LeftHand Networks

SAN/iQ® Storage Software Platform

A LeftHand SAN is scalable, highly available, reliable and easy to maintain, and it delivers all the features you would expect from an enterprise-class storage area network. The SAN/iQ® storage software platform is the cornerstone for clustering and managing open iSCSI SANs using industry standard x86 servers. SAN/iQ 7 software includes all of the features below, plus more than 20 additional features, making it the software platform of choice for your SAN.

Storage Clustering

SAN/iQ software provides advanced storage clustering advanced storage clustering capabilities, consolidating individual physical storage nodes into virtual pools of storage. The clustered SAN is managed from a single management interface, regardless of the mix of platforms, age, software revision or location on the network.

Storage Clustering
Online Volume Migration

With SAN/iQ, you can migrate volumes online between different storage clusters based on your business requirements. As your SAN grows, you can move volumes from different storage pools without any downtime or interruption to application server access to the data on the volumes. SAN/iQ automatically migrates the data as a background operation without any impact to the application server access to the data.

Network RAID Synchronous Replication

SAN/iQ software stripes and mirrors multiple copies of your data across a cluster of storage nodes using patented SAN/iQ Network RAID, eliminating any single point of failure. You'll have continuous data availability in the event of a network, disk, controller, or entire storage node failure. When new storage nodes are added to the cluster, Network RAID automatically re-stripes all the data within the cluster, balancing the data load on each storage node for optimal performance and reliability.

Snapshot

SAN/iQ Snapshot creates instant point-in-time copies of your data on a volume-by-volume basis. Create snapshots a variety of ways: manually ad-hoc, on a scheduled or scripted basis, or via Microsoft VSS. You can then access these point-in-time copies to recover individual file-level data or to rollback entire volumes. Thin Provisioning 2.0 makes SAN/iQ Snapshot extremely space-efficient, only consuming storage on the SAN for the data written for the snapshot. With Thin Provisioning 2.0, SAN/iQ Snapshots are typically 97% utilized, or better.

Thin Provisioning 2.0

Thin provisioning is a powerful and valuable form of storage virtualization, and it has been a SAN/iQ feature from the beginning. Unlike traditional provisioning methods, thin provisioning lets you create large virtual storage volumes that only consume the capacity used by actual data, leaving no stranded storage capacity. Capacity not required for storage remains available for all other applications to use.

Thin Provisioning 2.0 includes many enhancements for how you manage the overall capacity utilization on your SAN. This latest version is completely automated, requiring no input from you, and it provides benefits for every application on your network. Fully integrated with all other SAN/iQ features, Thin Provisioning 2.0 automates all storage allocation tasks by default. This advanced, capacity-efficient feature also lowers power and cooling costs in the data center.

Remote Copy Asynchronous Replication

SAN/iQ Remote Copy combines the power of SAN/iQ Snapshot with asynchronous data replication between your volumes. Like snapshots, remote copies can be created manually ad-hoc, scheduled or scripted. Simply establish a replication policy between a primary volume and its remote volume partner and create a baseline copy. For future copies, only the changes over time are synced to the remote volume, greatly speeding up data transfer over your network or WAN. In the event that you need to failover to the data in a remote volume, the Remote Copy Recovery Wizard guides you through the failover process as well as the failback process once the original volume is back online.

Self-Healing Storage

As disk capacities continue to increase, the probability of read errors during a disk rebuild goes up as well. SAN/iQ Network RAID includes self-healing capabilities that improve both the reliability and performance of your SAN. The software scrubs every data block on the storage server at least once per month to reduce the risk of persistent read errors. During these scheduled scrubs, if a data block cannot be read, Network RAID retrieves a copy from the SAN and repairs the data block on the storage server.

Network RAID's proactive defragmentation algorithm runs as a background task. This self-healing feature ensures that both the layout of the existing data and new data storage allocations are perpetually optimized for your SAN.

Centralized Management

All SAN/iQ-powered storage nodes are managed from the Centralized Management Console (CMC) in your network environment. Connect via IP to the storage nodes anywhere on the network and use the CMC to configure and monitor your SAN. Multiple data centers of storage can be managed from this “single pane of glass” no matter where the nodes are physically located.

(pdf)  Learn more about SAN/iQ here.

Virtual iSCSI SANs

Virtual storage servers are created by running LeftHand Networks’ SAN/iQ on a virtual machine. By clustering multiple virtual storage servers together, you can transform the internal storage of your physical servers into a virtual SAN in the same way you cluster multiple enterprise class x86 servers into a SAN.

A cluster of virtual storage servers delivers the same scalability, high availability, reliability, and integrated feature set of a traditional LeftHand SAN. The only difference is that virtual storage utilizes hardware resources that already exist within your IT environment.

By creating a virtual SAN from existing hardware, you can cost-effectively deploy server virtualization high availability/disaster recovery features that depend on network storage. Use one management interface to oversee your disaster recovery strategy for all of your remote sites and branch offices.

Benefits of virtual storage servers

  • Cost-effective replication – Deploy virtual storage servers to replicate data back to the corporate data center without adding additional hardware or file replication software by leveraging server virtualization deployments at your remote and branch offices.
  • Utilization - Turn the storage left behind in your servers following the virtualization of your application environment into a virtual SAN and share it with all of your applications.
  • Green storage – Transform the always spinning disks in your servers into a virtual SAN and implement the ultimate green storage solution without purchasing additional hardware that requires data center footprint, power, and cooling.