|
Scalable Clustered File Serving and Web Serving
Sanbolic’s Melio product suite allows multiple application servers to have concurrent read-write access to application data over a SAN fabric. If these application servers are running a file server or web serving workload, Melio can be used to create a “scale-out” file or web serving solution using industry standard hardware. All of the servers are presenting a single copy of active data, and additional storage or servers can added to the cluster on the fly to respond to changes in workload and traffic.
This provides cost effective and very flexible solution to file and web serving needs using either physical or virtual servers. Sanbolic’s Melio turns Windows Server into a high-end solution—allows users to modularly scale systems to petabytes of storage. Very large web serving or streaming infrastructures using industry standard hardware and software
Advantages of Scalable Shared Data Clusters of File and Web Servers:
- Built on industry standard servers using Windows Storage Server or Windows Server 2008 R2---no need to introduce proprietary hardware and management tools
- Additional servers or storage can be dynamically added to the cluster as needed to meet workload or traffic requirements
- Familiar Windows based system reduces operational expenses.
- No single point of failure--inherent system redundancy.
- Any server can handle any file or web serving request, eliminating the need for passive fail-over servers.
- Reduces initial purchase price and total cost of ownership versus proprietary appliance solutions.
- Automatically migrate content files from one type of storage to another based on usage patterns.
Scalable Clusters of Windows Based File Servers
Sanbolic software enables Windows-based file servers to scale performance modularly by having a cluster of servers accessing a common file system on either internal disk drives or on an external storage array.
Using Melio file system, multiple Windows file servers can be clustered into a common file system on external SAN storage. All servers have concurrent read and write access to the shared storage using Sanbolic’s clustered file system, so a file call can be processed by any of the file servers. Microsoft DFS namespaces can be used to fail over, load balance, and distribute CIFS file calls among the Windows file servers and provide a single network address to clients on the network. Alternatively, a hardware load balancer can be used to balance both NFS and CIFS network calls in environments where multiple client operating systems are used. Additional servers and additional storage arrays can be added dynamically to the cluster to expand I/O performance or storage capacity without I/O interruption while client systems continue to access data.
I/O performance scales linearly as additional Windows file servers are added to the cluster. Clusters of up to 64 machines have been demonstrated, and larger clusters are possible. The system can provide aggregate throughput of multiple gigabytes per second. The external storage connected to the Windows file server cluster can incorporate multiple tiers of disk arrays. Sanbolic’s file management product, SILM, can migrate or copy files across storage tiers based on administrative based policy settings.
Sanbolic has recently introduced a new management tool for Windows file shares, FilerScaler, which is included in Melio Enterprise and Data Center product suites, FilerScaler allows all file shares to be configured and file share policies managed from a single management interface. Scripting and templates greatly simplifies the process required to manage a large file sharing environment.
Windows Storage Server 2008 includes the capability to present internal and external storage as an iSCSI target. Using this feature, Sanbolic’s product suite allows the internal disk drives of multiple Windows Storage Server 2008 machines to be clustered into one large storage pool. The volume manager included in the product suite provides RAID 1 (software mirroring) for data protection. The storage pool then can be made accessible to clients using CIFS or NFS though the Windows Storage Servers, or to application servers using block-level iSCSI access.
Windows file servers can be used in a high performance “scale-out” file serving cluster using industry standard hardware and Melio clustered file system
Scalable clusters of web servers or streaming media servers
Websites are a key component of most business’ customer interaction and need to quickly respond to changes in traffic. Streaming media installations are increasingly common as elements of websites, as corporate communication tools, and as educational tools both on-campus and for distant learning initiatives. Streaming audio and video on demand to many types of consumer devices has become increasingly common.
Two common challenges are to scale websites across multiple servers without replicating content across each server, and to make very large media content libraries available without replicating content for each streaming server. Sanbolic’s software allows multiple servers running IIS, Windows media Services, or other applications, to have shared read-write access to large dynamic content libraries residing on SAN storage.
Web server and streaming servers can share a common library of dynamic content, allowing web interfaces and streaming media products to scale to serve large audiences rapidly and flexibly.
As the data or content grows, Sanbolic’s LaScala enables additional storage arrays to be added to the shared content without taking the system offline. The additional capacity is immediately available to all servers. As the web traffic or use of streamed content grows, Sanbolic’s Melio FS allows additional web or streaming servers to be added to the infrastructure dynamically to support additional users. |
