Dell Fluid File System Solutions

Dell Fluid File System Solutions A foundation for a uniﬁ ed storage strategy

Beyond File Servers and Traditional NAS

Unstructured fi le data constitutes a massive portion of IT The Dell Diff erence storage environments—and it continues to grow out of control, Scale-out unifi ed storage from Dell™ is overwhelming many organizations. Whether it’s content such built for the future. FluidFS technology: as emails, offi ce documents, photos, video and audio fi les • Extends NAS capabilities with or medical images, the capacity needed for fi le data continues consistency across Dell’s primary to increase much faster than for block storage. But just storage arrays: Compellent, adding disks or relying on legacy technologies to support that EqualLogic and PowerVault mountain of fi le data won’t help. • Scales capacity and performance Traditional approaches to handling fi le growth have proven non-disruptively without forklift costly, hard to manage and diffi cult to scale. File servers upgrades off er the easiest way to add fi le capacity but they have rigid scalability limitations, they create silos of hard-to-access data • Removes scalability limitations associated with traditional and they require time-consuming, manual upgrades. Legacy monolithic NAS architectures NAS devices may be easier to manage but they handle data growth by aggregating individual disk drives behind one or two • Ensures effi ciency by leveraging large controllers, prohibiting scale-out and requiring forklift a shared infrastructure for block upgrades across generations to expand capacity. Lastly, the and fi le data clustered fi le systems, mostly used in HPC environments, are too complex for a general NAS user. • Extends advanced features and effi ciencies of block storage to fi le But there is another solution that addresses the growth of • Supports business continuity data: platforms that unify fi le and block storage, scaling out through a resilient, purpose-built performance and capacity without sacrifi cing simplicity. Dell’s hardware architecture fi le storage technology, Fluid File System (FluidFS), establishes an effi cient and future-proof foundation for a long-term • Protects data without adding unifi ed block and fi le storage strategy. It provides a fl exible complexity architecture that supports simplifi ed, non-disruptive physical and namespace scalability, eliminates data silos and optimizes • Lowers overall storage TCO performance. With its resilient hardware and shared block infrastructure, FluidFS adds powerful NAS capabilities across the Dell Fluid Data™ architecture storage portfolio. Dell Fluid File System Solutions | 2

Dell FluidFS Product Portfolio

Dell Compellent FS8600

Enterprise-class scale-out NAS with Compellent’s operational effi ciencies and advanced features

The FS8600 NAS appliance shares a back-end infrastructure with Dell Compellent Storage Center, enabling creation of a virtualized storage pool for both block and ﬁ le and extending key Compellent attributes to NAS. Among those are: automated storage tiering, which lowers costs by migrating data to less expensive disks; thin provisioning, which optimizes capacity allocation; perpetual software licensing, which helps to keep the TCO low; and award- Dell Compellent Storage Center 8000 with the FS8600 winning Copilot support program. NAS appliance

Dell EqualLogic FS76x0

The back of the Dell EqualLogic FS76x0 with two redundant, Simpliﬁ ed and versatile NAS appliance for scale-out active-active, hot-swappable controllers uniﬁ ed storage on EqualLogic

The FS76x0 NAS appliance leverages a shared infrastructure with the EqualLogic PS Series arrays, extending many effi ciencies of the SAN platform to NAS. The FS76x0 optimizes fi le access performance and hardware utilization while eliminating capacity constraints, all within a single namespace for easy administration. A unifi ed management interface for all block and fi le storage streamlines and simplifi es administration. Robust data protection with snapshots, replication and NDMP backup–are all part of an all-inclusive software delivery model that provides future enhancements at no additional cost.

Dell PowerVault NX36x0

Aff ordable scale-out NAS and uniﬁ ed storage for best value and performance on PowerVault

Designed to aff ordably consolidate block and ﬁ le data, the NX36x0 scale-out NAS allows administrators to cut complexity and expand capacity without downtime. With its shared back-end, the NX36x0 extends easy-to-use PowerVault SAN features such as a wizard-based NAS Dell PowerVault NX36x0 NAS appliance conﬁ guration utility and a web-based user interface for storage management. Comprehensive data protection, including snapshots, replication and NDMP backup, is bundled at no additional cost, contributing to the best-in- class price/performance of this complete storage solution. 3 | Dell Fluid File System Solutions

Dell FluidFS use case scenarios

Enterprise ﬁ le server consolidation Virtual desktop

Consolidating a siloed, segmented environment with When user data is stored alongside OS and a mix of Windows and Linux fi le servers or legacy applications in VDI, the desktop Virtual Machine (VM) NAS onto a single fi le storage system is the most size grows over time, leading to additional capacity commonplace usage scenario. Services that reside requirements, slow data access, high latency, and an on fi le servers with a single access protocol, CIFS or overall degraded user experience. The environment NFS, including user home directories, print, video and can be optimized by separating the user data from audio, CAD fi les, Web server or software development, desktop VMs by placing the VMs on block storage for can now be served from a single, multi-protocol best performance and user data on fi le storage for NAS platform. By leveraging FluidFS, access to all availability and granular backup. Dell’s unifi ed storage fi les can be consolidated under a single namespace, platform with FluidFS guarantees that a single shared eliminating data silos and high administrative costs, pool of block and fi le storage can grow and scale simplifying management and improving performance non-disruptively and on-demand, making data easier and scalability. to manage and to protect.

Medical records archiving SharePoint storage optimization

Primary storage systems in hospitals and medical The SQL database – used by SharePoint to store clinics are bulging with electronic records and images. metadata and fi les – grows over time, leading to As PACS servers write millions of fi les into storage at sprawl, limited scalability and I/O constraints. ultra-high speeds, storage performance degrades, Performance and capacity can be optimized by slowing down access and retrieval by doctors and externalizing the fi les to outside repositories while causing downtime. When leveraging the FluidFS the fi le metadata continues to be stored on block platform, the digital records can be written at very high storage in the SQL database. Dell’s Quest Storage throughput rates while the fi le capacity can be scaled- Maximizer automatically moves the SharePoint fi les to out to keep up with the growth. Rarely-accessed the FluidFS platform, where it can be tiered to lower records can be automatically tiered down to less cost drives. This solution combines the capabilities expensive disk, with archiving to the cloud as a longer- of FluidFS and Quest Storage Maximizer to drastically term option. reduce the SQL capacity and increase the SharePoint performance.

“The Dell Fluid File System will allow us to scale out the ﬁ le server across multiple appliances within a single namespace, and get dramatically better performance. This is a major breakthrough for us that will deﬁ nitely help control costs.” Fritz McCall Director of Computing Facilities University of Maryland Dell Fluid File System Solutions | 4

Dell FluidFS: Scalability, performance and reliability

FluidFS off ers an optimal combination of performance Built-in data protection and scalability for environments with fi le-intensive user Business continuity is assured with a complete data shares, highly available NAS and unifi ed storage, and protection suite: virtual server environments with extensive NFS data and • A highly available architecture with active/active enterprise-level storage consolidation projects. controller pairs, redundant components and Effi cient block and fi le solution automatic failover A unifi ed storage platform eliminates overhead and • Effi cient FluidFS fi le-system snapshots and replication complexity of separate block and fi le solutions, enabling: in case of disaster or site failure • NDMP for backup • A single pool of storage which eliminates the need • Antivirus scanning to carve spindles • Extension of cost-reducing SAN effi ciencies, such Optimized capacity and performance as automated tiering, to NAS In the FluidFS scale-on-demand model, performance • A unifi ed management interface and capacity scale without forcing a platform rip-and- • Innovative software licensing for best TCO replace with: • A scale-out architecture that supports a single namespace across up to 4 appliances • Capacity expansion of up to 1PB of storage • Automatic load-balancing across all controllers, network and backend SAN

Compellent FS8600 EqualLogic FS76x0 PowerVault NX36x0 Product core values Self-optimized, enterprise- Uncomplicated, versatile Aff ordable uniﬁ ed storage class virtualized storage with virtualized storage with multi- with best-in-class price- industry-leading tiering, highest generational compatibility performance effi ciency and scalability

File-sharing protocols CIFS/SMB, NFS

Scale-out NAS Single namespace across up to Single namespace across up Single namespace across 4 dual-controller appliances, to 2 dual-controller appliances, up to 2 dual-controller up to 1PB capacity up to ½ PB capacity appliances, up to 1PB capacity

Shared back-end Compellent Storage Center EqualLogic PS Series MD iSCSI array system

Connectivity Client: 1GbE, 10GbE Client: 1GbE, 10GbE Client: 1GbE, 10GbE Back-end: 8Gb FC Back-end: 1Gb, 10Gb iSCSI Back-end: 1Gb, 10Gb iSCSI

GUI Management Enterprise Manager EqualLogic Group Manager MD Storage Manager FluidFS GUI FluidFS GUI

Next Steps To learn more about Dell Fluid File System solutions, go to www.dellstorage.com