated as two per controller.

Figure 2: ETERNUS2000 Architecture (source: Fujitsu)

When properly configured, the design provides fault tolerant high availability. Fibre connectivity was available with the original announcement and iSCSI connectivity was added in first quarter of 2008. The cache is





utilized for reads, writes, and controller based copy functions, with the amount being model dependent. Each controller includes cache; with write mirroring between controllers cache for HA operation.

Cache is utilized for multiple purposes, including for read and write operations, as well as maintaining information required for data protection and replication functions such as Fujitsu’s array based replication and point in time copy data protection software. The operation of these optional features is covered in the Software Architecture section of this document.

A 48-hour backup battery unit is housed within the base controller with space for an optional second backup battery unit, which extends the time to 96-hours. There are redundant power supply units, one per controller, as well as redundant fans.

Each enclosure, including both the base and expansion units house twelve disk slots. The minimum number of drives that may be used are two. RAID groups require drives to consist of the same interface type, either SAS or SATA. Each RAID group should utilize the same capacity drive. Mixed capacity drives are supported in a RAID group, although each disk will only utilize the capacity of the smallest disk in the RAID group. The intermixing of disk drive types (SAS or SATA), and size is supported within the same enclosure.

• A maximum E2K Model 100 system utilizes one Base Enclosure and one Device Enclosure • A maximum E2K Model 200 consists of one Base Enclosure and nine Device Enclosures

Each Expansion Enclosure, also known as Device Enclosure, is 2U and includes dual SAS Expanders, redundant power supply units, redundant fans and 12 disk slots.

Figure 3: One chip design (source: Fujitsu)

The ETERNUS2000 design incorporates a controller chip that combines five chips into one versus the design of the ETERNUS4000 system. The RAID on a Chip (aka, ROC) design provides both size and power reduction over the previous designs as well. An Emulex SAS Expander provides connectivity from the controllers to the backend disk drives over 3Gb SAS channels, and also provides connectivity from the base enclosure to optional expansion enclosures.

Controllers The array controllers are referred to by Fujitsu as Channel Adapters (CA’s). These provide fibre channel, SAS or iSCSI connectivity to host systems directly or via SAN (FC or IP) connectivity. The CA’s process commands from the host and manage accesses to the cache. Two fibre channel, SAS or iSCSI host connections per controller are available, for a total of 4 connections in a dual controller system. For service, an entire controller






module must be taken out of operation (a failover to another controller module must be done) before the channel adapter is replaced. Service may be restored via a fail-back operation after replacement.

Table 2, below summarizes the controller / channel adapter connectivity options.

Interface Model 100 Model 200 Number of FC (4Gbps) ports 4 4

Number of iSCSI (1Gb) ports 4 4

Number of SAS (3Gb) ports 4 4

Table 2: ETERNUS2000 Models Connectivity Options

RAID Groups The Fujitsu storage systems are configured into storage groups with RAID configurations for data protection. The data in RAID groups may be organized into one or more logical volumes. Logical volumes are made available to servers as LUNs (Logical Unit Numbers). The maximum number of LUNs per RAID group is 128. LUNs may also span across multiple RAID groups.

The ETERNUS2000 storage system may be configured in different RAID configurations providing different levels of protection and performance. The RAID levels supported are RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 1+0 (data is mirrored on multiple disks and then striped across 4 to 32 disks). RAID 5 with rotating distributed parity on multiple disks, and RAID 6 which offers dual parity per RAID group.

The RAID group size, the number of disks in an individual RAID group, can vary but there are limits from Fujitsu of what is supported. The supported RAID configurations are enumerated in Table 3 below.

RAID Number of Drives Recommended Grouping

Model 100, Model 200 Model 100 Model 200 RAID0 2 – 16 2 – 16 ─ RAID1 2 2 2(1D+1M) RAID1+0 4 – 24 4 – 32 8(4D+4M), 10 (5D+5M) RAID5 3 – 16 3 – 16 5(4D+1P), 6(5D+1P) RAID6 5 – 16 5 - 16 6(4D+2P), 7(5D+2P)

Table 3: Supported RAID and Recommended Grouping

Hot Spare Hot spare disk drives are global spares that may be used by any RAID group with access to the hot spare. The hot spares allow rebuilding to start automatically when a disk drive fails, or before failure if a high drive error rate is detected. After replacing a failed drive, the data is copied to the replaced drive and the original spare returned to spare status. If using different capacity drives in the system, the hot spare must be equal to or greater than the largest capacity drive.






When invoking hot sparing, a hot spare disk with the same capacity as the failed disk will be used first; if one does not exist, the largest capacity hot spare disk will be used. There is no limit for the number of hot spares that can be defined.

Disk Devices The ETERNUS2000 supports Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) interface disk drives (3 Gbps) as well as NearLine SATA disk drives (3 Gbps) suitable for archival purposes or other non transactional data.

The characteristics of the disk devices supported are listed in Table 4, below.

Specification Drive Type Drive Type Drive Type Max. Capacity (GB) 500, 750, 1TB NearLine SAS 400 SAS 146, 300, 450 SAS Rotational Speed (RPM) 7,200 10,000 15,000

Table 4: Disk Drive Characteristics

Evaluator Group Comment: As in the other family members, support for a wide range of disk devices enables ETERNUS2000 users to deploy the product across a greater number of applications within the enterprise. The many disk options allow easy deployment of tiered storage within the same system.

MAID - Eco-Mode Fujitsu utilizes Massive Array of Idle Disks (MAID) technology for infrequently accessed data in order to reduce power and cooling requirements. This feature is referred to as ‘ETERNUS Eco-Mode’. By allowing RAID groups that are infrequently accessed to spin down when they are not used, the total power consumption may be reduced.

The Eco-Mode feature controls the disk drive rotation within a RAID group, affecting all drives that form a RAID group. This feature is managed through ETERNUSmgr. Eco Mode is disabled when system activity requires access to the RAID group, including for data protection operations, mirror copying, RAID group rebuild operations and other system required activity.

Eco Mode utilizes a setting, in conjunction with RAID group activity to determine if a RAID group should be spun down. If there is no activity, and the setting indicates the group should be spun down, then Eco Mode takes effect. If either of these two conditions is not meet, then the group will remain spinning. Eco Mode uses time frames for a specific RAID group and may be enabled for the following time frames:

• Everyday - The mode is enabled every day from the specified start time to the specified end time. • Every week - The mode is enabled every day from the specified start time to the specified end time. • Specific day – The day or date of the month, along with start, and number of days is specified • Specific week – A day of the week within the month, along with the start and ending day of the week and

the starting and ending time are specified • Last Access Time – A specific amount of time has elapsed since a RAID group was last accessed, this

may be set to 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 or 60 minutes (default is 30 minutes)






Evaluator Group Comments: The lower power consumption of Eco-Mode provides a unique feature in this market segment. Currently no other vendor supports drive spin down in an entry level system.

Mirrored Cache Each controller contains cache, with write data mirrored between controllers over an internal PCI-Express bus link.

LUN Management Fujitsu refers to their LUN masking and LUN management features as ‘Host Affinity’. LUN access or Host Affinity is controlled by the ETERNUSmgr configuration software, which is included with the system. Host Affinity controls LUN access, which provides a security mechanism at the LUN level. A Host Affinity group is defined as a set of LUNs that are made available to a specific set of servers. The server is identified by the World Wide Name of the host bus adapter.

LUNs can be assigned to multiple servers, with one LUN used in different Host Affinity groups allowing for multi-host data access for cluster or other configurations using host software to coordinate data sharing.

The maximum number of LUNs per RAID group is 128. The maximum number of LUNs per storage system is 512 for Model 100 and 1,024 for Model 200. A LUN may be comprised of one or more RAID groups, or a partial RAID group.

Virtual / Thin Provisioning Fujitsu does not support virtual capacity of volumes, which is sometimes known as “Thin Provisioning” or “Virtual Provisioning”.

However, Fujitsu does support expansion of a LUN through “Logical Device Expansion”, or LDE.

RAID Migration The support for on-line RAID migration effectively copies data from one RAID group to another, new RAID group. The target RAID group must be as large, or larger than the source group. There are few restrictions to RAID migration, allowing administrators to re architect data layout to support changing requirements.

LUN Concatenation LUN concatenation adds new space for a volume and expands volume capacity that can be used from the server. This feature obtains the area to be used for capacity expansion from unused areas in an existing RAID group, or an unused RAID group. LUN concatenation creates a new volume with the obtained area, and concatenates these volumes to be used as a large capacity volume. LUN concatenation can be used for volume expansion when creating a new volume or expanding an existing volume. Up to 16 volumes may be concatenated. Concatenation of multiple free areas in the different RAID group is possible. Concatenation is possible even if the RAID level is different. Maximum volume capacity after the concatenation is 32 (TB).






PERFORMANCE

Performance is an important aspect of any system. Based upon the performance achieved in the industry standard Storage Performance Council (SPC) benchmarks, the ETERNUS performs very well.

Fujitsu has submitted SPC benchmark results which show the E2K performance as better than other similar systems in their class, with a better dollar per performance metric, a higher number of transactions per disk drive, and a higher overall number of transactions. The result of 13,250 SPC-1 operations is the best of any currently tested entry level system. Additionally, Fujitsu attained an SPC-1 rating of 301 operations per disk drive, which also surpasses other similar class systems.

Evaluator Group Comments: Fujitsu has submitted SPC benchmark results for SPC-1 (transaction processing) benchmark for the ETERNUS2000. The results achieved show the ETERNUS is able to achieve a higher total number of transactions, a higher number per disk drive and a lower total cost per SPC operation than other comparable systems, most specifically the IBM DS3000 series. This demonstrates that in addition to the excellent feature set, the ETERNUS performs very well in transaction oriented environments, typical of MS SQL Server or MS Exchange. The dollar per SPC operation, and number of transactions per disk drive were among the highest recorded for any system.






RAS FEATURES

Reliability, availability, and serviceability ETERNUS storage systems maintain data integrity and provide data availability via the following mechanisms: • RAID protection of disk devices • Redundancy of active components • Dual power source • Up to 48 hour battery back up for cache or 96 hours with optional second battery • Controller based data integrity checking with Fujitsu ‘BlockGUARD’ • Activities supported with multiple controllers active, non degraded

o Configuration changes o Adding, removing or changing hot spare disk drives

• Changes supported while the system is active with a single controller: o Maintenance on controllers o Firmware upgrades

Point to Point Disk Connectivity The connectivity to from the controllers to the disk devices is through SAS connections. Each enclosure connects to another via a 4X SAS connector, and is then connected to a SAS expander, with a direct connection to each drive. Similar to switched FC connectivity, there is a direct connection to each drive, thereby removing any impact of a faulty connection or drive on the overall system.

Block Guard Fujitsu has implemented integrity checking of data within the controller via a mechanism referred to as Block Guard. This feature is known as ‘BlockGUARD’ on ETERNUS4000 and ETERNUS8000 systems. Block Guard adds an extra eight bytes of information on every 512-byte data block as it enters the system at the Channel Adapter. These eight bytes are retained with the data as long it is stored within the system. The eight bytes are composed of a four byte cyclical redundancy check (CRC) and four bytes that are the block ID. This information is checked whenever the block is stored on disk by the SAS Expander and is also checked when data is retrieved, both at the SAS Expander and the array controller. The Block Guard characters are stripped whenever data is sent to the host by the controller (also known as Channel Adapter by Fujitsu).

Error Checking and Correction (ECC) Data integrity is also a part of the cache function. Data in cache is error-correction code (ECC) protected to be able to detect and correct double bit, or any odd number of bits of cache memory errors.

Evaluator Group Comment: Many vendors provide ECC data protection, however Fujitsu adds an extra layer of data protection with Block Guard in the entry level market. Currently only enterprise class monolithic systems provide both levels of data integrity checking. This is another feature that sets the E2K apart in the entry level space. While both data integrity checks may be over engineering, data integrity is just as important to small business and small data sets as to large businesses.






Redundant Copy When a disk is identified for preventive replacement (before hard failure), the redundant copy function builds the identified disk’s data from the other disks in the RAID group to a hot spare. Once that action is complete, the disk at risk is detached and the hot spare is incorporated into the RAID group ensuring data integrity.

Battery Backup Battery life is three years. The status of the battery unit(s) is checked through the ETERNUSmgr web-based software. If a power failure is detected, data in the cache memory is saved for up to 48 hours when the battery is fully charged and for up to 96 hours when the option additional battery is also fully charged. When power is returned to the ETERNUS2000, recharging of the battery starts. It can take up to six hours to fully charge the battery.

Redundant Power System The power system is based on redundant power supplies in the modular enclosures with dual line cord inputs. All power system components are replaceable non-disruptively.

Evaluator Group Comment: In the case of a power failure due to an outage, versus an unplugged cord, redundant power works only if each power supply is connected to a separate circuit.

RAID 6 With the use of dual parity drives in a RAID 6 configuration, the RAID group provides better protection and reduced overhead than many alternative RAID configurations. A RAID 6 group provides protection against a double disk failure, while minimizing the overhead associated with a RAID 50 or similar configuration.

Evaluator Group Comment: Protection against double disk failures is an important consideration with the new generation of high capacity disk drives. As disk capacities grow, the rebuild time also grows, thereby increasing the possibility of a double disk failure prior to data reconstruction. This issue is particularly important for high capacity SATA drives, but as SAS drive capacities approach 500 GB, protection against double disk failures is an important consideration for all disk drive types.

Concurrent Maintenance A modular architecture is based on modules being able to be taken out of service while others take over the workload. The ETERNUS2000 operates in a mode where some components can be replaced without failing over to another controller while others require a failover to occur for service. Fujitsu states the following components are FRU’s (Field replaceable units) and may be replaced while providing data access.

• Array Controller, contains - Controllers, cache and channel adapters • Power Supplies • Cooling Fans • Disks

Firmware Updates Firmware updates in the ETERUNUS2000 is accomplished by the following operation:






1. Failing over LUN access from the primary controller to the secondary controller

2. Copying the firmware to the controllers flash ROM

3. Then failing the LUNs back their original, primary path

4. Repeating steps 1 – 3 for the second controller module

Remote Call Home The ETERNUS2000 system supports remote call home with several remote support features including:

• Send Communication Log • Automatic sending of system Log • Manual system log sending






CONNECTIVITY OPTIONS

The Fujitsu ETERNUS2000 series supports three host connection choices on both systems:

• FC • iSCSI • SAS

Evaluator Group Comments: By offering all three choices, Fujitsu allows customers the opportunity to choose the best option, regardless of ETERNUS model they purchase. SAS host connectivity is often the best option when a small number of hosts need connectivity. iSCSI offers a low cost SAN option, with some performance limitation, while FC connectivity offers the best performance and connectivity options, along with the highest total connectivity price.

The following table lists supported servers and operating systems for Fibre Channel host interface:

Host Vendor Supported Servers Supported Operating Systems

Fujitsu

PRIMEQUEST

Windows Server 2003 for Itanium based Systems, Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS (V.4 for Itanium), Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 (for Intel Itanium), SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 9 for Itanium Processor

SPARC Enterprise Solaris 10 Operating System PRIMEPOWER Solaris 8, 9 and 10 Operating Systems

PRIMERGY

Windows 2000 Server, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2003 x64 Editions, Windows Server 2008, Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS/ES SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, VMware Infrastructure 3

Sun

SPARC Enterprise Solaris 10 Operating System

Sun Fire Solaris 8 Operating System, Solaris 9 Operating System, Solaris 10 Operating System

HP HP 9000 HP Integrity

HP-UX 11iv2, HP-UX 11iv3, Microsoft Windows Server 2003 for Itanium based Systems

IBM pSeries, RS/6000 AIX 5.2, AIX 5.3 Others

Industry Standard Server

Windows 2000 Server, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2003 x64 Editions, Windows Server 2008, Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS/ES SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, VMware Infrastructure 3

Table 5: ETERNUS2000 Supported Servers and Operating Systems – Fibre Channel

Evaluator Group Comment: Always check with vendor for the latest supported configurations.






The following table lists supported servers and operating systems for iSCSI host interface.

Host Vendor Supported Servers Supported Operating Systems Fujitsu

PRIMERGY

Windows 2000 Server, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2003 R2, Windows Server 2003 x64 Editions, Windows Server 2003 R2 x64 Editions, Windows Server 2008

Others


Windows 2000 Server, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2003 R2, Windows Server 2003 x64 Editions, Windows Server 2003 R2 x64 Editions, Microsoft Windows Server 2008, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 9, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10

Table 6: ETERNUS2000 Supported Servers and Operating Systems – iSCSI

iSCSI Connectivity The E2K supports iSCSI connectivity. There are several options for iSCSI which may be implemented. The following are supported by the ETERNSU2000 systems:

• iSNS (internet Storage Name Services) • Changing TCP/IP settings • CHAP authentication • Host affinity mode • Cancel reservation • Header Digest • Data Digest

The following table lists supported servers and operating systems for SAS host interface.

Host Vendor Supported Servers Supported Operating Systems

Fujitsu

SPARC Enterprise Solaris 10 Operating System

PRIMERGY Windows 2000 Server, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2003 R2, Windows Server 2003 x64 Editions, Windows Server 2003 R2 x64 Editions, Microsoft Windows Server 2008, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5

Sun SPARC Enterprise Solaris 10 Operating System

Others


Windows 2000 Server, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2003 R2, Windows Server 2003 x64 Editions, Windows Server 2003 R2 x64 Editions, Microsoft Windows Server 2008, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5

Table 7: ETERNUS2000 Supported Servers and Operating Systems – SAS






SAS Connectivity The E2K supports SAS connectivity. There are several options for SAS which may be implemented.

• Connectivity to 1 – 4 hosts (single path) • HA connectivity to 1 or 2 hosts (dual path)

Evaluator Group Comments: SAS connectivity is a connection choice that has largely replaced parallel SCSI as the best option for direct attached storage (DAS) connectivity. Additionally, it offers limited multi-host connectivity options, which will support a fail-over host cluster without requiring the use of an iSCSI or FC SAN deployment. This is ideal for small environments that require high availability, but have not other requirements for deploying a storage area network.

Multi-Path IO Fujitsu provides a multi pathing driver, referred to generically as MPD for the operating platforms supported by the ETERNUS2000 line. For each platform there is a specific driver package known as ETERNUSmpd.

The ETERNUS2000 supports either a fixed path access on a per LUN basis, or dynamic multi-path access on a per LUN basis. This feature is different than active/active controllers, and different still from multi-path I/O. The ETERNUS2000 series permits asymmetric LUN accesss. This is a mode which Fujitsu refers to as “Assigned CM”.

The ETERNUS2000 systems assign a controller module (CM) to a specific LUN. The path(s) connecting to the controller normally used will have an active status, while the path(s) connecting to other controllers will have standby status.

Paths connected to the assigned CM are in active status, while paths connected to the non-assigned CM are in standby status. Load-balancing is performed on the paths in active status (called active paths). Paths in standby status (called standby paths) are normally not used for access.

Thus, the ETERNUS2000 provides active/active controller use with multi-pathing, and asymmetric access to a LUN through a specific array controller (or control module - CM). The diagram below illustrates the configuration for AIX, although this is also the case for other OS environments. Figure 4 below illustrates asymmetric access.



0 Models 100 and 200 nn Nelson, Jane Wood

Analysis of Fujitsu ETERNUS200Analysts: Russ Fellows, Norly


Figure 4: Asymmetric MPIO Access for ETERNUS2000 (Source: Fujitsu)

Solaris Fujitsu provides a device driver for Solaris platforms supporting MPIO, utilizing Fujitsu’s multi-path driver, or MPD.

Windows Fujitsu provides a device driver for Windows platforms supporting MPIO, utilizing Fujitsu’s multi-path driver, or MPD.

Linux Fujitsu provides a device driver for Linux platforms supporting MPIO, utilizing Fujitsu’s multi-path driver, or MPD.

IBM AIX For the AIX platform, Fujitsu’s MPD is an interface to AIX’s native multi-pathing I/O capabilities. The ETERNUS MPIO for AIX is an IBM Path Control Module (PCM) that utilizes AIX’s native multi pathing capabilities, through the MPIO interface. ETERNUS systems utilizing this software may be accessed as an MPIO device by AIX. This allows active/active asymmetric logical unit access via AIX.

ETERNUS MPIO for IBM AIX performs load-balancing over the usable paths to improve the access performance.






TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

Power Requirements Model 100 Model 200 Voltage AC100-240V AC100-240V No. of Phases Single Single Frequency 50/60Hz 50/60Hz

Max. Power Consumption (W)795 (100-120V) 770 (AC200-240V)

3,835 (AC100-120V) 2,270 (ac200-240V)

Max. Heat Dissipation (KJ/h) 2,879 (AC100-120V)2,862 (AC200-240V)

8,458 (AC100-120V) 13,806 (AC200-240V)

Max Weight 154.32 lbs 771.6 lbs Environmental Conditions Temperature

Operating 41° - 95°C

Non-Operating 32° - 122°C

Humidity

Operating 20 – 80% RH Non-Operating 8 – 80% RH

Table 8: ETERNUS2000 Power and Environmental Specifications






SOFTWARE FEATURES AND FUNCTIONS The ETERNUS SF software suite includes a number of offerings that provide options for system and SAN management, data protection and disaster recovery, backup and archiving, local replication and path failover.

Storage Management

SMI-S Interface The SNIA along with the DTMF have created a set of storage management interface specifications, known as “SMI-S” interface. Fujitsu ETERNUS2000 systems support and have been certified to be interoperable with SMI-S version 1.1 frameworks. The ETERNUS2000 has an SMI-S provider that may be used by applications to manage the system.

ETERNUSmgr (Included) ETERNUSmgr is a device management application that is included with all ETERNUS storage systems, including ETERNUS2000 systems. This browser based management application is used to configure, manage and monitor one or more ETERNUS2000 systems.

ETERNUS SF Storage Cruiser (Optional) Storage Cruiser is a SAN management application that provides configuration, specification, and monitoring of a SAN environment. It may also be used to manage the relationship between the storage as viewed from the host server and the physical storage, allowing the whole storage system’s configuration and failure conditions to be managed. It will manage the ETERNUS family and also supports other selected vendors products.

ETERNUS SF Storage Cruiser consists of two modules, with an optional third module: • The Agent feature is installed on each server node being managed • The Manager feature is installed on the selected administrative server • (Optional) A remote Client may be installed on any computer used to perform management functions

ETERNUS SF Disk Space Monitor (Optional) Disk Space Monitor provides the user with a GUI tool to track storage utilization. It provides automatic space usage notification based on pre-defined thresholds; a real-time view of storage space use; and, long-term storage space monitoring via daily, weekly or monthly reports.

ETERNUS SF AdvancedCopy Manager (Optional) The ETERNUS SF AdvancedCopy Manager (ACM) provides backup and replication with flexible options. It allows non-stop high-speed backup of major databases such as Oracle and SQL Server. The methods used are Equivalent Copy (EC), One-Point Copy (OPC), differential backup/replication (QuickOPC) and SnapOPC.

ETERNUS SF ETERNUSmgr Aid (Optional) The ETERNUS SF ETERNUSmgr Aid provides wizard based management of ETERNUS storage systems, providing setup, configuration and monitoring. This also provides capacity and performance configuration and monitoring for ETERNUS products, as an addition to the base ETERNUSmgr product.






Data Protection Software Fujitsu has termed their point in time copy feature for the ETERNUS series, One Point Copy (OPC). There is local mirroring (Equivalent Copy), along with three different versions of One Point Copy:

• One Point Copy • Quick OPC • Snap OPC

Equivalent Copy One Point Copy (OPC) One Point Copy QuickOPC SnapOPC Copy Type Mirror Clone Clone PIT Architecture Full Copy Bit Map Bit Map Bit Map Max # Copies Maximum concurrent EC, OPC QOPC or SnapOPC copies by model:

Model 100 = 512 ; Model 200 = 1,024 Re-sync Yes No Yes No Potential Data Exposure

Synchronous—none Exposure is back to time OPC was

activated

Exposure is back to time QuickOPC was

activated

Exposure is back to time when snap was

taken Availability for Restore

Mirror available after completion of initial

mirror

Available for restore immediate, or able to replace volume

after copy complete

Available for restore, or able to replace

volume immediately

Available for restore only after command

completes

DR, Fail-over Capability

Yes On Mirror suspend

or break

Yes Able to replace

volume after copy complete

Yes Able to replace

volume as soon as command completes

No Not for DR or fail-over, depends on

source data Default Action Mirror. Copy is a

true mirror until it is split

Copy when command issued

Copy when command issued

Copy on Write

Additional Capacity

100% 100% 100% Changes only

Access to Copy R/W after split R/W immediate R/W immediate R/O Performance Impact

Some impact Small Impact Minimal Minimal

Table 9: Fujitsu ETERNUS2000 Data Protection Options

One Point Copy (OPC) The copy is a “clone” copy where an exact original copy is made to another physical area. Entire volumes may be copied using OPC.

OPC has two copy phases; the logical phase and the physical phase. The logical phase starts after the OPC command is initiated. A bitmap that represents the copy is created in cache memory. That process






takes a few seconds and after completion, the copy is available for use. The physical phase then starts which is the process of the storage system copying the data to the copy location and this happens in the background. During the physical phase, host access to data is available. The copied volume is available almost instantly after OPC initiates, upon completion of the logical phase.

There are three speed settings (pacing parameters) to control the amount of storage system resources consumed for the copy operation. The speed or priority settings are controlled via the management software, ETERNUSmgr. The three speed options are low, high and automatic. The automatic setting changes the priority dynamically in response to the system workload.

QuickOPC After One Point Copy has been run, an administrator may execute a QuickOPC operation which shortens the copy time. The design leverages the use of a bitmap, which tracks changed blocks for the volume. This function will only copy changes from the source volume since the last One Point Copy operation occurred.

SnapOPC SnapOPC operates similar to other Copy on Write point in time copy operations. Rather than copying the new data to the copy volume, the old data is copied to the duplicate volume. Space is saved by only saving the original blocks of data, when new data is written to the SnapOPC volume. By copying only a portion of the source volume, it minimizes copy volume capacity.

Evaluator Group Comment: The variety of Data Protection options available on the ETERNUS2000 product allows it to compete against other, larger and more expensive systems. In comparison to other entry level products targeted at the SMB space with less than 75 TB, the ETERNUS2000’s data protection features surpass most competitors.

Equivalent Copy (EC) Fujitsu local mirroring and replication product is known as Equivalent Copy (EC). The mirror is an exact image copy made to another physical area. Entire volumes may be copied as initiated by the Fujitsu management software.

The mirror volume must be a local volume, thus the ETERNUS2000 supports local, in system mirroring only. Like the One Point Copy feature, space for the copy must be reserved previously and be at least the same size. The RAID configuration may be different in the source and target.

The copied volume is not available until the initial copy is complete and either a “detach” (split or break) or a “suspend” command has been issued. If suspended, a “resume” may be issued which will cause a resynchronization to be done. The resynchronization is the application of incremental updates that have been made to the source volume to the target. The target volume is not available during a resume. If a “detach” has been done, the target volume becomes independent at that time.

The process of the physical copying for the mirror persists through a power down or reboot. As in One Point Copy, Equivalent Copy consumes cache memory for the bitmap (and the additional data being moved for the copy). To use EC, at least 1GB of cache for each controller module must be installed.






While very similar to One Point Copy, the differences are that Equivalent Copy supports the Suspend/Resume function and the mirror volume is not available until the copy is complete.

ETERNUS SF Recovery Manager for Oracle (Optional) Fujitsu has worked with Oracle to interface the ETERNUS2000 with Oracle server operations – essentially supporting an API capability between the Oracle server environment and the storage systems. Additionally this functionality leverages AdvancedCopy so that Oracle RMAN can run recovery operations via a GUI interface. This provides online disk-to-disk backup operations for the database.

Replication

ETERNUS SF Replicator (Optional) SF Replicator is a host based replication and migration software package from Fujitsu that provides users the capability to replicate/migrate data from one storage system to another over an IP network. All disk storage systems are supported except for network attached storage (NAS). This product was formerly called Softek TDMF Open Systems Edition, now owned by IBM.

Evaluator Group Comment: Fujitsu supports this capability primarily as a migration tool for migrating data from storage systems that will be replaced to ETERNUS2000 storage systems. Given that this is an IP based migration scheme users should be careful in configuring and executing this capability. A private network should be used to maintain complete isolation from the business traffic on LANs and WANs, or migration should be scheduled on business functional networks at time of low to no user traffic. Customers should work carefully with Fujitsu systems engineering to properly plan for the correct use of this software capability.

Disk Traffic Control (DTC) DTC is a performance optimization feature that optimizes the back end disk drive by segmenting sequential and random accesses into separate extents when they both occur simultaneously. The two I/O streams (sequential and random) are processed alternately on a time interval basis to provide optimum usage of the disk drive resource.






ANNOUNCEMENT HISTORY

Date Announcement January, 2009 Enhancement of model 200 to support 120 drives, and add SAS August, 2008 Announce Single Controller ETERNUS2000 for low cost entry February, 2008 Announced support for iSCSI host interfaces November, 2007 Distribution via Tech Data September, 2007 Availability announced for North America

May, 2007 Announcements of ETERNUS2000 storage systems – Model 100, 200 with rolling availability

Table 10: ETERNUS2000 Announcement History






EVALUATOR GROUP COMMENTS

With the release of the ETERNUS2000, and growing support of attachment of the ETERNUS line to servers other than the Fujitsu server platform, Fujitsu is demonstrating the continuation of their commitment to providing open storage to a demanding and rapidly growing market. The ETERNUS2000 system fills a growing need for storage systems that support heterogeneous servers in the SMB market.

The proven valuable features of Point-In-Time copy position the ETERNUS2000 as a consideration when disaster recovery and business continuance support is required. The performance and competitive cost of the system should be very attractive to customers. Fujitsu continues to supply excellent data integrity features – demonstrating their understanding that this has become an expectation for storage systems in the SMB storage space.

Fujitsu appears to be following the track of another successful Japanese storage vendor Hitachi / HDS. The ETERNUS is a reliable storage system with excellent performance characteristics. As was also the case with Hitachi’s earlier storage products, the storage management aspects have not received as much attention as the rest of this system. While fully adequate, the management options available are not on par with some competing products.

However, the Fujitsu’s included management application, ETERNUSmgr device manager, coupled with ETERNUS SF Storage Cruiser, permit administrators to configure and manage small SAN deployment of ETERNUS2000 systems. Additionally, third party Storage Resource Management (SRM) tools are available which will support ETERNUS2000 systems, providing enhanced management capabilities for larger or heterogeneous SAN storage deployments.

Since the initial release of the ETERNUS2000, Fujitsu has continued to enhance its platform and server based software features and interoperability. The ETERNUS2000 is a good choice for departments requiring a flexible, reliable array with a wide variety of data protection options and an excellent warranty.

Strengths:

Overall, the ETERNUS2000 line is a solid, well architected external storage system. The features offered are on par with that of most major competitors, and add several industry leading features. The inclusion of multiple RAID levels, including RAID 6, along with good performance and expandability, an excellent choice of data protection options coupled with the industries best in class warranty provide a compelling package.

Fujitsu’s wide range of heterogeneous support is a significant feature. By comparison, many entry level offerings from system vendors support a very limited set of hardware and OS environments.

The Eco Mode feature leverages the idea of spinning down inactive disks, an innovation known as MAID, pioneered by Copan Systems. Fujitsu is one of the first vendors to embrace this idea and incorporate it into their mainstream storage array products. Although the settings are cursory and operate at the RAID group, the capability to selectively spin down drives is an advantage for many






deployment scenarios where near-line access capabilities are required, and power and cooling costs are a concern.

Additionally, the ETERNUS2000 line offers a wide variety of RAID configuration choices, including RAID 6 which is often the best option for large capacity drives. Choice in configuration allows administrators the ability to optimally match RAID configurations to their business use. The capacity expansion is also a feature where Fujitsu surpasses competing arrays.

Data protection is a critical aspect of storage for large and small deployments. The wide variety of controller based data protection options allow administrators and users to configure the system to provide data protection that best matches their business needs.

The performance of the ETERNUS2000 is also excellent. The SPC-1 benchmark results indicate the high levels of performance achieved, placing it ahead of its competitors in terms of performance, and price – performance. The Fujitsu E2K performs as well as any system in the entry level category, and should perform well for any environment where an entry level system is required.

Finally, the three year warranty is among the industry’s best offering for entry level systems. At a time when most competitors are reducing their warranties to 1 or 2 years, the 3 year Fujitsu warranty will provide peace of mind and cost savings over the life of the product.

The ETERNUS2000 is perhaps one of the best products in its class with the least amount of recognition. It easily competes with the EMC AX4, the Hitachi WMS, the IBM DS3000 and the NetApp FAS2000 systems, and has advantages over many of them in several cases.






Perceived Challenges:

There are only a few issues which should provide any pause for potential users of the ETERNUS2000. As with many items, the lack of a feature may not be applicable for all environments. These items are lack of thin provisioning, and limited management capabilities.

A new feature that has found widespread acceptance due to its ability to lower storage consumption is the ability to provide virtual or thinly provisioned LUNs to host systems. Fujitsu’s ETERNUS2000 product does not currently support thin provisioning. Competing systems that do offer thin provisioning will be able to better match requested storage allocations to actual usage.

Additionally, the ETERNUS2000 suffers from the same limited management interface as the larger enterprise models of the ETERNUS family, models 4000 and 8000. However, enterprise manageability is less of an issue for the environments where the smaller ETERNUS2000 are typically deployed.

By comparison, the EMC AX4, CX-3, HP MSA and EVA products and IBM’s DS3000 and DS4000 products provide richer more full featured management choices. Fujitsu does not currently offer an SRM management package, although, SRM products are generally outside of the price range for SMB and small enterprise deployments. Thus, although management options are somewhat limited, in comparison to some competing products, the management should be sufficient for small enterprise or SMB deployments.

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