IDC Secure and Trusted Technical White Paper of Huawei OceanStor 18000 Series Enterprise Storage System

7/25/2019 IDC Secure and Trusted Technical White Paper of Huawei OceanStor 18000 Series Enterprise Storage System

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W H I T E P A P E R

E n t e r p r i s e S t o r a g e S y s t e m : S e c u r e a n d T r u s t e d

Sponsored by: Huawei

William Zhang

July 2013

I D C O P I N I O N

As the IT world is transforming from being "information-centered" to "data-centered",

more and more enterprises realize the value of data. Corruption or loss of data may

cause enormous damage to enterprises and even bankruptcy in serious cases.

Therefore, enterprises prioritize system reliability when choosing a data storage

system, and pose stricter requirements for the reliability of a storage system

especially for key applications. For this reason, they often select high-end storagesystems for core applications. According to IDC’s statistics, the growth rate of disk

storage system worth more than US$100,000 in China was up to 43.3% in 2012,

twice the average growth rate (19.8%) of the whole disk storage market.

Selecting a storage system of high reliability is very important. IDC recommends that

IT organizations purchase high-end storage systems meeting the following

requirements:

Hardware architecture reliability of the storage system: The storage system

employs full redundant architecture and redundant design for its key components,

such as the controller, power module, fan, and network to ensure that the storage

system does not fail upon a single point of failure.

Data storage reliability of the storage system: The storage system must be

able to provide end-to-end protection for data. That is, the system must provide a

full range of data protection measures including fault self-detection, fault pre-

handling, quick fault rectification, and post-rectification data integrity check to

protect data storage reliability.

Storage service reliability of the storage system The storage system is able

to bear the load of multiple key applications, to have service priority monitoring

and management features, as well as advanced features, such as snapshot,

mirroring, remote replication, and other solutions ensuring service continuity.

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A B O U T T H I S R E P O R T

In this report, we explore the secure and trusted architecture of a high-end storage

product — the HUAWEI OceanStor 18000 Series Enterprise Storage System(in short

of HUAWEI 18000 series) — and further look into the overall design, systemarchitecture, data storage, and service operation protection of HUAWEI 18000 series

and how it fully satisfies user demand of secure and trusted and maximizes its value

for users.

M a r k e t O v e r v i e w

According to IDC’s statistics, the size of the storage market in China based on

revenue reached US$1.4761 billion in 2012, 19.8% up from 2011. The market size of

storage systems worth above US$100,000 was US$421.9 million, accounting for

28.6% of total market share. The CAGR(Compound Annual Growth Rate) was up to

43.3%.

F I G U R E 1

Ch i n a d i s k s t o r a g e m a r k e t o v e r v i ew , 2 0 1 2

Source: IDC, 2012



©2013 IDC China #CN12016V 3

F I G U R E 2

Ch i n a d i s k s t o r a g e m a r k e t o v e r v i ew b y p r i c e b a nd , 2 0 1 2

Source: IDC, 2012

H U A W E I O C E A N S T O R 1 8 0 0 0 S E R I E SE N T E R P R I S E S T O R A G E S Y S T E M S O L U T I O N S

S e c u r e a n d T r u s t e d S y s t e m A r c h i t e c t u r e

Fully Redundant System Architecture Design

HUAWEI OceanStor 18000 Series Enterprise Storage System employs a fully

redundant design. Specifically, the storage system has redundant components

including power modules, fans, and controllers, redundant network planes, and fully

redundant cross-bay service switching fabrics. This redundancy design ensures

normal storage system operation when a single point of failure occurs on any

component, module, or device in the storage system.

Smart Matrix Architecture

HUAWEI 18000 series employs the Smart Matrix architecture, as shown in Figure 3.

This Smart Matrix is a system architecture of full redundancy and full switching basedon PCI-E 2.0, which takes the mutually redundant dual plane PCI-E high-speed

switch modules as the core of data storage/switching. Failure of any PCI-E high-

speed switch module does not affect data reading and writing, ensuring service

continuity. PCI-E high-speed matrix switch modules are highly advantageous in

implementing data switching. They feature significantly reduced latency in protocol

conversion, unobstructed interconnection of resources, and more efficient data

switching. This system can offer up to 192 GB/s bandwidth only 300 ns latency, which

is only one-fifth of the latency of other similar products under the same conditions.

HUAWEI 18000 series supports controller scale-out to 16 controllers.

HUAWEI 18000 series supports global cache, which is a unique feature of the Smart

Matrix architecture design. On HUAWEI 18000 series, host volume is partitioned into

several LUNs belonging to different controllers. Each controller has its own cache that




is used to speed up data reads and writes, and at the same time all controllers share

their caches to form a global cache. In this way, all caches of the system can

contribute to the speeding-up of the same host volume, enhancing the hit rate of data

cache in an all-round way and minimizing serialization. Moreover, the system

acquires the maximum speed up, realizes quicker response of storage to service

needs, and significantly enhances the data processing speed. Meanwhile, the globalcache protects service operation from the problems in traditional storage, such as

cache exclusively occupied by a certain application and competition for cache

resources. The global cache makes HUAWEI 18000 series more secure and trusted.

F I G U R E 3

Sm a r t M a t r i x A r c h i t e c t u r e

Source: Huawei, 2013

Certification of Seismic Fortification Intensity 9

With regard to overall design, Huawei’s storage has passed the certification of

seismic fortification intensity 9 held by the Communication Equipment Seismic

Fortification Performance Quality Supervision and Inspection Center, Ministry of

Information Industry, making Huawei the only certified professional storage

manufacturer in China in this regard. With the certified overall design, HUAWEI 18000

series ensures no loss of data during severe earthquakes and an effective defense

against more than 90% of earthquakes in the next 50 years.




S e c u r e a n d T r u s t e d D a t a S t o r a g e

Extreme Virtual Engine (XVE) Storage Operating System

HUAWEI 18000 series employs the XVE (extreme virtual engine) storage operating

system, whose core concept is full virtualization, including fully virtualized kernel, fullyvirtualized RAID (RAID 2.0+), and fully virtualized resource pool. The XVE storage

operating system utilizes the virtualized underlying storage to achieve balanced

allocation of resources, to avoid a bottleneck, and to achieve more stable business

operation. In the meantime, with the Smart series, the Hyper series, and the virtual

volume management software for the virtualized resource pool, HUAWEI 18000

series supports advanced data protection and better support the disaster recovery of

services. The fully virtualized design of the XVE operating system realizes more

stable service operation, making HUAWEI 18000 series more secure and trusted.

RAID 2.0+: Making Data Reconstructing 20 Times Faster

Huawei’s innovative RAID 2.0+ technology enables fully virtualized storagemanagement, and puts forward the idea of two-layer virtualization. The underlying

virtualization achieves disk reads and writes and protection for basic data. The upper-

layer virtualization provides consolidated storage resource pools, smart resource

scheduling, and advanced data protection. As shown in Figure 4, for underlying

storage medium, HUAWEI 18000 series implements disk virtualization. Physical disks

in the system form three storage tiers according to different performance

characteristic. An external storage connected to the system in any other way is

recognized as a large pool by related devices. Each disk in the system is divided into

64-MB chunks. Chunks from different hard disks are combined into chunk group

(CKG) based on a RAID level. A CKG is divided into extents. According to needs, one

to N pieces of extents form a volume or a file. In RAID 2.0+ mechanism, a RAID

group is not made of fixed disks. Instead, the physical disks in the system are

virtualized into many logical chunks, and then those chunks form a RAID group based

on a certain algorithm. When one chunk is faulty, only data on that chunk is

reconstructed, so the reconstruction time is within 3 seconds. When one physical disk

is faulty, only chunks that contain data are reconstructed. In addition, more disks

participate in the reconstruction. In this way, the RAID 2.0+ accelerates the data

reconstruction speed by 20 times, reduces the reconstruction time of one TB of data

to within 30 minutes. Because data reconstruction is performed in a distributed

manner, reducing the pressure on each disk, and the adverse impact on the system is

minimized.




F I G U R E 4

Log i c a l s t r u c t u r e o f R A I D 2 . 0 + t w o - l a y e r v i r t u a l i z a t i o n : 2 0

t i m e s f a s t e r d a t a r e c on s t r u c t i o n


As shown in Figure 5, 64 x 2 TB nearline SAS disks form a storage pool in the RAID

2.0+ reconstruction time test. 50 x 1 TB LUNs are created in the storage pool. These

LUNs are formatted, and data has been written to them. After one disk is removed,

the 18000 series starts reconstruction and data is written to the hot spare space of

the storage pool.

F I G U R E 5

R A I D 2 . 0 + d a t a r e c on s t r u c t i o n t e s t r e s u l t





It can be inferred from the log that the data reconstruction takes 22 minutes and 15

seconds. The average reconstruction speed is 1229 MB/s. Based on the speed, it can

be inferred that reconstruction of 1 TB data takes about 15 minutes.

The RAID 2.0+ technology also virtualizes upper-layer resources. The upper layer

recognizes the underlying storage resources as a big resource pool. Volumes and

files provided for host operating systems are created in the pool. Extent is logical

addresses, and basic units for storage resource mapping to hosts. That is, resources

in the storage resource pool are mapped to hosts by extent. Extent makes storage

resource allocation flexible and enables users to adjust the allocation dynamically,

freeing storage resource allocation from the restriction of the number of disks in a

RAID group. On this basis, the storage system uses HUAWEI Smart series data

storage management software to deliver efficient and flexible data management,

intelligent data flow inside the storage resource pool, automatic load balancing,

maximized disk utilization, maximized capacity utilization, and improved storage

management efficiency. The Smart series software include SmartThin (thin

provisioning), SmartTier (intelligent storage tiering), SmartMotion (quick data

migration), SmartVirtualization (storage virtualization for heterogeneousenvironments), SmartQoS (QoS control), and SmartPartition (cache partitioning).

When planning a storage system deployment, an administrator only needs to

calculate the total storage capacity and performance required by the current

applications and to adjust the actual capacity and performance values higher to allow

for future expansion. When configuring the storage system, the administrator only

needs to do simple resource allocation. The storage system will automatically adjust

the quantity of extents for each application based on the actual capacity and

performance requirements of the applications. When the storage resources in the

storage system become insufficient because of application system expansion, the

storage system reminds the administrator of adding storage resources. To add

storage resources, the administrator only needs to insert disks and add the disks tocorresponding disk pools. Then the storage system automatically adjusts distribution

of extents in the background to achieve a global balance.

Data Self-Check and Self-Recovery

HUAWEI 18000 series offers end-to-end data protection measures including fault

self-check, fault pre-handling, quick fault rectification, and post-rectification data

integrity check to ensure data reliability. The storage system periodically collects disk

information, performs disk health analysis (DHA) based on the disk run time, internal

error count, and disk I/O module, and generates a document containing a score. ITmaintenance personnel can determine whether the disk is in a normal state based on

the score. For example, if the score for a disk ranges from 60 to 100, the disk is in a

normal state; if the score is lower than 60, the disk is in an abnormal state and needs

to be replaced. For a disk in an abnormal state, the storage system starts data self-

recovery. If there is a bad sector, the storage system automatically starts bad sector

repair. If there is a slow disk or a disk about to fail, the storage system starts data pre-

copy to transfer data on the disk to a healthy disk. When the pre-copy is complete,

the storage system automatically checks whether the data copy is consistent with the

source data. With the data self-check and self-recovery technology, HUAWEI 18000

series can predict faults and take data protection measures in advance. This

effectively prevents faults and improves data security and reliability.




Data Integrity Check

Besides data self-check, data self-recovery, and RAID 2.0+ quick data reconstruction,

HUAWEI 18000 series also provides a data integrity check mechanism, which

employs the Protection Information (PI) technology in compliance with the T10

standard to protect data integrity. With the PI technology, the storage system

automatically adds an eight-byte data integrity field to the data of each sector, checksdata written from host bus adapters (HBAs) through storage area network (SAN)

optical cables to disks, and reads integrity information about data from disks. Such

data integrity fields are forwarded, transmitted, and stored on storage media together

with corresponding user data. Before user data is read by a host again, the storage

system uses the PI technology to check that the user data is correct and complete. If

data is incorrect or incomplete, the storage system uses data redundancy (such as

RAID) to recover the data. In this way, user data reliability is protected. The same

data protection mechanism is also employed by the host to protect data on the path

from the application to the host HBA. In this way, the host can automatically checks

for and rectify faults before users are affected. Deployment of the same data

protection mechanism on the host is called data integrity extensions (DIX). DIXextends the application range of the PI technology. The PI technology and DIX can

achieve end-to-end (application-to-disk) data protection.

S e c u r e a n d T r u s t e d S t o r a g e S e r v i c e s

Ensuring Quality of Service (QoS) and Performance of Key Applications

SmartQoS ensures stable operations of key applications by prioritizing the LUNs for

key applications so that the LUNs can use sufficient storage resources such as CPUs

and memory and their access requests are processed first. Moreover, HUAWEI

18000 series can ensure that prioritized key applications' requests are processed first

by limiting the IOPS and bandwidth for LUNs used by other applications.

As shown in Figure 6, there is a storage resource pool with 192 disks, containing two

2 TB LUNs, which have the same owning controller. A database service model test

(all random I/Os, among which 80% I/Os are reads and the rest are writes, I/O latency

shorter than 10 ms) is performed first. The test result indicates that the two LUNs

deliver similar performance (12,000 IOPS). Then, SmartQoS is configured to

constrain IOPS of LUN1 to 6000. After the SmartQoS configuration takes effect, the

IOPS of LUN1 gradually drops to 6000 and that of LUN2 grows to 18,000.




F I G U R E 6

D a t a b a s e s e r v i c e m od e l t e s t w i t h I O P S f o r o ne L U N l i m i t e d b y

Sm a r t Q oS


As shown in Figure 7, there is a storage resource pool with 192 disks, containing two

100 GB LUNs, which have the same owning controller. A database service model test(all random I/Os, among which 80% I/Os are reads and the rest are writes, I/O latency

shorter than 10 ms) is performed first. The test result indicates that the two LUNs

deliver similar performance (48,000 IOPS). After a while, a SmartQoS policy is

configured to prioritize LUN1. After the policy takes effect, LUN1 has access to more

storage system resources. As a result, the IOPS of LUN1 reaches 62,000, while that

of LUN2 drops to 34,000.



10 #CN12016V ©2013 IDC China

F I G U R E 7

D a t a b a s e s e r v i c e m od e l t e s t w i t h o ne LU N p r i o r i t i z e d b y

Sm a r t Q oS


SmartPartition partitions the physical cache of HUAWEI 18000 series into multiple

independent areas. SmartPartition allows users to assign exclusive cache areas to

LUNs used by key applications, and enables the storage system to intelligently adjust

concurrent requests of hosts and those of disks. In this way, SmartPartition ensures

that applications of low priority do not compete for cache resources with applications

of high priority in busy hours, ensuring high efficiency and stable operation of key

applications.

Disaster Recovery for Core Applications

HUAWEI 18000 series offers complete data disaster recovery (DR) solutions that are

applicable to a variety of applications such as Oracle, SAP, and ERP. In addition, the

storage system provides the Hyper series advanced data protection features,

including HyperSnap (snapshot), HyperClone (cloning), HyperCopy (LUN copy),

HyperReplication/S (synchronous remote replication), and HyperReplication/A

(asynchronous remote replication), to ensure data consistency between sites.

Moreover, the storage system employs the Ultra series DR management programs to

achieve one-click switchover between sites. The Ultra series programs free users

from complex DR task management, reduce the possibility of misoperation, and

greatly accelerate application recovery. These programs increase the service

continuity to 99.9999% and ensure system secure and trusted.

The shortest recovery point objective (RPO) in the industry (0 to 5 seconds). In

addition, HUAWEI 18000 series allows users to set time stamps in the cache to copy

data in the cache at the production center to that at the DR center. If a link is

interrupted and then recovers from the interruption during a DR process, the storagesystem automatically recovers and performs resynchronization, which ensures that



©2013 IDC China #CN12016V 11

data on the secondary LUN is consistent with the data on the secondary LUN before

the interruption.

UltraAPM, a DR management platform developed by Huawei, is customer

application-centered rather than storage-centered. It manages DR-related work

centrally according to a specified work process on a graphical user interface. In this

way, UltraAPM helps customers construct, maintain, and use the disaster recovery

system.

F I G U R E 8

O r a c l e d i s a s t e r r e c o v e r y t e s t u s i n g H U AW E I 1 8 0 0 0 s e r i e s


In this test, two HUAWEI RH5885 V2 high-performance servers are deployed in the

production end and disaster recovery (DR) end. Oracle databases are installed.

HUAWEI UltraAPM and OceanStor 18000 Series Storage System are combined to

implement database DR tests. A storage fault at the production end is simulated for a

DR failover. During the UltraAPM DR, data of the primary storage array at the

production end is remotely copied to the secondary storage array at the DR end.

LUNs on the secondary storage array become readable and writable. Then the LUNs

are mapped to the application server at the DR end, and Oracle databases start. The

test result indicates that the Oracle database has been started at the DR end, and the

data at the DR end is the same as that at the production end after disaster-triggered

migration is executed. The DR switchover takes about five minutes.

UltraVR is DR management software and integrates with the virtualization

architecture to set and manage DR of virtual machines (VMs) in a virtual environment.

UltraVR supports deep Vcenter integration and is applicable to VMware environments.

By cooperating with value-added functions of Huawei's storage devices, it provides

functions including remote recovery, local VM recovery, failover, failback, DR

rehearsal, one-click recovery, data verification, and planned migration. Manual

operations are turned into automatic operations based on a specified process.UltraVR does not change the virtualization infrastructure and meets various DR



12 #CN12016V ©2013 IDC China

requirements of users. VMs are fully utilized at the layer of application server software,

improving data protection efficiency. Currently, UltraVR supports VMware

virtualization platform and HUAWEI FusionSphere virtualization platform. In the future,

it will support virtualization platforms such as Xen and Hyper-V. Users can employ

one set of software to manage DR of multiple virtualization platforms.

F I G U R E 8

V Mw ar e D R t e s t b y u s i n g H U AW E I 1 80 00 s e r i e s


In this test, two RH5885 V2 high-performance servers are used as ESX servers.

Multiple Windows 2008 R2 VMs are deployed on ESX servers and HUAWEI 18000

series is mounted at the bottom layer. Oracle databases are installed on the VMs.

Remote replication is configured for the production end. The storage system at the

DR end is not mounted. A storage fault is simulated at the production end for a

mandatory system service switchover. During the UltraVR DR, remote replication is

forcibly switched between the primary and secondary arrays. LUNs on the secondary

storage array become readable and writable. Then the LUNs are mapped to the ESXi

server at the DR end, and VMs automatically start. The test result indicates that the

VMs have automatically started, and the database data at the DR end is the same as

that at the production end after the DR switchover is complete. The DR switchover

takes about five minutes.

Two-Site Three-Center Solution: Supporting Data Flows Between

Products in different level

Different level Huawei storage devices are deployed in the production center, intra-

city DR center, and remote DR center. The remote replication enables data to flow

between the production center and DR center, achieving remote data protection and

service continuity. When the production center encounters a disaster, a

primary/secondary switchover is implemented in the intra-city DR center to enable the

intra-city DR center to take over services. Meanwhile, the production center and intra-

city DR center keep a DR relationship with the remote DR center. If both the

production center and intra-city DR center become faulty, a primary/secondaryswitchover can be implemented in the remote DR center to enable the remote DR



©2013 IDC China #CN12016V 13

center to take over services, ensuring service system continuity. Users can create

different data replication policies based on the actual service requirements and adjust

the replication process according to service characteristics, improving the flexibility of

the DR solution. Users deploy different level storage devices in the production center

and DR center to implement remote data DR, overcoming the obstacle of

intercommunication between different level storage devices in traditional DR systemsand dramatically cutting the construction cost of DR systems. Therefore, the overall

value of the DR solution is improved.

Up to 32 to 1 Centralized Disaster Backup

Traditional DR modes support 4:1 replication only, that is, data is copied from four

storage devices to one storage device. However, centralized DR requirements of

numerous branches of large-sized enterprises and governments remarkably increase

the cost of DR system construction and management difficulty. HUAWEI 18000 series

applies to this scenario and support 32:1 replication mode. This mode reduces

storage devices in the DR center and cuts the cost of DR system construction.

Meanwhile, the 32:1 centralized DR is combined with Huawei's DR managementplatform, simplifying the management and maintenance of large DR systems and

opening a new era for intensive DR construction.

Supporting Third-Party Storage System

HUAWEI 18000 series enables heterogeneous integration between storage devices

of various types from different vendors. Storage devices from other vendors are taken

as resources of HUAWEI 18000 series and centrally managed. These storage

devices can provide storage services for external applications. Meanwhile, HUAWEI

18000 series cooperates with the Smart and Hyper series software, improving

resource utilization of storage devices, protecting customers' current investment,

simplifying user management, and enhancing system reliability. Heterogeneousintegration enables data to be migrated between heterogeneous storage devices and

HUAWEI 18000 series, improving storage efficiency of original data and cutting total

cost of ownership (TCO).

C h a l l e n g e s a n d O p p o r t u n i t i e s F a c e d b y

H U A W E I O c e a n S t o r 1 8 0 0 0 S e r i e s E n t e r p r i s e

S t o r a g e S y s t e m

The IDC observes that high-end storage products are appreciated by users in finance

and telecom industries and governments with their excellent performance, high

stability, and solid reliability. These high-end storage products apply to criticalservices such as the core billing system (BS) and operation system. High-end storage

devices have high requirements for development strength of vendors. For many years,

vendors outside China dominate the high-end field. Nowadays, as a vendor form

China, Huawei first delivers its self-developed OceanStor 18000 Series Enterprise

Storage System. In recent two years, popular technologies such as cloud computing

and big data result in the deployment and application of high-end storage devices.

Huawei seizes this opportunity to enter the high-end storage market.

Meanwhile, the IDC also notices that Huawei faces some challenges in popularizing

high-end storage solutions. A mature storage system needs to pass the test of the

storage market. The development of storage products is the first step. In the follow-up

process, the storage products need to be continuously updated and improved in

actual application environments to meet requirements of complicated IT environments.



14 #CN12016V ©2013 IDC

Particularly, HUAWEI 18000 series confronts critical applications that have

demanding requirements. Therefore, HUAWEI 18000 series must be powerful

enough to meet those demanding requirements. According to the statistics from

Huawei, over 50 HUAWEI 18000 series have been successfully deployed in the fields

of governments, finance, telecom, and energy since they were delivered on

September 5, 2012. Until now, these storage systems are running properly. By theend of 2013, more than hundreds of HUAWEI 18000 series will be delivered to

customers.

C o n c l u s i o n

In the foreseeable future IT budget is expected to remain unchanged or to decrease,

but the flood of data will still exist. Hence, IT organizations also need efficient and

simplified solutions to improve capital utilization while ensuring the security of key

data. In this report, IDC describes three secure and trusted features of high-end

storage, namely, system architecture, data storage, and storage service, for IT

organizations. While evaluating a storage solution, IT organizations should also

consider the following:

Storage system performance when ensuring secure and trusted system

hardware architecture

Storage system efficiency when ensuring secure and trusted data storage

Management simplification when ensuring implementation of DR functions

C o p y r i g h t N o t i c e

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IDC Secure and Trusted Technical White Paper of Huawei OceanStor 18000 Series Enterprise Storage System