BigAdmin XPerts

1. What exactly is the 3.0 Release of the Sun StorEdge 6920 system?
2. With a Sun StorEdge 6920 system, can I attach and manage other vendors' storage arrays?
3. Is your remote replication feature easy to configure?
4. Do I need to use VERITAS Volume Manager with the Sun StorEdge 6920 system, since it already offers virtualization inside the box?
5. I am already trained on the Sun StorEdge 6320. Do I need training for SE6920?
6. To install this new release, is any downtime required for the Sun StorEdge 6920 or the clients?

A: Release 3.0 is the latest update for the SE6920, part of the release train that delivers INS enhancements to the platform and software on the midrange storage products from Sun. With the first release of the SE6920, we proved out the platform, its performance, and our virtualization capability. With this release, we add a whole host of improvements, capabilities, and new "data services". This release fulfills our promise to build upon the existing platform, and deliver ever-increasing value to our customers.

New Features:

• Sun StorEdge Data Mirror: This is full-featured mirroring capability added to the SE6920. Of course, the SE6920 already supports mirroring at the array level (RAID1), but Release 3.0 adds mirroring at a higher level. You can now mirror across individual arrays for more data protection (you are protected from whole tray failures), and you can mirror between different "types" of storage.
  
  
• Sun StorEdge Data Replicator: A full-featured remote replication package with native support for both Fibre Channel and IP based replication. This software supports both synchronous and "true" asynchronous replication between systems, role reversal, and "fast start". The "fast start" feature allows you to start the replication process on one side, and maintain change records while you make a backup of the data and transport it to the secondary site, restore the data at the secondary, and then start the replication over the links. With this feature, you do not have to transfer the whole replicated set over the interconnect, thus saving money/bandwidth/time. At the same time, you do not have to shut down the primary site while you are waiting to complete the restore on the secondary.
  
  
• Heterogeneous Storage Attach: With Release 3.0, you can now attach "external storage" to the SE6920. There are two methods of utilizing heterogeneous storage with the SE6920. The first, we call "external capacity" and this storage can be added into pools in the SE6920 from which you can create user volumes. The second use for external storage is what we call "Virtualized Legacy Volumes" (or VLVs). The VLV feature allows you to preserve the existing data on the storage while at the same time being able to run the SE6920's data services on those volumes.
  
  

We have also made a number of improvements to the existing software -- including enhancements to the StorEdge Data Snapshot to make it more flexible and capable, improved end-to-end online firmware upgrades, improved fault isolation capabilities, and overall performance improvements. This is a big release that makes the SE6920 shine.

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A: The answer is Yes and No. As described above in Heterogeneous Storage Attach, you can attach external storage, including that from other vendors, for use in the SE6920. This external storage can be used as external capacity -- which really means that we can build user volumes out of it, and use it as various tiers of storage with the SE6920, or you can use it as VLVs, which means that you can keep the existing data on it.

Now for the No part -- The SE6920 does not "manage" the external arrays, we just manage the capacity that you connect (or give) to the SE6920. By this I mean that the SE6920 does not interface with the management layer of the external storage and thus, it cannot create volumes or monitor for faults or other problems. In addition, we do not manage firmware revisions or updates. This is the true advantage of what we call "captive" storage. The storage that you buy as part of the SE6920 is completely managed with the system, including creation of low-level RAID sets, fault monitoring and isolation, integrated firmware revision control, and simplicity of management.

However, we realize that customers are facing a lot of different problems in regard to how to migrate data from one platform to another with minimum disruption, and how to preserve investment in their storage systems. Our goal with Heterogeneous Storage Attach in the Release 3.0 was to offer our customers solutions to these problems. We can simplify data migration, and provide a method of extending the lifetime of your existing storage arrays. In addition, we recognize that there is a strong desire to build complex storage tiers, and utilizing our centralized data services along with heterogeneous attach provides a powerful system for building true tiers of storage.

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A: It is relatively easy to configure the StorEdge Data Replicator; in its most abstract form, you tell the two systems about each other, and then indicate which volumes, and what type of replication you want to configure. In the GUI, a wizard helps you make your selections. An advantage of the SE6920 is that it can support either FC or IP replication without having to use external gear (such as a FC-to-IP bridge).

However, the real issue and complexity of remote replication is not about the product features. If you have data important enough for you to consider distance replication, there are certain goals that you have in mind. In general we frame data replication as part of data continuity, which is in turn a part of business continuity. We strongly encourage our customers to start with their business continuity and/or data continuity plans. We have a variety of services that focus on the overall goals to help ensure that the solution meets your business needs. To find more information on our services, see the Sun IT Services page.

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A: With the SE6920, you do not need to use a host-based volume manager. As you pointed out, the virtualization capabilities of the SE6920 allow you to carve up physical storage into smaller volumes, to aggregate physical storage into larger volumes, and to extend existing volumes. When you add in the ability to do concatenation, striping, mirroring, and replication across storage devices and arrays, you have a great volume manager inside the box. The SE6920 can simplify the administration of your systems by allowing you to manage your volumes, and storage capacity, from a single point -- for multiple hosts and host operating systems. You may even save some money because you are not required to license independent volume managers for each of your hosts.

Of course, if you still want to use the VERITAS Volume Manager, you can, since the SE6920 is qualified to work with it.

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A: The Sun StorEdge 6920 system is a huge step forward from the SE6320, so yes, you should attend the training class if you want to get the most out of the storage system.

The SE6320 was the first step we took in building a consolidated storage system by integrating the management functions for multiple arrays into a single system. Our next-generation storage system is the SE6920 -- in addition to the management consolidation, we added storage virtualization and advanced data services.

There are several important differences between the SE6320 and the SE6920 that you should be aware of:

1. The management interfaces have been significantly upgraded to ease administration of the system. This new management interface is common between the SE6130 and the SE6920, so once you learn one of the systems, you will know how the other functions.
2. The SE6920 includes a virtualization controller that provides much greater flexibility on how you attach to the storage system and manage your storage. The virtualization controller is based on a cross-bar architecture that provides both connectivity and aggregation functions within the system. This system also provides active-active symmetric access to the user volumes. This simplifies multipathing connectivity and management since you can use any path, or connection, on the system to reach a given user volume, and in fact, you can use all of the paths simultaneously (as in round-robin).
3. The new data services provide a lot of utility and capability. It's worth the time to get training on these services so that you can use the SE6920 to meet all of your storage needs.

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A: Yes, the system requires downtime when upgrading from version 2.x to 3.0. Depending on the complexity of your system, this should take from 30 minutes to 3 hours.

Keep in mind that no downtime is required going from 2.x to 2.y and from 3.x to 3.y, but in this case 2.x to 3.x does require a reset of the array.

We made this decision because we had to significantly upgrade the communication systems within the SE6920 to support all of the new data services contained in the 3.0 release. These changes were significant enough that we were concerned about the system running both versions simultaneously, and the amount of qualification we would have to perform to guarantee that our customers could upgrade without disruption.

The good news is that we have upgraded the infrastructure so that hopefully we will not encounter these same limitations in the future.

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