One of the primary differences in trends between personal computing and enterprise computing can be described as integration vs. specialization. In personal computing we see more functions packed into the same (or smaller) space, whether it's a PC or a smartphone. But in the enterprise data center, we see specialization and dedication — for example, in data storage.
The storage area network, or SAN, moves data storage out of the server box and transforms it into a cluster of its own. When storage is isolated from the servers which access it, you have a storage pool that can be shared among several or several thousand servers, maximizing utilization. But servers need a speedy pathway between the processor and external storage, otherwise input/output (I/O) would become a bottleneck and the whole system would slow to a crawl.
Enter Fibre Channel storage, or FC, a protocol designed to run at gigabit speeds. Unlike some forms of remote storage like network attached storage (NAS), FC supports block-level access. What this means is that, from the point of view of a server, communicating with FC storage is just like communicating with an internal physical hard drive. The storage components that make up an FC system — whether that's a dozen or 1,000 hard drives — are invisible to the servers, which simply enjoy direct access to a pool of storage.
To function effectively, FC runs either over fiber optic cables or, in more recent incarnations, over 10 Gbps and faster Ethernet (so-called FCoE, or Fibre Channel over Ethernet). This allows for transfer rates above 200 megabytes per second, and faster, depending on the speed of the networking infrastructure in use. All of which is why FC has become a natural choice for storage in the cloud.
Unlike some SAN technologies (like SCSI), FC can function over long distances. This makes FC a good fit for cloud architecture, which as a principle is insensitive to distance, and instead focused on using network technology to integrate remote resources into centralized computing power. Plus, cloud computing is all about elasticity, which is to say that cloud computing is a utility where resources are available on demand.
Using Fibre Channel storage, cloud computing centers can meet this goal by maximizing disk utilization. In other words, there need never be unnecessary idle disk space in a Fibre Channel SAN, reducing overall operational costs. When total demand pushes on available storage space, the Fibre Channel SAN can be transparently expanded with more storage, with no downtime to the servers that access it.
Fibre Channel storage is robust, contributing to the cloud principle of high availability. In the cloud, resources should always be available regardless of changes to components behind the scenes, be it from upgrades, maintenance or failure. Because a Fibre Channel SAN can support many connected servers, there are many pathways to the data in the SAN even if individual servers are out of operation.
With its fast speed, Fibre Channel can effectively mirror data, ensuring redundancy and data recovery. In a Fibre Channel SAN, data can be mirrored to backup storage either physically connected to the SAN or remotely over online networks. Again, this ensures that failures do not need to mean loss of data or, as importantly in the cloud, loss of access to data.
Indeed, it is Fibre Channel's basic invisibility (to clients) that makes it a natural fit for the cloud, which itself derives its power from transparency.
For more information, see:
Tiered Storage Continues to Evolve
In-Memory Computing Will Be a Game-Changer — Eventually
Back Up and Restore
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