Network Attached Storage

Brent CaisonCharles HammittLewis BinkowskiCasey EmersonGeorgia Allen

David PcolarRob NoelJames Fox

Dr. Michael Barker

Objective: to provide a cost-effective consolidation point for network attached storage that allows campus units to choose

not to duplicate similar or identical solutions locally

Team members:

The Idea• Storage getting harder to manage– Backups are painful– Restores are even more painful

• Decent candidate for centralization if we can build a shared administration model

• Start by focusing on a core need – departmental “Windows” shared space

• Advisory board defines the service – ITS builds the solution.

Solutions: UNC Shared SpaceShared enterprise level network attached storage space for departments, divisions, and Schools.• \\storage.unc.edu• In production – primarily working with beta customers• To participate – submit Remedy request to ITRC• Central provisioning and backup paired with

distributed localized management– Provisioning and quotas managed by ITS– ACLs and end user support by departmental IT admins– Security via Active Directory groups

UNC Shared Space• Base allocation established by headcount– Provided at no cost to departments– Base allocation calculation: 10 GB per employee– 20 percent reserved for snapshots– Calculation derived from HR Payroll– Includes total FTE count for the department

• Data de-duplication – Identical “blocks” are stored only once. Netapp’s

data shows savings between 15 -30 %. These savings are returned to the departmental allocation.

UNC Shared Space• CIFs based access• Includes disaster recovery protection (backup)• 30 day recovery window• Authentication based on ad.unc.edu• Additional allocation:– $1.50 per GB– Billed yearly– Minimum incremental size of 200GB

Solutions: UNC Home space• \\myfiles.unc.edu• Available -- Halloween 2011• Personal storage space located on a network

accessible resource• Complementary space to AFS• Subscribe via onyen.unc.edu

UNC Home Space• 10 GB per user• Limited to Full Time – Permanent Employees• Status determined via active LDAP query at

subscription• CIFs based access• Authentication based on ad.unc.edu• User Managed, supported through ITS Help

Snapshots• Snapshots allow customers and admins to

access previous versions of files and folders• Windows clients can access snapshots via

“Previous Versions” tab of file and folder properties

• Macs and Samba clients have similar access via the ~snapshots directory

• Snapshots are retained for 30 days

Disaster Recovery& Business Continuity

• Primary site is ITS Manning– Cluster failover within ITS Manning

• Secondary site is ITS Franklin• Nightly mirror synchronization• If we have to failover to secondary site:– Manual process– Primarily a DNS change– Planned failback during off peak time

Currently out of scope• Specialty research storage• Higher level “Sensitive” or “Secure” data• Archival Storage

Hardware• Like hardware in both data centers• Netapp 6210 Clusters• Each site has 480TB of raw capacity• ~280TB usable capacity• All 2Tb SATA disk drives• 10GB Ethernet uplinks• I’m comfortable scaling to 1 PB

WYSIWYG

Questions & Demo