Storage and SAN product interoperability.
When:Friday, August 4 at 1:30 p.m. EDT
Speakers: Skip Jones, Skip Jones, chairman of the board and former president of the Fibre Channel Industry Association, and David Deming President of FICA.
Sponsor: Infineon Technologies CNP Division.
Moderator : Welcome to our Live Expert Q&A Session with Skip Jones, chairman of the board, and David Deming, president, of the Fibre Channel Industry Association. We are talking about SAN and storage product interoperability. Feel free to submit questions by typing them in the dialogue box below and hitting "Enter" to submit your question.
brama688822:I've heard of the FCIA SANMark program. What is it and what benefits does it offer the industry?
David_Deming: SANmark is a program that the FCIA designed to test for compilance to industry standards, i.e. NCITS (ANSI). The current level of SANmark is SANmark Level 1, this level directly addresses Fibre Channel Arbitrated Loop protocol in all SAN environments (including Switched). This program is an on going effort by the FCIA and will continue to define how to test the different levels of the SAN, including SAN management. This program will provide numerous benefits to the industry including, time to market, easier implemenmtation and configuration, and lower development costs.
randyp772136:Can you mix vendor hubs and switches today or is your task to figure out which vendor will survive this new technology and just use that vendor?
da_crump12073:Based upon the definition of SANmark, does that mean that vendors like Dell and Brocade will/should look to the FCIA and SANmark for standards when developing SAN products?
bsheets986233:Why is interoperability so important?
David_Deming: Interoperability gives end users the ability to connect numerous different component vendors to one another. If all components are interoperable then an end user or integrator can choose from numerous vendors and integration is much easier. Interoperability provides a hassel free installation of a SAN.
Skip_Jones: Skip here: Answer to 79. In fact, Dell and Brocade have engaged in SANMark activities. Brocade is an active participant in the SANMark program and Dell's Fibre Channel's suppliers, QLogic and Brocade , are already SANMarked.
bsheets123919:When deploying Fibre Channel within a SAN/LAN environment, what performance benefits are there to the processing subsystems?
Skip_Jones: One of the key advantages of a SAN with Fibre Channel is that it off loads valuable CPU power from the server on to a seperate storage network and it keeps the data flow out of the server CPU memory path for storage-centric operations such as backup and data retreval. Therefore, the CPU is free to perform operations that more efficently process application. Additionally, LAN bandwith is not used to process and move storage data.
David_Deming: #78: Switch interoperability is of vital importance to the FCIA. There are on-going efforts that have defined switch interoperability and at least four different switch vendors have demonstrated switch interoperability.
Moderator : David's answer to #78 related to the following question: Can you mix vendor hubs and switches today or is your task to figure out which vendor will survive this new technology and just use that vendor?
David_Deming: #81: As far as hubs are concerned, in my testing experience all hubs are interoperable. What to look for in hubs is the hub management utilities, some vendors have tools that allow you to configure your SAN.
Moderator : Note: Question #78 and #81 were the same. David had a two-part answer to these questions.
gsiftar896926:How can we make progress towards Enterprise storage as long as some vendors decide to do their one thing ( FibreAlliance, and Jiro etc) what's the answer?
David_Deming: Enterprise storage usually requires providers to agree on many aspects of the SAN architecture. These agreements that are made will directly affect product design and implementation. FibreAlliance and others, concentrate on narrowing the scope of design and allow providers to deliver products to market more quickly.
da_crump12073:With the development of SANmark, should vendors look to it and the FCIA for standards when developing SAN products?
David_Deming: Yes. The FCIA is the driving force behind defining interoperable SANs. You should stay tuned to the FCIA web site for additional SANmark notices.
mtripp795391:How can Fibre Channel SAN benefit the ISP, ASP and SSP markets?
Skip_Jones: These markets probably represent Fibre Channel's most rapidly growing areas of adoption due exactly to how SAN topology benefits their business. Whether it is YaHoo, Amazon.com or AOL, ISP's generate the type of background storage traffic that creating storage pools off loaded from servers is as compelling as Fibre Channels scalability when adding terabytes monthly and managing the resulting complexity. Storage service providers such as Storage Network's use Fibre Channel and SANs as their storage backbone because of the return on investment they get in networked storage performance, effeciency, reliability, managability and scalability required for this storage application.
cvarmazis297805:Now that the final layer of interoperability is in place, what are the next steps for the FCIA?
Skip_Jones: FCIA believes the next steps are a push for common equipment deployment, SANMark and rapid marker adoption for FC/SANs.
mtripp876323:What benefits does Fibre Channel technology offer for Windows NT environments?
Skip_Jones: Fibre Channel Technology allows a user to "zone: (partition) each segment of the network-thereby optimizing processing efficiency.
dholmstrom986538:Is there a SANMark Certification? If so, who "certifies" and how is it obtained? Or is it just a series of tests UNH conducts?
David_Deming: Yes. The FCIA is finalizing the "Application for SANmark Level 1 Qualification" documents and will annouce and present the package at our annual meeting.
thing547469:What are some of the benefits to employing SAN technology within a LAN environment (such as serverless backup, etc.)?
Skip_Jones: The benefits to deploying SAN technology within a LAN environment are that a user is capable of deploying serverless backup scenario's-whereby near realtime backup can be done in parallel with operations with little or no robbing of processing power...thereby increasing system efficiency. A user can also have zoning when used with NT like OSS. Also, the SAN operates at near peak efficiency since intelligence is embedded within the FC architecture...optimized for storage.
Robert.Joseph790987:Is McData also participating in the SANMark activities?
Skip_Jones: Absolutely, as a matter of fact, they have really stepped up to the plate in helping us take SANmark and related Fibre Channel standards into e_port qualification, that is intra-switch behavior. They have also been instrumental in helping us define the overall architecture and different levels of SANmark.
kenp12834:How long has SANmark existed? What is the level of acceptance (%) by the manufacturers? How long will it take to get full support from the manufacturers?
David_Deming: SANmark has been in development for over one year. All vendors are taking SANmark seriously and as far as I know most all want to be SANmark qualified. I believe that all manufacturers support this effort.
Moderator : Once our chat concludes today, you're welcome to stay in the forum and continue chatting amongst yourselves.
da_crump12073:Are there currently any benchmarks that indicates which Fibre switch gives the best performance? I'm mostly familiar with Brocade's, which seem to work just fine.
Skip_Jones: The FCIA's primary focus is to establish programs that promote good citizen behavior in a SAN. Performance benchmarks are so specific to the platforms and applications to which the equipment is to be used that it would be difficult to provide useful benchmarks. With regard to switches one of their key attributes is NOT to effect end-node network performace one way or the other, so it is unclear what a switch benchmark would test.
rich.weiss554917:Which storage vendors are actively particpating in the SANMark certification?
Skip_Jones: Currently, I know of no storage vendor that is not directly or indirectly (by virtue of their component suppliers) that are not part of the SANmark program.
da_crump12073:Will the FCIA be involved with SAN certifications? Is there such a thing in existence?
David_Deming: Currently the FCIA uses SANmark as a tool which allows someone to develop a certification program. For now the FCIA has no plans to be directly involved in "SAN Certification".
ken.deroo995212:How would you recommend determining hub, switch and peripheral inteoperability at this time short of holding a private plugfest?
David_Deming: Typically, I get the products in, configure a SAN, and go for it. In a windows environment, this includes installing drivers, running disk administrator, determining that the storage is present, and (if present) formatting the devices. This essentially is a mini-plugfest. Short of that, it has been experience that you will be successful with mixing most all vendors.
Robert.Joseph790987:Does the SanMark certification also cover third-party copy features for "serverless backups"?
David_Deming: At this time SANmark does not address third party copy. There are however FCIA efforts that will address this issue.
Moderator : A transcript of our entire Live Expert Q&A session will be available on SearchStorage.com early next week for free download.
pjcg761972:With the advances in Storage over IP or SCSI over IP (SoIP) do you see a mingling of FC and IP devices in a SAN configuration?
Skip_Jones: In fact, there is already mingling. For instance, there are numerous SAN applications that use products supporting IP over Fibre Channel for system to system and especially storage heartbeat and task scheduling management such as, preparing for back-up and retrieval, and failover. Another compelling and popular development is the tunneling of Fibre Channel over the WAN (IP and/or leased DWDM lines) for connecting remote SANs together. Effecient, scalable high performance storage processing mandates local SAN topologies. WANs are simply used for the interconnect between SANs, once the storage data has been processed locally. Also, network applicance leaders use SANs behind NAS gateways for intensive storage management.
abailey7883950:One of the major drivers for SAN is that of 'server-free backups'. What interoperability challenges will this present?
David_Deming: I agree that server-free backup is an important driving force behind SANs. Now that the interoperability issues behind the interconnecting infustructure have been ironed out, the only interoperability challenges I see will be how the differnet "Applications" take advantage of this important feature.
da_crump12073:For clarification sake, does the term "fabric" mean 2 or more Fibre switch interconnected (ISL's)?
David_Deming: Fabric is a generic term that simply defines that a switch or switches are used in the SAN. If there is more that one switch then it will include some type of ISL.
rich.weiss205565:SAN over WAN, is this also part of certification testing?
Skip_Jones: Actually, in order for a SAN to effectively and efficently process storage data and storage movement and the performance levels necessary for interprise computing it is necessary for the central processing part of a SAN to be seperate and local. As soon as a SAN goes on a LAN or a WAN it is not really a SAN anymore. The rules of WAN traffic are fairly seperate, distinct, and in many ways exclusive from SAN behavior.
Moderator :This concludes our session with Skip Jones and David Deming of the FCIA. Skip and David's final comments, "See for yourself what SANs and Fibre Channel are doing to help the IT community and why the only way to build a SAN is by using Fibre Channel." Please visit the FCIA Web site at: fibrechannel.org. Thank you for joining us. Please visit the SearchStorage.com chat archives early next week for the full transcript of this session.
The following questions were answered after the chat concluded.
mdavidson336789: What should companies consider when contemplating new equipment?
Skip_Jones and David_Deming:The networking of storage for modern applications is relatively new technology and it is not always intuitive as to what "level" of a SAN is appropriate to meet a users current demands and, say, five years forward. For instance, a small loop of back-up and storage subsystems may be adequate as a starter-kit, while adding hubs and then switches is always an option at a later date. For higher-end demands, it may be that the user needs to swiftly adopt a massively switched fabric SAN with heavy software management and services. It all really depends on the user's particular needs. Since SANs are so easily scalable, any Fibre Channel investment today is a sound and safe one for the future. Users that use IT consultants, integrators, or turn-key, drop-in solutions should continue doing so when sizing-up their needs and selecting SAN hardware and software. Users that typically "roll their own" will encounter similar pros and cons of doing so when building SANs.
da_crump12073 : Are there any benchmarks that would suggest which Fibre switch is the best - as far as performance, etc.?
Skip_Jones and David_Deming: I may have already answered this question or aq similar question. If so, my apologies. The FCIA has not embarked on endorsing "benchmarks" due to the belief that benchmarks are extremely illusive and misleading. A benchmark cannot feasibly and adequately measure the value of something so complex as SAN, which is dictated by the specific platforms, topology, environment, user patterns, and applications that the SAN is to serve. Specific to switches, generally switches are evaluated on cost points of port-count, redundancy, and reliability. Since a switch should not diminish, or necessarily augment performance of the end-nodes connected to it, it is unclear what "performance" characteristics would be tested. As SANmark tests are enhanced to fully encompass e-port compatibility (switch-to-switch) and their behavior with end-nodes, SANmark will itself be a useful tool for fabric component evaluation.
gjsullivan89310: The desire to show interoperability is prompting people to demonstrate that data moves from one device to another when the SAN is healthy. But all devices have failures. The customer needs a heterogenous SAN that interoperates in the real world. Shouldn't the FC industry require that any interoperabilty claims also include working through a series of errors and device failures? The last thing we want as an industry is to have a customer hook up a heterogenous SAN then get to a point where an error occurs and they cannot survive that error or accurately diagnose that error so that they can get back up quickly.
Skip_Jones and David_Deming:Good point! You have just described what is possibly the heart and soul of SANmark! It is a set of test suites for testing pre-defined behavior as set forth in ANSI FC-MI, FC-FS, FC-AL, FC-SW, etc. The intense hours and resources being poured into the development of these standards and profiles is not about "demonstration" of interoperability, rather it is a set of test suites that center around, "What happens if&" scenarios. The crust of the work after brief calibration of a normal "healthy SAN" is injecting errors, hot-plugging (and unplugging) storage units, and server and component (switch, hub, HBA, drive, RAID, JBOD, tape library, etc) failover. This work started at the local loop and is now being extended deep into the fabric, management services, and upper-layer protocols levels.
ken.deroo995212: Can't the efficiency referred to in the answer to question #75 be achieved in a switched ethernet environment? It would seem that the biggest benefit would be the increased distances allowed, the lack of direct attached storage and the abilility to grow clusters beyond the limits imposed by SCSI..
Skip_Jones and David_Deming: No. Mainly because there is no way to build a SAN with Ethernet. That is.because Fibre Channel provides everything needed for a SAN and has become the industry standard. Also, with ten years of experience and honing, Fibre Channel has virtually completed any "teeth-cutting" period required at the link layer. Outstanding SAN developments primarily rest at the upper layers, an issue for any link or physical layer.
With Fibre Channel already the only incumbent, defacto technology available and deployable for building SANs, there has been little-to-no compelling reason for a market of non-Fibre Channel SAN technology. NFS exists today for transferring file-level data. NAS is extremely useful for thin servers and appliances. However, even behind popular NAS installations, storage-level data that exceeds either performance, security, access, or latency constraints by using client or IP sessions as the central, local storage network uses SAN to compliment the storage environment.
Using switched Ethernet for SAN that is backward compatible with Ethernet as it is used today would bring the SAN down to a normal NFS over the LAN/WAN topology and performance levels, unsuitable for storage traffic off-loaded by servers that would benefit from Fibre Channel in a SAN topology. The TCP stack, its popular usage, and the protocols and software used to drive it, as well as networks perfectly suited for LAN/WAN types of file-level data, are enormously CPU intensive. While this works fine for general file-level, network traffic, it is far too inefficient, insecure, low-performance, long-latency, and non-scalable for the special demands of block-level, storage data traffic.
Fibre Channel and today's SAN's are tailored, specially suited for what SANs provide: Accessible, low-latency, secured, dedicated channel networks for storage processing that off-loads servers, specially designed from the link on up for the unique demands of SAN.
Using TCP and /or Ethernet, Sonet, ATM for connecting remote SANs is a compelling notion that is being developed. Other, more direct SCSI and Fibre Channel transmission over DWDM "leased colors" is another popular development.
As the SAN and Fibre Channel (two terms that are synonymous) explosion mushrooms, more application-specific technologies will be developed, a few implemented, and even less deployed. The ones that make it into production and provide a purpose for a market will have all done so because they become best suited for their unique usage.
Clearly, Fibre Channel has already established itself as the primary, base technology for SAN topology, making it the safest and most mature choice for building SANs. That is not to say that SAN is for everybody. A large portion of IT management has needs today and for the next several years that simply do not benefit from direct SAN deployment. However, there is a good chance that services they'll use, such as ISP's, ASP's, and SSP's, will utilize extensive SAN deployment.
If an IT manager can be satisfied with what traditional topologies and technologies offer him or her today, then they are probably not SAN candidates. It is likely that traditional Ethernet, LAN/WAN, client/server architectures with dedicated server storage and/or small NAS on their IP net/s adequately serve these users.
The good news is that an IT manager can wire the campus today with one type of optical cable for 1Gb and use it for Ethernet or Fibre Channel. That is because Ethernet and Fibre Channel use the same physical-layer technology for optical 1Gbit and will also use the exact same physical technology for 10Gb. In fact, Fibre Channel was the first to develop and deploy 1Gb and will likely be the first to 10Gb, mostly because of its more controlled infrastructure. (Actually, Fibre Channel 10Gb is 10Gb ONLY by name, due to its link-level efficiencies, it delivers an effective 12Gb rate over the same cable plant!)
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