Dynamic Network Factory Blog » iSCSI

USO™ Appliance raises the bar again by delivering another best-in-class storage product

Roela Regalado — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 01:09:15 +0000

StoneFly, Inc., is proud to deliver feature that our customers have been asking for - the Unified Scale Out (USO™), and USO-HA™ Storage Appliances. USO™ and USO-HA™ add NAS & clustered NAS functionality to Stonefly IP Storage appliances. This new generation of storage appliances bring in unprecedented scalability that can add capacity and increase performance at the same time. Fully redundant active/active nodes of USO-HA deliver robust functionality in a fully redundant package to eliminate loss of access to storage in case of Hardware failures.

Catered to Cloud Computing Providers and Small and Midsized Enterprises (SMEs), this appliance is ideal for virtualized environments and mission critical applications.

“USO’s unique architecture of having no meta-data enables one volume to be distributed across multiple nodes and provide a Single Namespace. This is a feature that our customers have been asking for, and that is what StoneFly is delivering with USO™” says, Mo Tahmasebi (President/CEO) of Stonefly Inc.

Additional key features include:

• Fully Redundant Components (Nodes, Power Supplies, Fan, etc..)
• Hard Disk RAID Protection
• Active/Active nodes
• Synchronous, Campus, and Asynchronous Mirroring
• Thin Provisioning with Space Reclamation
• Snapshot with schedules & roll back
• Encryption (AES256)

For all other information about StoneFusion and StoneFly’s IP SAN products and features please visit www.Stonefly.com or www.iscsi.com

iSCSI vs Fibre Channel.. Battle Continues..

Roela Regalado — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 03:46:29 +0000

There was a time that some claimed that iSCSI is not mature and is not suitable to serve the storage needs of high demanding data centers.

Those days have passed, and even those companies who promoted Fibre Channel, are starting to offer iSCSI products. There is no argument anymore that iSCSI has taken hold as the interface of the choice for new storage installations. All recent market studies have shown that Fibre Channel storage market has been either steady or has had a slight year to year improvement, while iSCSI storage market has been on the double digit rise year after year.

All features that have been once only available on high end fibre channel SANs are now available in iSCSI storage products. All the arguments about performance advantages of Fibre Channel are disappearing since 10G iSCSI has started shipping in numbers. And most important of all, there is no argument anymore that iSCSI storage costs are a lot less thanaFibre Channel SAN with equivalent performance and features.Only those companies who do not have iSCSI storage are still trying to promote Fibre Channel. But users are smart and do not see any compelling argument anymore to buy Fibre Channel SAN.

Having said all that, we do not think Fibre Channel is going to die anytime soon. As like any other technology, it takes a long time for an established technology to wind down and get replaced by another one. SCSI storage is still available when some predicted it will die 10 years ago. But from all market indications it is obvious that storage trends are moving toward IP Storage rather than Fibre Channel.

In summary, iSCSI, when properly implemented, provides high performance, hence making it a suitable to deploy in core applications. iSCSI is easy to understand and lower cost makes it a strong choice for medium to large enterprises. Having an end-to-end Ethernet IP environment is an added benefit to iSCSI. A properly designed iSCSI infrastructure and storage platform is good enough to handle any storage application currently handled by a Fibre Channel SAN.

Will Cloud Storage Replace Local Storage?

Roela Regalado — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 14:33:51 +0000

With Cloud Storage gaining hype in providing storage solutions and recent developments in its technology, there is a mis-conception that local storage will soon become outdated.

As much as Cloud storage is useful for some applications, local storage is preferred for applications that demand better storage options. This is so because large enterprise applications need high speed access to their storage, which is not practically possible by cloud storage due to the low WAN access speed to the cloud.

Also, in Local storage, you are in control of your data, it is accessible without an internet connection and more secure when compared to the data stored on a cloud.

Although cloud storage is perfect for enterprise computing, local storage benefits outweigh cloud storage.

For more information on the local and cloud storage solutions, visit StoneFly’s iSCSI.com.

The link below talks about StoneFly’s product, Windows ESS, giving you a better understanding on how Local as well as Cloud storage solutions can be uses as per the enterprise’s requirement.

http://www.iscsi.com/products/software/ess/

What is snapshot, why do I need it?

Roela Regalado — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 17:58:45 +0000

Currently, most storage providers use this technology called Snapshot. This technology uses a method called “Copy On Write” which means that, if a location is changed, old data from the time snapshot for that location is stored in a repository called SnapSpace. The consequential snapshot will look like an actual volume, containing data at the time of snapshot taken.

Snapshot is also called Shadow Copy in windows Terminology. But the difference between windows based shadow copy and storage based snapshots are that windows based shadow copy will take the CPU cycles of the server, but storage snapshot does not.

Why do I need it?

Below listed are some usages of Snapshot.

- Backup: Take a snapshot, backup the snapshot.

- File Recovery: In case a file is deleted accidentally, it can be retrieved by going back to the snapshot.

- Take a snapshot, give that to one or more other groups to work on it, while live volume is changing.

For more details on StoneFly’s Snapshot, Visit StoneFly’s iscsi.com

Also refer the link given below:

http://www.iscsi.com/news/pressrelease_detail.asp?id=265

What is this FCoE buzzword that I keep hearing? Do I need it?

Roela Regalado — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 19:44:56 +0000

FCOE- Fiber Channel over Ethernet is a mapping of Fiber Channel frames over Ethernet networks. Several datacenters use Ethernet for TCP/IP networks, and FC for SANs. FCoE uses the fiber channel as a network protocol, running on Ethernet beside IP traffic. FCoE is not routable at the IP layer, since it functions directly above Ethernet, in contrast to iSCSI, running on top of TCP/IP.

Users connect to FCoE using Converged Network Adapters (CNAs). FCoE is used in data center SANs as it can reduce cabling, it can also be used in server virtualization applications.

Do I need it? – when buying a new SAN, iSCSI SAN offers a SAN over Ethernet along with all the features that FC SAN provided, making FCoE less compelling to buy. The only reason to choose FCoE over iSCSI SAN is when you already have installed a fiber channel SAN and you want to use this SAN, but along with same Ethernet infrastructure for both SAN and networking. Although this would be a good reason to get FCoE, the costs involved in new switches and infrastructure would keep you from choosing FCoE over iSCSI SAN.

For more information on FCoE versus iSCSI, visit StoneFly’s videos on FCoE vs iSCSI,

link provided below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQ49rtnroE8

Speed up your Storage with Solid State Drives

joshuaspires — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 15:00:06 +0000

Arguably the most important data storage innovation in decades, the Solid State Drive (SSD) continues to revolutionize enterprise storage. SSDs speed and reliability make them the preferred solution for I/O intensive applications. Now, solid-state storage is getting even faster with PCIe SSDs. These card-based devices exploit the incredible bandwidth advantage of the PCIe interface to eliminate HBA bottlenecks and provide high bandwidth, low latency access to storage resources. At StoneFly, we are testing PCIe SSDs in our new StoneFlex Unified Storage & Server (USS™) Appliance.

Click here for more info about USS™ and read how StoneFly is using the latest technologies to enhance SAN performance.

Untangle your Datacenter with 10GbE

joshuaspires — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 15:00:57 +0000

Among the most important recent trends in Storage Networking is the widespread migration to 10GbE. With 10 times the bandwidth of industry-standard Gigabit Ethernet, 10GbE connectivity offers fast data transfers, reduced latency and increased SAN availability. Additionally, 10GbE’s expansive bandwidth also enables multi-Gigabit links with a single cable, eliminating the complexity of port bonding and reducing the amount of hardware needed to achieve multi-gigabit connectivity.

For more information about how to accelerate your SAN while reducing cable clutter, check out this webinar.

StoneFly Makes CRN Magazine’s Virtualization 100 List

Roela Regalado — Mon, 23 May 2011 16:01:06 +0000

StoneFly is proud to announce that CRN Magazine has chosen us to be on their Virtualization 100 list. Featuring the top 100 vendors in the virtualization space, this list 100 is specifically hand-picked by the editorial staff of CRN. The list serves as the de facto resource by which VARs can begin to evaluate the best virtualization products for their business.

We are honored to be a part of this list as we continue to push the boundaries of virtualization in the IT space. To learn more about the CRN Virtualization 100, read our latest press release.

StoneFly Releases Scale-Out Clustered SCVM™

Roela Regalado — Mon, 09 May 2011 18:31:14 +0000

Today StoneFly releases the Clustered SCVM, a powerful virtual IP SAN software appliance designed for VMware environments. This fully redundant and fault tolerant IP SAN software can be created from two existing virtual servers, and is ideal for your virtualized and cloud environments.

With this latest release, the new clustering feature eliminates the risk of hardware failover by recognizing failures within a virtual storage server and instantaneously switching its resources to the other virtual active storage nodes.

To learn more about Clustered SCVM visit www.iSCSI.com or call us at (510) 265-1616. Also read more about this release on our latest press release.

StoneFlex USS is a Finalist for “Storage Virtualisation Product of the Year”!

Roela Regalado — Mon, 02 May 2011 16:25:02 +0000

StoneFly’s StoneFlex USS is a finalist for UK’s Storage Magazine annual Storage Awards. We are excited and honored that the product has been nominated for the “Storage Virtualisation Product of the Year” category.

Released in late 2010, the StoneFlex USS (which stands for: Unified Server and Storage) was engineered to fully consolidate your datacenter in one fault-tolerant appliance. With the ability to drive several virtualized operating system in one storage system, this dynamic solution can meet more demanding applications, while allowing for complete hardware utilization and reducing overall operating costs.

To learn more about the Storage Awards and how to vote for us, visit http://www.storage-awards.com/.