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  • Upgraded data management functions,
  • Data access in block mode (FC, ISCSI) and in file mode (NFS, CIFS, HTTP, FTP).

Our Netapp storage solution is an ultra-compact system that uses Data ONTAP microcode, providing the full range of functions of our other solutions and excellent levels of performance.

Key features of our storage system:

 

  • Support for FC, SAS and SATA internal disk drive technologies (up to 20 disk drives per drawer),
  • Scalability: add a PCI-e card per controller,
  • Dual active-active controllers,
  • Distributed update of microcode versions,
  • Unified overview of all resources through Operations Manager,
  • High level of performance,
  • Unified storage technology: a single storage solution for both NAS and SAN requirements. Our storage system supports the iSCSI protocol, which can be used to create low-cost storage networks,
  • User data can be restored almost instantly, minimising the associated administration costs.

 

Supervision/alert escalation

Our storage solution can be configured and administered using the following tools:

  • A console port (locally)
  • CLI - "Command Line Interface": from a telnet session on the NetApp solution and from identified operators on authorised administration workstations
  • GUI – "Graphical User Interface": web-type interface, from identified operators on authorised administration workstations:
  • Filerview (standard web/Java interface)
  • GUI – "Native Microsoft tools" Server Manager and User Manager.
  • GUI – "SNMP console" (via a MIB I/II and software components specific to the SNMP framework concerned).
  • Operations Manager

Administration via the NetApp MIB

Our storage solution is equipped with a MIB (based on the MIB II standard) and is capable of sending SNMP alerts to our administration console. This MIB provides information about CPU, disk drive and network loads, snapshot and quota usage rates, etc. All anomalies detected by our storage solution are logged in an internal file.

 

NetApp FilerView

The FilerView web interface offers the following functions (non-exhaustive list):

  • Create secure "Aggregate" storage units
  • Create, expand and reduce volumes online,
  • Create new volumes, qtrees and application quotas,
  • Manage LUNs and the associated access rules,
  • Dynamically reallocate disk space between different containers,
  • Launch backup/restore operations from native controls in the Data ONTAP environment,
  • Manage snapshots,
  • Manage the SnapMirror replication tool,
  • Access the various console messages,
  • Access the various configuration settings.

It is simple to administer, meaning that additional disk drives can be added online with ease. Aggregates and volumes can also be expanded using disk drives of different capacities.

Operations Manager

The Operations Manager application can be used to manage our multi-platform storage infrastructure. This tool is used to administer the infrastructure from a single console, via a graphical web interface and a "command line" interface. Operations Manager collects a range of information about our storage system, such as availability, space usage and storage capacity, performance and bandwidth consumption. The application can also gather more detailed information.

The tool has access to the following information:

  • Volume (total, used and available), disk drives (total, used and available), environmental characteristics (temperature, power supply, ventilator, etc.) and CPU usage.
  • Protocol usage and FCP, iSCSI, CIFS, NFS and HTTP operation metering.
  • Network usage (number of bytes/packets/errors read/written per network interface).

Operations Manager can also be used for non-stop storage activity surveillance, including the status of a NetApp file distributed server environment. When a problem is detected, a pager or e-mail alert can be sent automatically to notify the recipient that a fault has occurred or a threshold has been exceeded.

This tool also produces graphs and reports to help our administrators to analyse changes in storage capacity over time.

 

Application availability

These days, applications such as databases, messaging applications, ERP applications, collaborative portals and virtual environments (Vmware, Hyper V) are critical elements of information systems. They must offer high, fault-free availability, as they are essential to business decision-making and processes.

 

In light of the rapidly expanding volumes of data and accelerated use of these applications and virtual environments, ensuring high availability and protecting critical company data have become essential, yet difficult challenges. In order to meet these challenges successfully, our storage system is equipped with a range of tools to ensure that they work as effectively as possible. Data must be backed up regularly with minimal impact on systems, and it must be possible to restore data as quickly as possible, duplicate data for testing or development without causing disruption and carry out full restorations in just a few minutes instead of hours or days.

 

Our storage solution uses FC (15,000 rpm) or SAS (10,000 rpm and 15,000 rpm) disk drives to guarantee the very best performance for applications such as SQL server, Exchange, Oracle and Sharepoint.

 

Our existing clients have SQL 2003, Oracle 10G and Oracle 11G databases, offering hundreds of Gb of storage space, in a virtualised environment (I/Os shared between several VMSs). To date, these databases are far from their maximum storage capacity.