IP SAN Overview
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Intransa has developed an IP SAN that is built around a set of modular components to deliver exceptional value, low total cost of ownership, high scalability, excellent performance, and built-in redundancy and reliability. These requirements define IntraStor architecture, Intransa's foundation for delivering block-level, distributed storage over IP-networks.
IntraStor™ is a 3-tiered distributed architecture that fully leverages the ubiquity of IP infrastructure and the iSCSI protocol to deliver intelligent, networked block-level storage. It fulfills the promises of SANs by delivering rich-featured IP SANs to a broad range of users and applications that have not been able to reap the benefits of SANs to-date due to the high cost and complexity of FC SANs. In addition to the IntraStor™ architecture, Intransa's StorControl™ system software provides a complete suite of enterprise-class storage management and storage virtualization features. StorControl Management represents a software suite which features a Volume Manager, Smart template-based virtual disk creation tool, Storage Virtualization resource manager, Data Mirroring capability, Volume Snapshot, and Real-time alerts & performance monitoring tool. StorControl Load Balance and High Availability also manages system availability and software RAID 1/0 and the accompanying Java-based GUI and CLI for IP3000, IP5000, IP5500 system management. Scalability and availability are (from IntraStor's perspective) one and the same. StorControl™ Snapshot simplifies this task of creating volume snapshots, by providing the IT administrator with an all-in-one, easy-to-setup and configure "point-in-time" virtual copy of a data volume which only copies changed data. When an administrator adds a component to the SAN, whether an additional Storage Controller or additional Disk Enclosure, BOTH the scalability and availability of the overall system are addressed at the same time. Capacity and availability are simultaneously augmented as you grow the system.
Benchmark tests of initial implementation demonstrate over 110MB/s throughput and over 70,000 IOPs per Storage Controller Module. The system scales linearly as Storage Controllers are added. This demonstrates excellent performance equal to a mid-range fibre SAN and also assists IT managers in performance planning as their needs grow. Scalability thus works in multiple directions. Users can elect to start with a small configuration of only one storage controller and one disk enclosure, which help keep costs down, while providing the foundation to either increase throughput performance and/or storage capacity. And both of these paths also benefit overall system availability, as redundancy is increased as you scale up.