StorStac OS

The Intransa StorStac OS is the core operating system platform used in all StorStac System configurations, customer proven in hundreds of installations worldwide supporting a wide range of video and IT storage needs.

StorStac is a block-based, high performance, high capacity, IP (Internet Protocol) based storage area network (SAN) system. Intransa IP storage systems have been used by IT and video storage customers since 2003. The StorStac OS is the latest generation Intransa IP storage management system.

Video Storage

Benefits for video storage users include:

The StorStac Video Storage Administrator is a powerful graphical user interface (GUI) that presents storage requirements in terms familiar to video surveillance, quality assurance and supply chain surveillance, industrial video and other users of video storage rather than in complicated IT terminology

Information Technology Storage

Benefits for IT storage users include:

Integrated into all StorStac Systems, the StorStac OS provides volume management for the configuration and ongoing management of iSCSI (or IP) targets such as application servers, DVRs or NVRs to access the storage system. The StorStac OS is architected to grow from 4TB through to 1,500TB (1.5PB) of RAID protected IP network storage. Both high capacity, high price/performance per TB SATA drive technology and low capacity, high performance SAS drives are supported.

The StorStac OS includes advanced RAID 0, 1, 5, 6 and 10 support with multiple volume settings. For connectivity to application servers, DVRs, NVRs and other IP targets, 1 gigabit Ethernet (1GbE) and 10 gigabit Ethernet (10GbE) infrastructure and interfaces are supported.

The StorStac OS also provides for the optional bonding of two 1GbE interfaces inbound to StorStac BuildingBlock systems to form a single, high speed 2GbE data pipe. This provides increased performance while continuing to leverage inexpensive, standard 1GbE infrastructure and interfaces. In BuildingBlock systems with more than a single Performance Controller Unit (PCU), up to eight 1GbE interfaces (2 per PCU) can be leveraged for 8GbE aggregate system access.

In StorStac PerformanceBlock systems, each PCU provides a single 10GbE interface, for up to 40GbE aggregate system access when four PCUs are deployed. Although not yet as pervasive as 1GbE infrastructure, a growing number of organizations are moving to 10GbE core networks due to its increased performance advantages. PerformanceBlock systems are able to offer Fibre Channel-like performance, reliability, and throughput for a fraction of the price, yet offer additional scalability.

OS, Clustered File System Support

The StorStac OS supports most major host operating systems and clustered file systems used in application servers and other iSCSI targets connecting to the StorStac System. These include:

Video Management System Support

The Intransa StorStac OS™ has also been tested with a wide variety of video management software applications. These include:

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StorStac StorManager GUI and CLI

The StorStac StorManager is an integrated graphical user interface that performs the task of the primary access point to StorStac Systems. Administrators use StorManager to configure, manage and maintain the StorStac System. Administrators need only to become familiar with the StorManager GUI to access all important system functionality.

StorManager is accessible via an optional, attached management station, or from any web-enabled workstation or client, both local or remote, over IP and HTTP.

The StorManager GUI is a powerful Java-based application that provides a simple and intuitive management interface, specifically designed to reduce the complexity of storage management. The integrated command line interface, linked to the GUI, allows users to perform advanced functions such as the creation of scripts for rapid and automated provisioning of storage, integrated with the DynaStac thin provisioning feature.

ABOVE: The power of the StorManager is in the GUI interface, which provides image-based views of an entire StorStac System from a single window view. The representation above is a screenshot of a top level system view from an IT administrator's perspective. Clicking on the realms in the familiar Microsoft Windows format allows the user to select options such as to show all volumes, all replications of those volumes, snapshots, disk groups and individual disks, controllers, enclosures, an host initiators. From the tabs, the General, System or Volume Initiator views can be further selected, as can a detailed look at any system alerts.

 

ABOVE: From an IT administrator perspective, the status of all disk drives in a system can be instantly checked and verified. Note that drives that are in need of attention and possible replacement are shown while still operating, before any failure occurs. System email alerts can notify the administrator of issues, before failures occur.

 

ABOVE: A StorStac StorManager GUI screen, from an IT administrator view point, showing at a glance storage used, storage allocated, capacity, IP address, and other features related to that realm. Clicking on any of the other management tabs would move the viewpoint from the current "General" view to other options, including the IT administrator view of volume maps, top level system view, and system alerts. Note individual disks, controllers and host adaptors are selectable.

StorStac DynaStac Thin Provisioning

The DynaStac thin provisioning application is tightly integrated into the StorStac OS and the StorManager GUI and CLI.

DynaStac ensures maximum and optimum use of all Intransa IP network storage in a single system. Since StorStac BuildingBlock and PerformanceBlock are capable of growing to capacities few storage vendors achieve, scaling from as little as 4TB to 15,00TB in a single system, DynaStac is critical in ensuring that storage use is optimized.

Thin provisioning is a major component of Green IT, which requires minimization of energy consumption, waste and optimized use of resources, including storage. Green IT goals are often achieved by leveraging Intransa StorStac Systems as Storage Consolidation and Virtualization platforms, reducing hardware, power, cooling and floor space requirements by up to 70% while improving service levels, minimizing downtime, simplifying the IT environment, and reducing costs overall. DynaStac fulfills this requirement for users.

– DynaStac provides multiple volumes, each with performance and capacity fine-tuned to the target applications' requirements for maximum usage. Typical uses are for home directory file storage, database block storage, and log files

– DynaStac policy-based disk groups support rapid volume or LUN (logical unit number) setup and configuration. Volumes take on the characteristics (such as RAID type) of the underlying disk group.

– Any policy can be customized with DynaStac, and new policies created, to match the target application's characteristics and performance/capacity requirements.

– One disk group can support one or many volumes, further improving storage utilization. DynaStac dynamically provisions available disks, according to group policy, to support the growth of all of the volumes using that disk group.

StorManager remains the primary access to DynaStac features and functions, so only one management interface is ever needed to setup, manage and maintain a StorStac System.

ABOVE: When leveraging the DynaStac thin provisioning features, the StorManager GUI is used. The above screen shows from a Video Storage Administrator viewpoint details of a specific volume. Unlike a DVR-based system where files are limited to individual disk sizes, StorStac volumes can span multiple drives. Clicking and dragging on the drive size indictor shown in mid bottom of the screen, in this case "area1-storage", instantly provisions additional file capacity to that disk group without knowledge of traditional storage commands by the video administrator

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StorStac Video Storage Administrator

Within the StorStac StorManager GUI, users are able to select a traditional IT administrator viewpoint. But for those who work primarily with video storage for video surveillance, quality assurance and supply chain surveillance, or industrial video, a video storage administrator viewpoint is also selectable.

This video storage administrator viewpoint provides the following features:

ABOVE: A screen view of the video storage calculator from the video storage administrator perspective. Instead of using IT terminology and complexity, administrators using this view are able to focus on video requirements.

Other video storage administrator features include:

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StorStac StorCluster

StorCluster is the advanced Intransa storage application that allows multiple Performance Controller Units (PCUs) to be integrated into a single StorStac System. This enables customers to scale by adding individual PCUs to increase connectivity, performance and high availability beyond that of competitive storage systems.

Intransa IP network storage supports powerful N-Way PCU clustering with dynamic load-balancing using the StorCluster application. Total system throughput increases with each PCU added to a StorStac System. StorStac BuildingBlock supports PCUs with two 1GbE interfaces, while PerformanceBlock supports 10GbE PCUs.

ABOVE:A Standard Configuration BuildingBlock or PerformanceBlock can be clustered with up to 3 additional PCUs. High Availability configurations come with two PCUs in the base configuration, and up to two more PCUs can be added for a total of 4.

Up to four PCUs can be clustered together into a single, high performance and highly available StorStac System using StorCluster. When configured in a StorCluster, the survivability of the storage solution is greatly increased. In the unlikely event of a PCU failure, StorCluster™ automatically re-distributes the load of the failed PCU across the remaining controllers.

In this way no single PCUs performance is impacted in the event of a failure, greatly reducing the storage solution design complexity. This also means that in a four-way PCU StorCluster, the PCUs can sustain a double failure and still continue to provide service to storage requests from all of the configured application servers, DVRs or NVRs.

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StorStac Snapshot

Of particular usefulness to IT administrators is StorStac Snapshot. StorStac Snapshot provides the administrator with the ability to create a point-in-time "snapshot" of a volume. This is a vital feature for ongoing data protection. It is also useful for development & test (dev/test) environments when implementing or developing new software or applications, implementing new storage systems, or for backup and recovery protection.

StorStac Snapshot s can be run manually, or can be scheduled. StorStac Snapshots are fully integrated into third-party applications such as the Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service ™ (VSS) through the Intransa StorAlliance™ Technology Partner Program. VSS in particular is critical for database applications such as Microsoft Exchange™ or Microsoft SQL Server™, where the snapshot volume must be consistent with the application snapshot to function correctly.

With this integration, the StorStac Snapshot™ volume snapshot occurs once all data has been flushed from the application server cache, ensuring consistent snapshot images.

Traditionally, snapshots are read-only and are used for the recovery of lost data. Using StorStac Snapshot, however, allows the IT administrator also to mount the snapshot as a read-write volume. In doing so, this allows for the creation of development images of the volume, particularly useful for database applications, data recovery, and in dev/test environments.

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StorStac StorAR

Replications are useful for many applications such as high availability needs, data protection, data migration, and remote sites with mirrored data.

The StorStac StorAR Asynchronous Replication feature allows the IT administrator to perform replication functions at the Performance Controller Unit (PCU) level. This ensures that StorAR replications are completely transparent to the application server.

Since StorStac StorAR replications are asynchronous, there is no impact on the performance of the application in any way when performed.

StorStac StorAR replications are configured on an individual volume level, giving the customer maximum control and allowing the IT administrator to determine which volumes contain the critical data that require real time replication, with policy-based volume management, that he or she wishes to replicate.

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