NS500G Info Brief - Dell · managed information storage system. • The NS500G’s DART operating system allows Windows and UNIX clients to share the same files through multi-protocol

Dell Enterprise Systems Group Page 1 June 2005

INFOBrief Dell | EMC NS500G

Network Attached Storage System

Key Points

• The Dell/EMC NS500G NAS gateway is designed to provide Dell/EMC SAN customers with a solution for their file serving needs. Enterprise-class business features include hot-pluggable redundant hardware, fail-over support (with dual data movers), Failsafe Networking, Link Aggregation, and anti-virus integration in an easy-to-install, NAS gateway offering.

• NS500G allows customers to utilize existing investments in storage consolidation by providing file level access to CX SAN storage. This allows customers to utilize SAN investments for both block level and file serving applications.

• The NS500G leverages the performance and reliability of the CX family as well as the availability, performance and ease of use of the NS platform to deliver distributed file services in a centrally managed information storage system.

• The NS500G’s DART operating system allows Windows and UNIX clients to share the same files through multi-protocol NFS and CIFS support and critical file-locking mechanisms.

With performance and high-availability built in, the Dell/EMC NS500G NAS gateway is an ideal solution for customers looking to leverage CX SAN investments


• The NS500G allows you to seamlessly manage your data with SnapSure™ and Celerra Replicator™ that allow you to create read-only copies of the file-system for backup and recovery as well as a local or regional remote copy of the NS500G for an even higher degree of data protection.

• Superior service and support – Dell offers professional consulting, installation, and implementation services to help ensure your NS500G is brought online quickly and is configured to meet your business requirements. And every NS500G is backed with Gold level Dell Premier Enterprise Support Services to help ensure that the system remains up and running for years to come.

Background Based on the CX architecture the NS500G provides an ideal path to integrate file and block storage needs. The NS500G provides enterprise-class features with easy to use management tools including set-up wizards and performance monitors that are critical for fast-deployment and dynamic business needs. Comparing in features and performance to much more expensive NAS solutions, the NS500G provides a powerful tool for managing files for any business.

Advanced software functionality for management, Business Continuity, Disaster Recovery, Data Movement, Data management and analysis round out what is a complete solution to a growing business’s storage needs.

Product Description

The NS500G provides a file-serving solution for Dell CX customers. NAS gateways provide a way to drive greater utilization and return on storage investments. The ability to offer block and file storage from the same storage resources provides reduced overhead in storage systems, management, and complexity.


Table 1 – NS500G at a glance

Feature NS500G Single DM

NS500G Dual DM

Capacity FC: 8TB FC&ATA: 16TB (NS system requires 6 FC disks min)

FC: 16TB FC & ATA: 32TB (NS system requires 6 FC disks min)

Maximum supported Arrays

Up to 4 CX Arrays Up to 4 CX Arrays

Network Connection 4 10/100/1000 BaseT 8 10/100/1000 BaseT

Performance 25,891 ops/s NFS v3* 50,335 ops/s NFS v3*

Processors 2 X 1.6 GHz Pentium IV 4 X 1.6 GHz Pentium IV

Cache 2 GB 4 GB

Rack size (DAE2) DME – 3U CS – 1U

DME – 3U CS – 1U

RAID RAID 5 & RAID 1 for FC RAID 5 & RAID 3 for ATA

RAID 5 & RAID 1 for FC RAID 5 & RAID 3 for ATA

Management software Celerra Manager Basic Edition Celerra Manager Advanced Edition

Snapshot/Replication SnapSure & Celerra Replicator (Replication Manager / SE for iSCSI) Protocol Support • NFSv2 and v3, CIFS, FTP

• iSCSI • Network Lock Manager (NLM) v1, v3, v4 • Simple Network Mgmt Protocol • Network Data Mgmt protocol (NDMP) v1-v4 • Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) • Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) • Network Time Protocol (NTP) client • Simple Network Time Protocol (SNTP) • Kerberos Authentication • Lightweight Directory Access Prot (LDAP)

Client Features • File can be accessed by NFS and CIFS • File sharing by multiple Data Movers • Virtual Data Movers for Windows clients • Ethernet Trunking • Link Aggregation (IEEE 802.3ad) • Virtual LAN (802.1q) • UNIX archive utilities (tar/cpio) • Network Status Monitor (NSM) v1 • Portmapper v2 • Network Information Service (NIS) Client • Microsoft DFS Leaf Server • NT LAN Manager (NTLM)

Optional Software • NS Celerra Replicator • NS Celerra Manager Advanced Edition • SnapSure for Exchange


* - Source: www.spec.org as of March 2005. See www.spec.org for current results.

The Dell/EMC NS500G is a NAS gateway that utilizes CX arrays for its backend storage needs. Array support includes the CX300, CX400, CX500, CX600 and CX700. The NS500G can be connected directly to the CX array or connected through the SAN via a Fibre Channel switch.

The NS500G is comprised of two enclosures: the Data Mover Enclosure and the Control Station. See Figure 1

The CX-based Data Mover Enclosure (DME) controls data movement from the disks to the network. The DME contains two autonomous servers or Data Movers. Each Data Mover consists of a dual processor Intel-based server with redundant data paths, power supplies, and multiple Gigabit Ethernet ports. Data Movers run EMC’s Data Access in Real Time (DART) operating system, designed and optimized for high-performance and multi-protocol network file access.

The NS500G can deploy in two operating modes: Primary/Standby or Primary/Primary mode. Primary/Standby is designed for environments that cannot tolerate any system downtime due to hardware failure. In this mode one of the Data Movers manages all of the data movement between the network and the storage resources.

For optimal performance the Data Mover can deploy in Primary/Primary which enables both Data Movers to manage data movement. This provides greater bandwidth for greater loads and performance. In Primary/Primary mode, should a Data Mover fail due to a software fault, it will execute a fast reboot and come back online, typically in seconds.

The second enclosure is the NS500G Control Station (CS). The CS provides a single point of management and control of the NS500G. The CS is used for installation, monitoring and diagnostics, configuration changes, and monitoring and management of Data Mover fail-over. Figure 1 NS500G Rear View showing Data Movers and Control Station.


Each DM can support Fibre Channel or a mix of Fibre Channel and ATA drives. With Fibre Channel each DM can support up to 8 TB of data. With a mix of FC and ATA, each DM can support up to 4 TB or FC and 12 TB of ATA (16 TB total).

Management

The NS500G is managed through an easy-to-use GUI called Celerra Manager. This Web-based management interface allows you to remotely manage your NS500G with easy to use interfaces and wizards for setting up file systems, shares, quotas, and other useful tools. System administrators can allocate disk space on a per-user, per-group, and per-directory tree basis leveraging DART’s extensive support for byte, block-level, and directory quotas. See Figure 2

Figure 2 Screenshot of Celerra Manger graphical user interface


Connectivity

Each DM contains Four 10/100/1000 Gigabit Network connections with Link Aggregation and Failsafe Networking. Link Aggregation allows multiple network ports to be aggregated and transmitted using a single logical address, providing greater link availability and potentially higher network bandwidth.

Failsafe Networking allows DM network ports to have a dedicated backup port in the event of a failure of the primary adapter or external switch or router.

The NS500G supports Gigabit* Ethernet 10/100BaseT. VLAN support allows network administrators more flexibility in creating logical work groups to benefit overall network efficiency by localizing broadcast traffic at the work-group level.

Snaphots and Replication

The NS500G provides capabilities to take read-only snapshots that can be used for backup and data recovery. Using the SnapSure™ GUI (See Figure 3), Snapshots can be managed and scheduled. SnapSure provides VSS integration that allows end users to leverage Windows® XP clients to recover previous versions of shared files.

Celerra® Replicator can also be utilized to create point-in-time, read-only copies of a production file system on a local or geographically remote Celerra system. Celerra Replicator utilizes standard IP networks to maintain consistent replications between sites.

* This term does not connote an actual operating speed of 1 Gb/sec. For high speed transmission, connection to a Gigabit Ethernet server and network infrastructure is required.


Other Software Features

Other key features and management functions include:

• Celerra Manager/Advanced Edition – an extension of the Basic Edition, it simplifies the tasks of configuration, reconfiguration, ongoing operation, data migration, and monitoring of multiple NS environments

• Microsoft Management Console (MMC) – the NS500G provides MMC snap-ins for a Windows “look and feel.” For example, a snap-in for managing shares and quotas.

• Command-Line Interface (CLI) – present for administrators that prefer to work with UNIX-like commands and scripts.

• EMC Control Center™ - can discover, monitor, and launch native management applications as part of an enterprise infrastructure.

• CAVA (Celerra Anti-Virus Agent) – provides on-demand anti-virus support through tight integration with industry-leading anti-virus vendors: Symantec, McAfee, Computer Associates, Trend Micro, and Sophos.

NDMP

The NS500G features industry-standard Network Data Management Protocol (NDMP v1, v2, v3, v4). This allows for dedicated backup bandwidth with no multi-protocol attribute concerns and no impact to existing network traffic.

Namespace and File System Management

The NS500G DART OS also provides ease of use features such as nested mount file system and DFS root server capabilities.

Nested mount file system allows multiple file systems to appear as a single virtual file system. This allows administrators to export or share file systems as a single entity allowing for simplified automount management and simplified access to files and folders.

DFS root server capabilities allow the NS500G to be seen as a Windows 2003 stand-alone DFS Server. This presents a logical name space to CIFS clients and administration through standard Microsoft management tools.

Flexibility

When deployed with either FC or ATA drives, the NS500G can provide fast, reliable disk based backup support. By using the NS500G as a backup target the NS provides an alternative or addition to traditional tape based backup methods.

iSCSI


The NS500G also provides iSCSI support for block based applications. This feature is ideal for remote block-level hosts or block based applications like Microsoft Exchange. Similar to the file system wizards, iSCSI can be configured and set-up using user-friendly wizards in Celerra Manager.

Along with iSCSI support are management tools like SnapSure for iSCSI and SnapSure for Exchange that allow you to create and manage read-only, point-in-time copies of your iSCSI data. Additionally, Replication Manager / SE for Celerra can be used to replicate and manage read-only copies of iSCSI data.

Markets/Applications The NS500G is a NAS gateway storage system suitable for use in business critical or day-to-day production-level activities that require leading edge performance and scalability with options for business continuance and disaster recovery. The NS500G may be deployed in heterogeneous Windows, NetWare, Linux, and UNIX environments and is appropriate for applications in medium-sized businesses to global enterprises.

Traditionally, administrators would purchase independent storage appliances or systems to handle file sharing or file serving needs. The NS500G can be a much more economical deployment allowing administrators to leverage existing storage investments.

NAS gateways are used in a variety of file serving applications including file sharing and work flow applications. Examples of NS500G uses include:

• IT Infrastructure for NFS and CIFS home directories and file sharing

• Web site and e-commerce support for mission critical web sites and internet business

• Decision support including NFS database and applications

• Engineering and development including CAD/CAM applications and document workflow applications

NS500G is targeted toward the network attached storage market, for customers seeking a NAS gateway that provides storage consolidation with no single point of failure, high reliability, availability and performance while supporting many servers and applications.


The NS500G is great for data intensive applications and fully functional enterprise environments including (but not limited to):

• High performance file based applications

• Video streaming and high speed content delivery

• Disaster Recovery (fully mirrored solutions)

• OLTP and web servers

• Data warehouses

• Graphics intensive environments

• Distributed organizations

• Email (Messaging) through iSCSI

• Customer relationship management

CX Array Support

• Utilizing the CX array architecture allows the NS500G to benefit from all the valuable data management and data protection tools of the CX series arrays. These arrays provide a host of advantages not limited to the following:

• Availability

The Dell/EMC CX300, CX500 and CX700 storage arrays offer superior end-to-end data integrity, full component redundancy, and non-disruptive ‘upgrades.’ Unique capabilities include active disk scrubbing, cache de-staging, hot swappable components and non-disruptive micro-code and application upgrades.

• Management

Dell/EMC CX-Series arrays use the Navisphere® management framework. Navisphere is the easy to learn, easy to use GUI-based storage management tool. It enables the management of a single to many of Dell/EMC storage arrays from anywhere with the extensive security options.

• Open Systems Consolidation

The CX series is designed to hold and consolidate all of a company’s datacenter operations and form the core of a company’s data strategy.

• Cost effective solution

The Dell/EMC product line is cost effective in its competitive class, while offering the highest functionality storage platform from


entry-level to enterprise configurations. Performance and Scalability: The Dell/EMC product line offers excellent bandwidth and outstanding performance that scales linearly with capacity.

• Flexibility:

The Dell/EMC product offers many configuration choices for connectivity, performance and capacity. Integrating into your existing environment is made easier through extensive compatibility testing and validation.

• Investment Protection:

Dell/EMC provides unparalleled investment protection. The entire CX-Series family leverages common components, compatible software and can be upgraded throughout the line.

With the addition of ATA and a hardware base designed to accommodate feature technology advancements, the CX-Series is a sound investment today and tomorrow.

• Functionality:

Whether your business need is business continuance, disaster recovery, performance or availability, the CX-series can assist in reaching your business goals.

• High availability hardware

The modular redundant design of the CX series allows the system to continue normal operation in the event of a failed power supply, cooling unit, storage processor, or disk drive. All these components are hot pluggable for easy repair with no downtime.

• Sequential bandwidth and IO

With four or eight full bandwidth, 2Gbps Fibre Channel ports, the CX series is suitable for the most demanding applications.

• Cache tuning

All Dell/EMC storage systems have extremely flexible cache tuning capabilities relative to competing modular storage products. This allows cache to be tuned precisely to the load resulting in optimized performance.

• Centralized management

Navisphere Manager is a powerful configuration and management utility for Dell/EMC CX series storage systems. The easy-to-use Graphical User Interface gets your basic configuration up and running quickly and then dive in later for optimization and tuning. Powerful monitoring and notification functions, including


“email home” capability, automatically let you know when something is wrong and spark corrective action from Dell.

Navisphere Manager is Java based code that resides on the array and serves up the GUI to a web browser anywhere on your LAN or WAN. Use a single management station to manage one or several storage systems. Make changes to your configuration remotely. It’s no problem with Navisphere Manager.

• Non-disruptive upgrade (NDU)

Non-disruptive upgrade is built in to the core software of every new generation Dell/EMC storage system. This allows the core code (firmware) to be upgraded on the fly with no interruption in access to the storage on the array. To accomplish this, the array will automatically perform a series of failover and failback operation between the storage processors. Also, the upgrade can be rolled back if the new version reveals unanticipated characteristics in your SAN.

Direct Attach

A direct-connected Celerra gateway system is cabled directly to the SAN ports of a CLARiiON array’s storage processors using fiber optic cables, media interface adapters (MIAs), and small form-factor pluggable (SFP) optical modules.

The single Data Mover version of the NS500G uses only one front-end port on each array storage processor. You can optionally connect another single Data Mover Celerra system to the unused front-end ports on the array. However, no other host systems can be connected to the CX array.

Storage Area Networks

The NS500G can be connected to the CX array through a FC switch allowing for up to four CX arrays to be installed behind one NS500G. Additionally, any or all CX arrays can be shared with other host. In this situation the CX array can allocate storage to the NS500G while continuing to provide block-level storage to other hosts.

All Industries Many industries are looking to consolidate IT resources including servers and storage. NS500G addresses both of these issues by providing file services usually provided by a host server and connecting to CX SAN storage for utilization and ease of management. The NS500G can provide cost savings for file based


applications especially where users need to share data between UNIX, Linux and Windows applications.

Manufacturing Compute intensive applications ranging from software development to CAD/CAM to automobile crash simulation (finite element modeling) all provide opportunities for a NS500G high bandwidth offering. Many of these applications are written to run on existing file systems utilizing NFS and CIFS. All manufacturing environments are looking for highly available offerings at a reasonable price that can be integrated smoothly into existing development and management applications. Reducing development time for products by providing a shared file system space for CAD/CAM applications at an attractive price is a key offering.

Life Sciences and Healthcare Computational chemistry, genomics, and proteomics are both compute intensive applications at the forefront of new drug discovery and genetic research activities. Many of these applications are document and file driven to track and document the development process. It is believed that Proteomics is both larger and more complex than genomics and will far exceed genomics in the amount of data generated, maybe 30 to 1,000 times the amount. The complex nature of the data not only requires compute intensive applications but in many instances the same high bandwidth storage environment that we have seen in the Healthcare environment with the PACS (Picture Archiving Communications systems). Also, healthcare Federal regulation FDA 21 CFR Part11 in Life Sciences and such as HIPAA in Healthcare will drive improvements in electronic document management, workflow and image-processing applications in these verticals. The NS500G can provide centralized application support for these demanding environments

Financial Services This is the archetypical industry where the information is the business, financial services business. Banking and Securities related businesses rely on data warehousing to drive CRM programs ,and new process development. Compliance to Federal regulations and customer service requirements also drive the need for image processing for much of the paper (e.g. checks, stock certificates) that comprises financial transactions. The performance, functionality, capacity, density, and attractive price/performance of the NS500G particularly in the high bandwidth offering area will help the bank with the challenge of keeping images of checks, loan documents, and transaction records secure and highly available for seven years or often the life of the loan. Banks are evaluating the total cost of records management and are finding that high capacity disk subsystems can


be cost effective versus the traditional paper, microfilm, and tape archive.

Oil and Gas The capturing and processing of seismic data for oil and natural gas exploration is one of the highest ROI compute intensive applications today. Additionally data warehousing is an integral part of the analysis phase of oil exploration. Large volumes of seismic data requiring file sharing between geophysicists must remain highly available 24 x 7 so that they can collaborate to find oil more quickly and more reliably during the exploration and the discovery process. If this access to a shared pool of seismic information doesn’t happen expensive drilling rigs and assets are idle, drilling personnel sit and wait.

Entertainment All aspects of film, video and broadcasting content production and distribution are intense image processing applications. In addition, the keen cost sensitivity of these industries play to Dell’s exceptional price-performance attributes.

Features and Benefits

Utilization

The NS500G provides a NAS gateway solution to help utilize and consolidate storage and server resources with existing CX SAN architecture. This provides users with low management costs and great return on storage investments

Management:

The Celerra Manager provides an easy-to-use GUI that allows for rapid set up and configuration of the NS500G. Management windows are easy to use and provide simple set up wizards for most operations. Additionally, the administration of quotas and performance monitoring is simple and flexible to meet administrator needs.

Protection:

The NS500G protects key business data and eliminates downtime with high-availability and fault-tolerant networking options. Key to the product is redundant components, fail-over capabilities, and data protection features like snapshot and replication.

Reliability:

Take advantage of enterprise high-availability features including system and network automated fail-over, link aggregation, integrated anti-virus and other tools. The NS500G provides many of the enterprise features normally found in more expensive NAS solutions


Key Customer Benefits

The Dell/EMC impacts/benefits include:

Financial benefits

• Server consolidation – reduce the number of file servers in your environment by leveraging the performance and tools of the NS500G and improving service levels to users

• Storage consolidation – consolidate storage resources and drive greater utilization by leveraging a storage area network (SAN) and providing file services with a NAS gateway

• NS500G is easily and simply managed through the Celerra Manager, thereby helping to reduce staff costs and improve change management

Operational benefits

• Take advantage of extensive protocol support allowing heterogeneous hosts to share file resources

• Extensive data protection and high-availability features including fail-over support and extensive snapshot and replication tools

• Provide remote block level support with iSCSI including snapshot tools for block data and Microsoft Exchange

Business benefits

• Growth dynamics can cripple a business, but the NS500G allows you to grow your file storage needs dynamically leveraging the CX array architecture

• With a near zero down time capability, the NS500G provides business information when and where it is needed.

• NS500G also provides easy to use management and configuration tools to help reduce management complexity and cost.

Service and Support Dell Premier Enterprise Services is a broad portfolio of services designed to help organizations optimize their use of Dell/EMC technology, rapidly deploy systems, and attain the highest possible levels of system uptime.


Consulting and Deployment Services – Required Services

Dell storage consulting and deployment services help to effectively plan for and optimize the implementation of a new NAS solution to meet unique storage goals.

Note: Required services help to ensure the best possible customer experience. Gold-level support, NAS Implementation, and NAS Maintenance are all mandatory services.

Key SAN offerings include:

• Pre-Sales Design & Site Readiness Assessment Service Initial design session to identify and document storage configuration requirements in the Dell SAN Configuration Readiness Form (SCRF) and communicate technical/environmental requirements to the customer. The SCRF is used to plan for the initial installation and to document the user’s complete storage design for reference in post-installation support from Dell’s Technical Support team.

• NS500G NAS Implementation Service NAS implementation begins with a comprehensive remote planning session to help ensure all technical and environmental requirements are communicated and met in advance of the component-level installation. Also included is a verification of overall site readiness and validation of the customerʹs unique system configuration information.

• Custom Design & Implementation Service

Comprehensive design and implementation for complex systems. This service includes the features of the NAS Implementation service and any other needed design and implementation deliverables to meet the customer’s requirements.

• NS500G NAS Maintenance Dell will evaluate the configuration and log settings to help ensure that the NS500G is performing correctly, optimally configured, and running the latest versions of compatible software needed for a customer’s unique solution configuration. If needed this service includes up to 2 onsite visits per year to apply needed updates, including configuration, testing, and customer orientation of changes. Note that customers are also required to have purchased the Critical (2 visits/yr) SAN Maintenance service on their CX or AX arrays.

Consulting and Deployment Services – Optional Services

• Customer Training Courses from Dell Education Services are designed to equip


system administrators with the skills needed to optimize their Dell investment from day one. Get the basics with Dellʹs online training, then get hands-on experience by attending instructor-led classes available on-site at your facility, at regional US locations nationwide, or at Dellʹs Enterprise Technology and Education Center in Round Rock.

• Proof-of-Concept at Dell Technology Solution Center A secure, comprehensive lab where Dell can assist in analyzing challenges, testing systems and determining solutions that are optimized for each unique business environment.

• Replicator Implementation Services to design and implement Replicator for Exchange.

• Anti-Virus (CAVA) Implementation Installation and configuration of the CAVA application on pre-installed and configured Server. At the conclusion of this installation, Dell will conduct a demonstration of CAVA capabilities and all configuration settings.

• DataMover Upgrade Implementation Installation and configuration of a second DataMover to an existing NS500G with a Single DataMover.

Dell/EMC systems come with a robust standard support program that includes Dell Gold-Level Premier Enterprise Support Service featuring:

• 7x24 High Level engineer- to- engineer telephone support with direct access to Gold Queue

• Technical Account Management Team managed escalations and reporting

• 7x24 4-Hour On-site Support1

• Case management services through Enterprise Expert Center

• Operating System Software & Storage Break-Fix Support – Unlimited Resolutions

• Ability to define your call priority

• Coordinated seamless support between Dell and key third party providers

• Change notification

• A Three-year Limited Warranty2

• 7x24 toll-free hardware technical phone support


• Extensive 7x24 E-support, online services

Dell cannot be responsible for errors in typography or photography.

1 Service may be provided by third-party. Technician will be dispatched if necessary following phone-based troubleshooting. Subject to parts availability, geographical restrictions and terms of service contract. Service timing dependent upon time of day call placed to Dell. U.S. only.

2 For a complete copy of our Guarantees or Limited Warranties, please write Dell USA L.P., One Dell Way, Round Rock, TX 78682. For more information, visit http://www.dell.com/us/en/gen/misc/policy_010_policy.htm.

Microsoft, Windows, and Windows NT are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. Dell, Dell/EMC, PowerVault, and PowerEdge are trademarks of Dell Inc. Other trademarks and trade names may be used in this document to refer to either the entities claiming the marks and names or their products. Dell disclaims proprietary interest in the marks and names of others. ©Copyright 2005 Dell Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of Dell Inc. is strictly forbidden. For more information contact Dell.

Documents

NS500G Info Brief - Dell · managed information storage system. • The NS500G’s DART operating system allows Windows and UNIX clients to share the same files through multi-protocol