Mar, 2002 : Auspex Introduces High-Availability System for NS3000

📅 March 7, 2002 - Auspex Systems, Inc. (http://www.auspex.com), a provider of enterprisestorage solutions, announced yesterday the release of the NS3000XAhigh-availability system for the company's NS3000 series of Network AttachedStorage servers.

The dual-server configuration with Auspex's ServerGuardV software helpsbusinesses avoid interruption of data delivery through system and componentredundancy, the ability to automatically failover multiple faulty componentsrather than an entire machine, geographically remote mirroring thatfacilitates disaster recovery from a server failure, and other features thatpromote 99.999% uptime, the company said.
The ServerGuardV software also will be used to provide high availability forAuspex's new NSc3000 Network Storage Controller, a multivendor SAN-to-NASgateway announced last month. A future release of that product will permittwo NSc3000 controllers to be connected with ServerGuardV, providing aredundant file serving solution with automatic failover for Storage AreaNetworks from all leading vendors.
The XA system for Auspex's network servers consists of ServerGuardV softwarelinking two Auspex NS3000XR fault-tolerant machines. All components areredundant, including power supplies, storage subsystems, and dual RAIDcontrollers and fibre channel host bus adapters in each server that supplytwo independent data paths to every disk array to ensure that all data onall disks remains continuously available.
The ServerGuardV software supplies a "heartbeat" between the XR machines,makes synchronous copies of the information on each server, and providesautomatic failover in the event of a component or server failure. Keyfeatures include:
Failover of discrete components, including faulty network links,Fibre Channel HBAs, disk drives and RAID controllers, instead of the entiremachine. This combination of failover capabilities reduces failover timefrom three or four minutes to approximately 15 seconds, and it allows thesystem to sustain many points of failure without resorting to a servershutdown. Rolling upgrades that eliminate planned downtime through anactive-active configuration that allows one machine to assume the work ofthe second. This feature allows software or hardware upgrades or maintenanceto be performed without interrupting service to end users, and itcomplements the use of the system for eliminating unplanned downtime. 500-meter separation of mirrored disks farms, permitting remotemirroring for fast recovery from local disasters such as fires. The distanceallows the two servers in the system to be placed at opposite ends of alarge building or in different buildings for maximum protection.
In addition, the system's high availability capabilities are enhanced withthe virtualization features provided by ServerGuardV software and Auspex'slatest operating system. These features include Auspex-exclusive "XtremeVirtual Partitions" that allow multiple virtual partitions to be aggregatedand mirrored across multiple RAID controllers; virtual network interfacespermitting emergency rerouting of network traffic to virtual networkaddresses in the event of a NIC failure; and virtual servers that transfervirtual IP addresses and virtual partitions in the event of a physicalserver failure.
"We provide wholesale Internet services to over 40 independent localtelephone companies in the U.S. and Guam, and our customers expect us tooperate at the same five 9's level as their voice-based telephone plants,"said Brian Exelbierd, manager of technology and operations for NeoNovaNetwork Services. "We purchased Auspex's Xtreme Availability system and planto centralize all of our storage around the XA architecture because Auspexoffers a unique feature set that will help us meet our objective ofoperating with no business interruption to our customers."
The XA system can be deployed as a new installation or as an upgrade from asingle Auspex NS3000XR network server. The built-in fibre network givesadministrators the option to use optical tape devices connected to one ofthe system's fibre-channel host bus adapters to perform fibre-based LAN-freetape backup. The fibre connectivity also paves the way for Auspex to pluginto third-party SAN networks in future releases in order to provideinteroperability with disparate storage subsystems.