ActiveStor is a data storage platform designed primarily for use with clustered Linux computers. The platform combines both storage and director blades in a system shelf, with file system software that is accessible via Linux client components installed on the cluster nodes themselves.

On the hardware side, individual 4U system shelves house user-defined combinations of StorageBlades and at least one DirectorBlade. Up to 11 blades can be installed in a single shelf; and connectivity is provided via a separate, integrated 16-port Gigabit Ethernet switch blade (11 ports go through the mid-plane to the switches and are themselves aggregated into 4 uplink ports to the network). The StorageBlade handles the actual storage of user and application data and handles 90% of the file system's activity; while the DirectorBlade handles the authentication and mapping of the data when initially accessed by clients. Once nodes in the Linux cluster are provided with the initial authentication and file object mapping through the DirectorBlade, they are able to access the StorageBlade data directly in parallel--i.e., the DirectorBlade itself is typically outside of the normal data traffic flow, which occurs directly between the nodes and the StorageBlades.

StorageBlade specifications and capacity depend on the ActiveStor model chosen (see below). The ActiveStor 3000 is now offered in three models, with maximum single shelf capacity of 10, 15, and 20 TB, respectively (and therefore 100, 150, or 200 TB per 42U rack); while the three models of the ActiveStor 5000 also provide 10, 15, or 20 TB per storage shelf, respectively.

Enabling this "DirectFLOW" parallel file access is the vendor's Panasas parallel File System (PanFS), itself a component of the ActiveScale Operating System, which drives the platforms. The object-based PanFS file system converts files into data objects and stores them dynamically across the available StorageBlades. To access them directly in the manner described above, the individual nodes of the Linux cluster must be enabled with a client component. The DirectorBlades, however, also support access to the files through standard CIFS (Windows) or NFS (UNIX). This type of access (CIFS/NFS) is achieved via the DirectorBlade's receiving the data access requests, transparently converting them to the hardware's native DirectFLOW protocol, retrieving the data, and then supplying it to the requesting node. Thus, CIFS/NFS access requires that the data access be routed through the DirectorBlades.

Panasas offers five flavors of the ActiveStor systems: The ActiveStor 3000 is targeted primarily to batch processing needs from Linux clusters, and includes the features described above. The ActiveStor 5000 is targeted to environments that mix batch processing with individual direct node accesses, and enhances the feature set of the ActiveStor 3000 with several improvements:

- StorageBlade XC units, which increase data access performance primarily as the result of quadrupling (from 512MB in the standard StorageBlade to 2 GB in the StorageBlade XC) cache memory (the ActiveStor 3000 can be optionally loaded with the higher cache StorageBlades, increasing it to 2 GB per, as well)

- An ActiveGuard component providing data protection through network redundancy (failover from a failed to a second Ehternet link) and support for failover between DirectorBlades

- Support for volume snapshots via the ActiveImage component. Over 32,000 images per storage cluster are supported; with each snapshot capturing only the changes from the previous image

For R&D-heavy organizations, there is the ActiveStor 6000, which offers 20 GB cache per storage shelf with an integrated 10GigE switch that bumps per shelf throughput to over 600 MB/s. Aimed at the simulation and data analysis markets, the ActiveStor 4000 delivers roughly the same throughput minus the performance enhancing benefits of its upmarket stablemate's cache.

Lastly, the company tackles parallel storage for second tier applications with the AS200. The unit packs 104 TBs of capacity into a half rack and offers five GbE ports for connectivity.

An additional option in the ActiveStor product line is the vendor's DirectConnect10--facilitating 10 Gig Ethernet connectivity to the storage shelves. With this option in place, the vendor states that a single storage shelf can deliver bandwidth of over 500 MB/sec.

ActiveStor is available now. Visit the Panasas Web site for further information.

product submission by EITPlanet Staff

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