Introduction to Storage Networking
The New Datacenter
Rack-Optimized Servers
• Rack-optimized form factor is designed for:
– Small footprint
– High-density datacenters
– Quick and flexible deployment
– Centralized management
• SANs allow maximum flexibility
Server
in deployment of computing
Server
resources:
Server
– Shared storage
Server
FC switch
– Logical storage consolidation
– Independent scalability of
Storage
servers and storage Storage
Rack-optimized server architectures are helping to drive the move to SANs:
Rack-optimized servers implement a “modular” architecture that allows
higher densities and more flexible deployment.
Rack-optimized servers typically contain only a few internal disk drive
slots. Storage is provided by external JBOD or RAID units.
Computing power can be scaled by adding more rack servers, and
storage can be scaled by adding more external storage.
This architecture is a good match for SANs because:
SANs allow multiple servers to access the same storage devices.
SAN storage consolidation applications allow multiple rack-optimized
storage units to be aggregated into larger logical storage pools.
SANs allow servers and storage to scale independently.