snia shared storage model_ practical applications

8/2/2019 SNIA Shared Storage Model_ Practical Applications

1/12

Login

Become a member

RSS

Part of the TechTarget network

SearchStorageChannel.com

News

Latest Headlines

Cloud storage

prices drop, but

experts and users

say hidden fees

remain

Nexsan launches

unified storage

architecture with

flash cache

Hard disk driveshortage takes aim

at enterprise SAS,

SATA in 2012

View All News

Storage Channel

Topics

Topics

Data Backup and Data Protection

Data Backup Strategy, Disk Backup, Tape Backup, Data Protection and Backup Services, Disaster Recoveryand Business Continuity

Data Storage Hardware

Tape Storage, Blade Storage, Disk Storage Hardware, Data Center and Server Room Storage, Other Storage

Media

Data Storage Management

Data Archiving, Data Provisioning Tools, Data Migration Tools and Strategies, Storage Capacity Planning and

Performance, Information Lifecycle Management (ILM), Online Storage Services, Tier Storage

MSPs/Storage as a Service

Network-Attached Storage (NAS)

NAS Backup, NAS Hardware, NAS Management

Regulatory Compliance Services

Remote Storage Management

Shared Storage Model: Practical applications http://searchstoragechannel.techtarget.com/feature/SNIA-Shared

2 3/20/2012


2/12

Storage Area Network (SAN)

SAN Design and Planning, Storage Area Network (SAN) Management, Fibre Channel SAN, iSCSI SAN IP

Storage, Storage Networking Protocols

Storage Service Provider Concerns

Storage Solution Provider Sales and Marketing

Storage Virtualization

Storage Virtualization Planning, Storage SOA

Hot Topics

IBM DR Services FAQ Guide

Expert

Advice

Tips

Scalable NAS initiative at Ancestry.com

demonstrates competing products can coexist

VDI sizing and disk array controller requirements

Tape archiving: Which customers are a good fit?

View All Tips

Ask a Question

Get help from our technical community

Powered by ITKnowledgeExchange.com

White

Papers

Research Library

White Papers

Business Webcasts

Downloads

Powered by Bitpipe.com

Product Demos

Try out software demos

Powered by 2020Software.com

Blogs

Blogs

Channel Marker

Storage Channel

Pipeline

Storage Soup

Powered by

ITKnowledgeExchange.com


2 3/20/2012


3/12

Search this site

Home

TopicsData Storage Management

Storage Capacity Planning and Performance

SNIA Shared Storage Model: Practical applications

SNIA Shared Storage Model: Practical applications

E-mail

Print

A

AA

AAALinkedIn

Facebook

Twitter

Share This

Reprints

Practical application of the SNIA Shared Storage Model

An excellent example of this practical application of the model is provided by the IT staff ofCarlson Companies. Carlson

Companies is one of the largest privately held companies in the United States, with more than 180,000 employees in more than

140 countries. Its IT division, Carlson Shared Services, acts as a service provider to its internal clients and consequently must

support a spectrum of user applications and services.

In formulating a global IT strategy for networking and storage, the Carlson storage architects began with their current

applications and the supporting server/storage infrastructure. Originally, Carlson's business applications were supported on a

combination ofdirect-attached storage arrays and internal storage. As shown in Figure 7, database applications ran on servers

attached to large storage arrays, and other applications ran on servers with internal storage.

Overlaid on the SNIA Shared Storage Model, Carlson Companies' original storage configuration clearly demarcates which

applications access data via records, which via files, and which via device-level block aggregation or host-supported block

aggregation. The first step in determining which applications might be better served by shared storage and which shared storage

technologies are most appropriate for specific upper-layer applications is to diagram the upper-layer applications and their

storage access methods.

By using the Shared Storage Model, the storage architects clarified the relationship between application requirements and storageresources and also revealed the administrative overhead incurred by dedicated storage units. The system required four large

storage frames and six additional arrays to support Carlson's data center applications. Each storage unit required separate

administration as well as maintenance contracts from the supplying vendor. Because storage consolidation is one of the key

benefits of SANs, the Shared Storage Model offered a framework for modifying the components in the block subsystem to

reduce the number of storage devices while still serving Carlson's business applications.


2 3/20/2012


4/12

Figure 7

As shown in Figure 8, analysis of Carlson's former storage deployment led to a proposed shared storage configuration that

leveraged both SAN and NAS technologies to streamline storage administration and enable more efficient use of storage

capacity. This design replaces the four large directattached storage frames with a single SAN-attached storage array supporting

more than 10 terabytes of data. In this example, Oracle and other Carlson custom applications now share a single, highly

available storage resource that is more easily administered and offers more economical maintenance support compared with the

four direct-attached storage frames it replaced. Shared directories and other internal applications have moved from direct-

attached, dedicated storage to large NAS filers. In this instance, NAS was chosen for its cross-platform support and for its ability

to serve remote NAS access for Carlson clients. Infrastructure applications that have no compelling reason to reside on either

NAS or SAN remain on internal storage, as shown on the right side of the diagram.

Figure 8

Remote storage access is also a significant factor for organizations with geographically dispersed sites. In Carlson Companies'


2 3/20/2012


5/12

global IT strategy, safeguarding corporate data generated at remote locations is essential for business continuance. Relying on

each remote office to back up its own data locally offers no guarantee that backups are successfully completed or that data can be

restored in the event of failure. Consequently, Carlson decided to streamline backup operations by bringing remote backup

operations into its central data center. As shown in Figure 9, the Shared Storage Model is used to define four separate remote

office backup scenarios. Remote offices with no local file servers have valuable corporate data on internal drives of laptops and

desk workstations. Typically (and unfortunately) for most enterprise networks, this data is rarely backed up, resulting in loss of

productivity if a laptop or desktop disk drive fails. For these sites, Carlson uses software that enables block change backup,

meaning that only the data that has changed since the last backup is sent to the data center backup facility. This arrangement

reduces the amount of data that must be sent across the wide area network and accomplishes the goal of securing dispersed

corporate data assets. Similarly, remote sites with a local file server can be backed up using block changes, again reducing the

amount of traffic generated over the WAN.

Figure 9

In the remaining two scenarios, a remote office may have a local NAS or SAN installed. For NAS, Carlson is leveraging vendor-

supplied file backup utilities to replicate data from the remote site to the data center NAS equipment. At the data center, theNAS-based data can then be centrally archived to tape. For remote SAN installations, Carlson is using IP storage technology to

transfer locally generated Fibre Channel SAN data to the corporate SAN. In Carlson's case, the data center SAN is built with an

IP SAN core, thereby facilitating IP-based block backup between remote and central SANs.

For Carlson Companies, the SNIA Shared Storage Model offers a coherent framework for analyzing current and future storage

requirements for both the data center and its dispersed remote locations. For storage architects, the Shared Storage Model is a

tool for defining application and storage relationships while enabling drill-down to more detailed storage-specific issues. For

CIOs and IT executives, the model provides a basis for understanding the composition of their storage deployments and seeing

how proposed acquisitions contribute to broader strategic IT goals. Additional information on the SNIA Shared Storage Model is

available in Appendix E as well as the SNIA Web site at www.snia.org.

Designing Storage Area Networks: A Practical Reference for Implementing Fibre Channel and IP SANs, 2nd Edition was writtenby Tom Clark and published by Addison Wesley Professional. Did you find this book helpful? Purchase it directly from the

publisher.

Dig Deeper

People who read this also read...

Riverbed Technology debuts Riverbed Granite remote storage appliance

Storage area networks (SANs) design using SNIA Shared Storage Model

The SNIA shared storage model


2 3/20/2012


6/12

What is SAP? - Definition from Whatis.com

What is network-attached storage (NAS)? - Definition from Whatis.com

Related tags

model

shared

snia

storage

Show me more

This was first published in September 2006

Get SSDs with the highest performance, data integrity and drive endurance for the most

demanding enterprise environments

Back to top

Latest News

Cloud storage prices drop, but experts and users say hidden fees remain

Nexsan launches unified storage architecture with flash cache

Hard disk drive shortage takes aim at enterprise SAS, SATA in 2012

Symantec goes after Veeam, Acronis for patent infringement

IBM puts SSD cache in XIV


2 3/20/2012


7/12

Get e-mail updates

Submit your e-mail below to receive Storage Channel-related news, tech tips and more, delivered to your inbox.

Data Management1.

Not a member? We'll activate your FREE membership with your subscription.

Ads by Google

Active Directory RestoreReal-time change monitor & recovery

Bring users back online fastwww.blackbird-group.com/recovery

News

Latest Headlines

Cloud storage

prices drop, but

experts and users

say hidden fees

remain

Nexsan launches

unified storage

architecture with

flash cache

Hard disk drive

shortage takes aimat enterprise SAS,

SATA in 2012

View All News

Storage Channel

Topics

Topics

Data Backup and Data Protection

Data Backup Strategy, Disk Backup, Tape Backup, Data Protection and Backup Services, Disaster Recovery

and Business Continuity

Data Storage Hardware

Tape Storage, Blade Storage, Disk Storage Hardware, Data Center and Server Room Storage, Other Storage

Media

Data Storage Management

Data Archiving, Data Provisioning Tools, Data Migration Tools and Strategies, Storage Capacity Planning and

Performance, Information Lifecycle Management (ILM), Online Storage Services, Tier Storage


2 3/20/2012


8/12

MSPs/Storage as a Service

Network-Attached Storage (NAS)

NAS Backup, NAS Hardware, NAS Management

Regulatory Compliance Services

Remote Storage Management

Storage Area Network (SAN)

SAN Design and Planning, Storage Area Network (SAN) Management, Fibre Channel SAN, iSCSI SAN IP

Storage, Storage Networking Protocols

Storage Service Provider Concerns

Storage Solution Provider Sales and Marketing

Storage Virtualization

Storage Virtualization Planning, Storage SOA

Hot Topics

IBM DR Services FAQ Guide

Expert

Advice

Tips

Scalable NAS initiative at Ancestry.com

demonstrates competing products can coexist

VDI sizing and disk array controller requirements

Tape archiving: Which customers are a good fit?

View All Tips

Ask a Question

Get help from our technical community

Powered by ITKnowledgeExchange.com

White

Papers

Research Library

White Papers

Business Webcasts

Downloads

Powered by Bitpipe.com

Product Demos

Try out software demos

Powered by 2020Software.com

Blogs


2 3/20/2012


9/12

Blogs

Channel Marker

Storage Channel

Pipeline

Storage Soup

Powered by

ITKnowledgeExchange.com

Search this site

More from Related TechTarget Sites

Storage

IT Channel

Systems Channel

Networking Channel

Security Channel

Cloud Storage

Solid State Storage

searchStorage

Choose an integrated stack for efficiency, easy storage implementation

An integrated stack bundles servers, storage and networking in a preconfigured product. It's easy to install and

manage, and offers "one throat to choke" if anything goes wrong.

Top 10 enterprise data storage terms from SearchStorage.com

Our list of the top 10 data storage terms allows IT pros to dig deeper into popular storage industry terminology.

Symantec aims Data Insight 3.0 at unstructured data management

Symantec representatives say Data Insight 3.0 can facilitate unstructured data management by showing who owns

and can access file data.


2 3/20/2012


10/12

IT Channel

Intel Tri-Gate 3D processor aims to beat the heat, boost performance

The new Intel Tri-Gate chip is designed to use less energy and provides faster speeds. This 3D processor line may

help VARs solve clients data center problems.

Managed video conferencing services finally in demand

MSPs can use IT management platforms to provide managed video conferencing services and save customers

money, time and headaches.

VM sprawl brings virtual infrastructure management solutions opportunities

Customers are turning to the channel for virtual infrastructure management solutions that address VM sprawl and

provide more business visibility.

Systems Channel

Mobile security services: Protecting against mobile security risks

Theres a plethora of mobile security risks, from data loss to malware to unauthorized network access. Calm your

clients nerves by offering mobile security services.

Active Directory management services: cleanup and optimization

If you think theres no demand for Active Directory management services, think again. Active Directory cleanup and

optimization services can be valuable to your customers.

Using SQL Azure Reporting Services to offer data analysis services

By adding Azure Reporting Services to your line card, you can provide customers with easy data analysis services.

SQL Azure Reporting information can benefit your company, too.

Networking Channel

Five tips to deploying a unified communications solution

When it comes to deploying a unified communications solutions, building a network is only half the battle. The rest

is about showing users how UC can make their lives better.

Five-day private cloud deployment promises low stress, high quality

Canonicals Ubuntu Cloud Jumpstart program promises a five-day production-quality, private cloud deployment

with an opportunity for partners to resell.

What it takes to sell enterprise social networking software

Channel partners will have to show customers how to integrate enterprise social networking tools into their existing

communications applications in order to make a sale.

Security Channel

HIPAA security checklist: 10 services your customers need


12 3/20/2012


11/12

HIPAA compliance services can lead to solid business growth for solution providers. Kevin McDonald's HIPAA

security checklist has 10 ways to begin.

Survey results: VARs report customers IT spending 2012 expectations

VARs expect customers to increase spending on security more than any other IT area in 2012. See which security

segments will grow the most.

Create a computer security blog to attract and retain customers

Blogging can produce new leads for security solution providers. Focus on content in your computer security blog

that connects with customers.

CloudStorage

Can cloud file syncing replace backup solutions?

While cloud file syncing solutions as a form of backup makes endpoint users happy, haphazard adoption by

employees can leave organizations more susceptible to risk.

Private NAS cloud saves digital production studio millions of dollars

A digital production company turned NetApp filers and Avere NAS acceleration devices into a private NAS cloud

hosted at the SuperNAP collocation facility in Las Vegas.

Cloud storage prices drop, but experts and users say hidden fees exist

Amazon, Google and Microsoft have announced drops in public cloud pricing, but users and experts agree that

hidden costs do exist.

searchSolidStateStorage

Configuring SSD storage for virtual desktops

Learn what value can be gained from combining SSD storage with virtual desktop infrastructures in this tip from

Mark Peters.

Implementation choices for solid-state storage devices

Learn how implementation choices for solid-state storage devices have exploded in the past year. Download the

essential guide for handy reference.

How SSD software can improve SSD cache performance

SSD software vendors claim an improvement in performance over using SSD cache alone. This tip will help you

choose the right SSD software.

All Rights Reserved, Copyright 2006 - 2012, TechTarget

About us

Contact us

Site index

Privacy policy

Advertisers

Business partners


12 3/20/2012


12/12

Events

Media kit

TechTarget corporate site

Reprints

Site map


snia shared storage model_ practical applications

Documents