N Series

Overview Hardware and

Competitive
Advantage
Innovating to Deliver Choices

2006 Scalable grid storage

2005 Thin provisioning and virtual cloning
2004 RAID-DP™ disk resiliency
2003 iSCSI storage system
2002 Unified SAN/NAS appliance
2001 Near-line storage appliance
1996 Multiprotocol appliance
1993 NAS appliance and Snapshots
Addressing Today’s Challenges
 Explosive data growth
 Do more with less
 Scale the infrastructure
 24x7 global access
 Data security & compliance

Consolidate Operate Protect

storage everywhere your business
Different Classes of Data

Tier 1
Cost Business Critical

Tier 2
Operational / Internal

Tier 3
Departmental / Distributed

Tier 4
Compliance / Reference / Archive

Data Criticality
Availability Requirement
Different Tiers of Storage

Tier 1
Business Critical

Tier 2
Operational / Internal

Tier 3
Departmental / Distributed

• One architecture
Tier 4 • One management interface
Compliance / Reference / Archive • Total interoperability

Data ONTAP™ Operating System – SAN, NAS, iSCSI

 Broadest Scalable Storage
Architecture
N Series Family of Unified Enterprise Storage Systems

N3700 N5000 N7000

4 FC ports 20 FC ports 32 FC ports
16TB max 168TB max 504TB max

Data ONTAP Operating System – SAN, NAS, iSCSI

®

One architecture One management interface

One application interface Total interoperability
 A Fundamentally Simpler
Approach
High-end FC SAN Primary
Midrange FC iSCSI Secondary
Midrange ATA NAS Backup
Low-end ATA NFS Compliance
Virtualization CIFS Disaster Recovery

Unified Unified Unified

• Unrivaled synergy: everything works together

• Unique leverage: everything can do more
• Simpler administration: one process works everywhere
• Easier to deploy: less to learn means reduced training
N Series Storage - What is it?

Dedicated Storage
Appliances

• Filer Head Unit

• Disk Shelves
• Optimised Micro Kernel
• Connectivity
Its all about Blocks!

• DataONTAP – Optimised Micro-kernel

– Highly Optimised, Scalable and Flexible OS

• Write Anywhere File Layout – WAFL

– Allows for flexible storage containers
– Tightly integrated with NVRAM and RAID
– RAID 4 for performance and flexibility
– RAID DP for performance, flexibility and increased
reliability!
Traditional Implementation

• Classic RAID 4 – Dedicated Parity Drive

P P
D D D D D PP P

• For each Data block written, parity is written

• The parity drive becomes the bottleneck!
• 5 Data Blocks + 5 Parity = 10 Disk Writes!
Traditional Implementation

• RAID 5 – Distributed Parity

D D P
D P
P D
P D
P

• For each Data block written, parity is written

• 5 Data Blocks + 5 Parity = 10 Disk Writes!
Performance achieved!

• WAFL and RAID 4

D D D D D P

• Stripe is calculated in NVRAM, parity

describes the stripe.
• No bottleneck! All drives are written to
evenly
• 5 Data Blocks + 1 Parity = 6 Disk Writes!
Performance achieved!

• Lets extend that further….

– RAID 4 with 28 Disks = 28 data + 28 Parity
• Total 56 Disk Writes with Hot Parity
– RAID 5 with 28 Disks = 28 data + 28 Parity
• Total 56 Disk Writes

– WAFL RAID 4 with 28 Disks = 28 data + 2 Parity

• Total 30 Disk Writes

• The more disks the bigger the difference!

Protecting the Data

• Subsystem Resilience
– RAID-DP
• Disk Resilience
– Lost Write Protection
– Momentary Disk Offline
– Maintenance Center
– Checksums
– Background Media Scans
– RAID Scrub
Storage Resiliency – RAID-DP

• RAID-DP is dual parity data protection

• NetApp RAID-DP is an implementation of the
industry standard RAID 6 as defined by
SNIA
– SNIA definition recently updated to include NetApp
RAID-DP:
“Any form of RAID that can continue to execute read
and write requests to all of a RAID array's virtual
disks in the presence of any two concurrent disk
failures. Several methods, including dual check data
computations (parity and Reed Solomon), orthogonal
dual parity check data and diagonal parity have been
used to implement RAID Level 6”
Storage Resiliency - RAID-DP

• Impact on usable capacity is zero

– Default raid group sizes with RAID-DP are double
those of RAID 4
– Result: Even though an extra parity disk is used,
net result is the same number of data disk drives
– Example: RAID 4 (7D+1P)+(7D+1P)
RAID-DP (14D+2P)
Both result in 14 data disks

• Comparable performance to RAID 4

– Typically 1-3% impact on performance
– Competitor RAID 6 typically see significant
degradation on writes when compared to their
RAID 5
Storage Resiliency – RAID-DP
• RAID-DP provides extra protection over single parity
solutions
• Within the disk drive industry
– Disk drives are much larger
– Disk drive error correction capability and reliability
have not improved at the same rate
– More data is read while reconstructing a RAID group
– Increases likelihood of unrecoverable error when
RAID is not available to correct it
• Leads to higher risk of data loss from single disk
failure followed by unrecoverable media error during
reconstruct (MEDR), or a double disk failure
• This is a disk drive industry risk that RAID-DP protects
against
Storage Resiliency - RAID-DP

SATA

FC
RAID-DP / RAID 6 so what?

If a customer requires ATA storage then

RAID-6 has to be mandatory, surely!

The Competitors solution is to sell MORE DISK!

 Lost Write Protection -
Anatomy Of A Lost Write
• How a “lost” write occurs:
1. Disk malfunction occurs during write
2. Disk reports a successful write
3. In reality, no write happened (silently
dropped) or data written in random
location (lost)
4. Subsequent read* of blocks returns bad
data
5. Result = data corruption or data loss
* Note: No checksum mismatch occurs (existing data still matches checksum since
neither were updated) so no error is reported. Also, parity inconsistency is detected and
fixed by RAID scrub, but without the detection or recovery of the lost write data.
 Lost Writes Protection
Step 3: Read Data From
Step 1: Write New Block Disk
• Write Data To Free Block • Verify Data Block ID Against ID
• Block ID Stored In Checksum Tracked By WAFL
• WAFL Tracks Block ID ID 1234 • Incorrect ID Indicates Lost Write
Has Occurred
• Re-Create Data From Parity
ID 1234
ID 1234 ID 1234

ID 0000 ID 1234
D D D D P DP

3 1 2 3 9

{
7

1 1

2 1 5

12
2
Old ID 0000
2 3 1 8 12

1 1 3 2

7 11

New ID 1234

Legend

Step 2: Write Updated Data WAFL

• Update Data On Block 1234
• Write Block 1234 To Location
• Previous free block had ID 0000 Checksum
• Changes to Block ID 1234
Benefit: High Data Integrity
Momentary Disk Offline

• Feature where RAID temporarily suspends

I/O to a drive
– Available with DOT 7.0 for non-disruptive disk
firmware upgrade
– Disk offline for SATA drive spasm recovery
supported (7.0.1)
– Aggregate requirements
• RAID-DP or mirrored aggregate (SyncMirror)
• Is allowed only if RAID group is in normal/restricted state
and disk copy is not in progress in group
 Momentary Disk Offline

Data1 Data2 Data3 Data4 Data5 Data6 Parity1 Parity2

Step 1: Trigger Detection Step 3: Bring Drive Online

• Firmware Upgrade • Recovery Test (Dummy I/O)
• SATA Spasm Errors • Re-Sync Logged Writes
• FC Timeout Errors • Re-Activate I/O To Drive
• Media/Head Errors Step 2: Drive Offline
• Reads From Parity
• Writes Logged
• Execute (FW Update, Error
Recovery, Power Cycle)
 Maintenance Center
Step 1: Predict Failure Step 2: Run Diagnostics Step 3: Fix Problems

• Provides additional storage resiliency

• Predictive and preventative techniques to ensure system
health is at peak
• Customers benefit
– Fewer storage related issues
– Lower IT management costs
 Checksums

512 bytes
data per
sector

HOW CHECKSUMS
WORK
• Verify all 4kb block
checksums on read
- Read data
512 bytes 8 bytes 64 bytes - Re-calculate
data per checksum checksum checksum
sector per sector in 9th sector - Compare To stored
checksum
• Fibre Channel Drives • SATA Drives - If needed, re-create
• BCS • BCS Emulation from parity
• 8 x 520-byte sectors • 9 x 512-byte sectors
per 4kB block per 4kB block
 Background Media Scans
Step 1: Scan For Media Error
• Begin scans at disk block 0
• Uses SCSI Verify
• 128 blocks (512K) verify
request size
Step 3: Complete Scan
• Continue scanning all blocks
• Background verify process
with no performance impact
• Fixed scan rate (sectors/sec)

D D D D P DP

Step 2: Detect & Fix Error 3 1 2 3 9

{
7

• 2 12
Looking for latent defects
1 1 1 5

2 3 1

2 8 12

• Drive marks bad block 1 1 3 2

7 11

• Reconstruct data from parity

• Re-allocate to available block
 RAID Scrubs
Step 1: Scrub Disks
Step 3: Complete Scan
• Issue reads to all disks in RG
• Default runs 6 hours/week
• Scan for media defects
• Can configure schedule
• Verify checksums
• Can resume if interrupted
• Compute parity

D D D D P DP

3 1 2 3 9

{
7

Step 2: Detect & Fix Errors 1 1

2 1 5

12
• Fix checksum errors 2 3 1

2 8 12

• Fix parity errors

1 1 3 2

7 11

• Fix media errors

Increasing Flexibility in the Dynamic
Enterprise

Data ONTAP 7.0

™
Infrastructure Utilization
Challenges

• Overall storage utilization is low

– Most enterprises are below 50% utilization
• Too many untapped resources
– Static allocation
– Suboptimal performance
– No sharing of resources
Industry Trends

Disk capacity is growing

More disks being used to address
performance
Control requirements drive volume
granularity
Differing data types need different
management
Size of data units growing unevenly

Increasing mismatch between tools and building blocks

 Aggregates and FlexVol™
Volumes:How They Work
Flexible Flexible Flexible
Create RAID groups
Volume 1 Volume 2 Volume 3
Create aggregate
vol1 vol2
Create and populate
vol3
each flexible volume
 No preallocation of blocks
to a specific volume
 WAFL® allocates space
Aggregate from aggregate as data is
written

RG1 RG2 RG3

Aggregate
Flexible Volumes Improve
Utilization
Vol0 = 1gb Max
200gb Database created
3 disk vol for Home Directories / Shares
1 Hot spare

14 x 72 gb disks = 1 tb capacity
Data Parity Data Data Data Data Data Data Data Parity Data Data Parity Spare

VolGb
140 0 Database
370 Gb Home
40 Gb
Directories

550 Gb of wasted space

Flexible Volumes Improve
Utilization
Vol0 = 1gb Max
200gb Database created
3 disk vol for Home Directories / Shares
1 Hot spare

14 x 72 gb disks = 1 tb capacity
Data Data Data Data Data Data Data Data Data Data Data Parity Parity Spare

400 Gb used

Aggregate
Vol0 Database Home Dirs

600 Gb of Free Space!

Benefits

• Flexibility

• Utilization

• Performance

• Cloning
FlexVols : Enabling Thin ™

Provisioning
LUNs FlexVols:
1 TB Application-level  Container level:
soft allocation
400 GB  flexible provisioning
 Better utilization
Container-level
soft allocation  Application-level:
150
200
GB 300  Higher granularity
GB GB
FlexVols: 1 TB
 Application over-
100 2TB 50
allocation containment
200
GB GB
GB
 Separates physical
allocation from space
visible to users
 Increases control of
space allocation
Physical Storage: 1 TB
Data Availability: WAFL Snapshots
Causes of Unplanned
Downtime
Source: GartnerGroup, 2005
 Fewer Components


Technology
Failures
 Redundant Components
 Cluster Failover
 SnapMirror™ for DR

 Multiple point-in-time copy

20%
with low overhead
 Fast Recovery of Entire
Filesystem, Database
40%


40%
Application
Errors
 Appliance Simplicity


 Ease of Management
Operator  Plug-n-play
Errors
 Low Product Complexity
Snapshots Defined
• A Snapshot is a reference to a complete point-in-time
image of the volume’s file system, “frozen” as read-
only.

• Taken automatically on a schedule or manually

• Readily accessible via “special” subdirectories

• 255 snapshots concurrently for each file system, with

no performance degradation.

• Snapshots replace a large portion of the “oops!”

reasons that backups are normally relied upon for:
– Accidental data deletion
– Accidental data corruption

• Snapshots use minimal disk space (~1% per Snap)

Snapshots Defined

File Read File Write

FileA.dat

SnapShot!

SnapShot only copies the pointers to the blocks

Only the changed block is written back to disk
Previous block is maintained for the SnapShot version
Snapshots from other Storage Vendors
How not to SnapShot - Copy on
Write!
File Read File Write

FileA.dat

SnapShot!

SnapShot only copies the pointers to the blocks

Step 1 – Original block must be moved
Step 2 – SnapShot Index updated
Step 3 – New Block is written to disk
Data Availability : SnapRestore
SnapRestore Defined

• SnapRestore reverts an entire volume

(filesystem) to any previous online
Snapshot
– Makes the Snapshot the new active file system

• Instant recovery (no reboot)*

• Particularly compelling for database

contents or software testing situations

* Except if restoring root volume

N Series SnapRestore

Volx Volx

Step 1 – Volume index set as master, current

volume pointers removed, redundant blocks
flagged as available
Volume is restored in seconds!
No performance impact!
SnapRestore from other Vendors
(If the functionality exists at all)
Competitions Volume Restore

Volx Volx

SnapShot!

Step 1 - Volume Index is Restored, Data is inconsistent!

Step 2 – Blocks are copied from SnapShot area
SnapRestore for Databases
 Provides a unique solution to database recovery
Rather than restoring large amounts of data from
backup tape:
1.Simply revert the entire volume back in
time to its state when the Snapshot was
taken
2.Then play change logs forward to complete
recovery
 Effectively protects data without expensive
mirroring or replication
 Use Snaprestore where time to copy data from
either a Snapshot or tape into the active
filesystem is prohibitive
How many of your customers talk
about Recovery Issues?
RTO and RPO

• Recovery Time Objective

• Recovery Point Objective
 Positioning SnapManager
Products
RTO RPO
W D H M M H D W

SnapShot /
File Data
SnapRestore

SnapManager for
E-mail
Exchange

SnapManager for
SQL SQL

SnapManager for
OracleOracle
Solutions to Meet Customer Challenges
Solutions to Meet Customer
Challenges
Storage Backup Regulatory Disaster
Consolidation & Recovery Compliance Recovery

Information Lifecycle Management

Simplify for Lowest TCO

Best of Breed Solutions

Customer Satisfaction
Storage Consolidation

High availability storage

Effortless, large scale
server consolidation
Pooled storage with non-
disruptive expansion
Heterogeneous file sharing
Simplified data
management
Seamless integration with
existing software and
hardware

Primary Nearline
Storage Storage
 Backup and Recovery
London NY San Francisco Chicago

 Simplified, centralized
backup and restore
Windows
Server WAN  Perform remote backup and
restores locally
SnapVault™
 Instantaneous access to
WAN
backup data (file format)
 Uses significantly less
storage
 Eliminate backup window
problems (backup hourly)

UNIX Nearline Nearline

Server Storage Storage
Data Center Remote Site
 Regulated Data
UK Data Protection Act, European Union Directive 95/46

• SEC Rule 17a.4 (Broker dealers)

• DoD 5015.2 (Government)
• HIPAA (Healthcare)
• 21CFR11 (Life Sciences/Pharmaceuticals)
• Sarbanes Oxley (public companies over $75m cap.)
• FSA Handbook (UK Financial Services)
• BSI DISC PD 0008 (evidential weight, code of practise)
• Basel II Accord
• Freedom of Information Act 2000

…..to name just a few !

 Regulatory Compliance
London Tokyo Chicago
 Comprehensive solution:
WORM • Data permanence
Volumes
• Data security
 Increased data protection

WAN
 Retention date support
SnapMirror®
 Easy to integrate with
existing applications
WAN
 Meets requirements for
Accesses SEC 17a-4, HIPAA, DOD
Data and
Moves it 5015.2, GoBS, and more
to WORM
storage  Unmatched flexibility
• Runs on all platforms
DB or E-mail
Archival
Nearline Nearline
• Systems can store
Storage Storage compliance and
Data Center Remote Site non-compliance data
 Disaster Recovery
DR Site
London Tokyo Chicago
Mirror sites for rapid
disaster recovery
Remote site users
failover to mirrored site
WAN
automatically
Single solution for sync,
async, semi-sync
SnapMirror™
Runs across all platforms
Cost effective for remote
sites
Economical DR solution

Primary Nearline
Storage Storage
 FlexClones

Data ONTAP 7.0

™
Infrastructure Utilization
Challenges

• Overall storage utilization is low

– Most enterprises are below 50% utilization
• Too many untapped resources
– Static allocation
– Suboptimal performance
– No sharing of resources
FlexClone Software
™

• Enables multiple, instant data set clones

with no storage overhead

• Provides dramatic improvement for

application test and development
environments

• Renders competitive methods archaic

FlexClone™ Volumes: Ideal for
Managing Production Data Sets

• Error containment
– Bug fixing
• Platform upgrades
– ERP
– CRM
• Multiple simulations against a large data set
– ECAD
– MCAD
– Oil and gas
 The Pain of Development
1.4 tb Storage Solution
Prod Volume (200gb)

Sand Box Volume (200gb)

Pre-Prod Volume (200gb)

QA Volume (200gb)

Dev Volume (200gb)

Test Volume (200gb)

Create copies of the volume

Requires processor time and Physical storage

200 Gb Free
 Clone’s remove the pain
1.4 tb Storage Solution
Prod Volume (200gb) Test Volume

Dev Volume QA Volume

Pre-Prod Volume Sand Box Volume

1 Tb Free
Create Clones of the Volume – no additional space required
Start working on Prod Volume and Cloned Volume
Only changed blocks get written to disk!
In an Ideal IBM N Series
World….

SnapMirror

Secondary
Primary Production
Array
Array

Create Clones from the Read Only mirrored volume

Removes development workload from Production Storage!

IBM N Series / EMC / HP

EMC NS Series NS Series

AX150/S CX-20 CX-40 CX-80 Celerra DMX Family Centera

DL380

HP
DL380

MSA1000 MSA1500 MSA1500cs EVA EVA XP Family RISS

4/6000 8000

NetApp
FAS250 FAS270 FAS3020 FAS3050 FAS3070 FAS6030 FAS6070

Data ONTAP™ Operating System – SAN, NAS, iSCSI

• One architecture • One management interface
• One application interface • Total interoperability
 A real world Scenario

• Customer is looking for a Scalable Platform to support

future growth
• Needs to consider Disaster Recovery options
• And has a requirement for a Compliancy Solution
IBM N Series / EMC / HP

EMC NS Series NS Series

AX150/S CX-20 CX-40 CX-80 Celerra DMX Family Centera

DL380

HP
DL380

MSA1000 MSA1500 MSA1500cs EVA EVA XP Family RISS

4/6000 8000

IBM
N Series N3700 N5200 N5500 N5600 N7600 N7800

Scalability
IBM N Series / EMC / HP

EMC NS Series NS Series

AX150/S CX-20 CX-40 CX-80 Celerra DMX Family Centera

DL380

HP
DL380

MSA1000 MSA1500 MSA1500cs EVA EVA XP Family RISS

4/6000 8000

IBM
N Series N3700 N5200 N5500 N5600 N7600 N7800

Interoperability
IBM N Series / EMC / HP

EMC NS Series NS Series

AX150/S CX-20 CX-40 CX-80 Celerra DMX Family Centera

DL380

HP
DL380

MSA1000 MSA1500 MSA1500cs EVA EVA XP Family RISS

4/6000 8000

IBM
N Series N3700 N5200 N5500 N5600 N7600 N7800

Compliance
 A real world Scenario

• Customer is looking for a Scalable Platform to support

future growth
– N Series systems scale from the Entry to the Enterprise
• Needs to consider Disaster Recovery options
– Any N Series system can replicate to any other N Series System
– Natively over IP or FC
– Can be a mix FC-SAN or iSCSI
• And has a requirement for a Compliancy Solution
– SnapLock can be added to any N Series system

And don’t forget FlexClone!

Addressing Today’s Challenges
 Explosive data growth
 Do more with less
 Scale the infrastructure
 24x7 global access
 Data security & compliance

Consolidate Operate Protect

storage everywhere your business