User manual DOT HILL 8GB BROCHURE

[. . . ] This paper will highlight key application areas that can gain immediate benefit from 8 Gb Fibre Channel technology and examine some of the factors customers will need to consider when determining the right time to upgrade. > THE DOT HILL ADVANTAGE 4Gb is serving us fine - what can 8Gb do for us? So we now have 8Gb FC available to all of our Edge applications and devices, what are the application areas that can immediately benefit and how do you determine the right time to upgrade?As new communications technologies emerge it is important to evaluate their position and impact on the entire IT infrastructure before embarking on any upgrade plan. Customers will initially need to determine if their current infrastructure is stable, delivering adequate performance and whether storage growth and bandwidth requirements have stabilized or are anticipated to grow significantly in the near future. [. . . ] Also, since the 8Gb Fibre Channel ports are compatible with existing 4Gb and 2Gb Fibre Channel, the storage virtualization servers can be used by the application virtualization servers at 8Gb while still being used by individual application servers at 2/4Gb, or even at 1Gb using iSCSI without change. Storage Virtualization products can take advantage of 8Gb Fibre Channel today such as those from FalconStor, DataCore and many other vendors. · High Performance & Grid Computing (HPC) With advancements in processor and server backplane performance, driving an 8Gb Fibre Channel infrastructure is well within the capabilities of today's blade servers. As these servers typically have little I/O expansion, the greater fan-out offered by 8Gb Fibre Channel allows for blade consolidation and a welcome performance boost. · Tiered Storage & Disk-to-disk backup (D2D) As implementations of tiered storage become more prevalent, data will need to be routinely migrated from primary to secondary storage across the SAN. Depending on the amount of data being relocated, this can be a time-consuming process placing a tremendous strain on the storage network with potential data access disruption during the migration. 8Gb Fibre Channel provides a massive pipe through the SAN allowing data to be quickly moved from one storage system to another, enabling this to happen at up to 2X the speed of 4Gb Fibre Channel. · SAN/Campus Area Network (CAN) Replication While remote replication across a wide area network (WAN) can help provide protection against regional disasters, SAN/CAN replication can be just as beneficial. When replicating across the SAN data can be mirrored synchronously, so the remote site has the same data as the local site at all times. The data at the remote site can then be used for a variety of purposes, such as data mining, migration testing and backup. Synchronizing the local and remote sites can be a lengthy process that monopolizes a large portion of the SAN's bandwidth. 8Gb Fibre Channel provides these environments with a high-bandwidth infrastructure well suited for SAN/CAN replication. · Video Post Production and Streaming Video Applications Video based applications typically involve large block sequential I/O workloads that could take immediate benefit from 8Gb Fibre Channel. The increased performance will deliver improved productivity for workflows such as content creation, post production editing, animation modelling and rendering, and final publishing. · Medical Imaging, Siesmic Data Acquisition and Analysis Further applications that have large block sequential I/O workload characteristics include medical imaging, seismic data acquisition, data analysis and data mining, all of which will benefit from the added bandwidth that 8Gb Fibre Channel provides. These applications can all monopolize a large portion of the SAN bandwidth, and 8Gb offers a great performance improvement that allows data to be moved quickly. 8Gb Fibre Channel - Enabling The Next Generation Data Centre Investment protection eases the upgrade path To simplify and accelerate the introduction of this evolutionary technology, 8Gb storage products are backward and forward compatible, making it possible to deploy 8Gb products seamlessly into existing 2 and 4Gb SAN environments. This allows users to immediately benefit from any improved functionality, provides investment protection of their current environment and future protection when their infrastructure eventually makes a complete transition to 8Gb. Today's organizations must weigh any decision to upgrade to a 8Gb SAN infrastructure against their current and future business process requirements in terms of functionality, scalability, performance metrics and strategic growth. Another factor to consider is whether the HBAs, servers, switches and storage systems in the SAN eventually will be upgraded to 8Gb technology. Although the components will be backwards compatible, in order for the SAN to meet its full potential the end-to-end infrastructure should be based on 8Gb. An 8Gb upgrade decision might also be based on the desire to implement specific new product features and technology available only with 8Gb offerings. [. . . ] Longmont, CO 80501-6533 Phone: 303-845-3200 Fax: 303-845-3365 Email: websales@dothill. com www. dothill. com UK Headquarters: Dot Hill Systems Europe Ltd. Network House, Basing View Basingstoke, Hampshire, RG21 4HG +44 (0) 1256 840600 www. dothill. com © 2010 Copyright Dot Hill Systems Corporation. Dot Hill Systems Corp. , Dot Hill, the Dot Hill logo, SANnet, Rapid Evolution Storage Architecture, and R/Evolution are trademarks of Dot Hill Systems Corp. [. . . ]