Distributed File System (DFS): DFS allows multiple network shares to
be aggregated as a virtual file system.
Support for SAN and iSCSI: Computers can connect to a Storage Server
over the LAN, and there is no need for a separate fibre channel
network. Thus a Storage Area Network can be created over the LAN
itself. iSCSI uses the SCSI protocol to transfer data as a block of
bytes, rather than as a file. This increases performance of the
Storage network in some scenarios, such as using a database server.
Virtual Disc Service: It allows NAS devices, RAID devices and SAN
shares to be exposed and managed as if they were normal hard drives.
JBOD systems: JBOD (Just a bunch of discs) systems, by using VDS, can
manage a group of individual storage devices as a single unit. There
is no need for the storage units to be of the same make and model.
Software and Hardware RAID: Windows Storage Server 2003 has intrinsic
support for hardware implementation of RAID. In case hardware support
is not available, it can use software enabled RAID. In that case, all
processing is done by the OS.
Multi Path IO (MPIO): It provides an alternate connection to IO
devices in case the primary path is down.
.
Re: System File Watcher and networked drives ... NT 3.51 and earlier did not support the File System Watcher across a network.... valid for local drives and won't work for networked file system? ... (microsoft.public.dotnet.languages.csharp)
Re: EMC to IBM SAN LUN replication ... Rather, trying to 'put it inside the SAN on a storage appliance' has severe limitations, but you don't seem to understand them. ... If you posit a shared-storage file system to allow your applications transparent file-level access, then the observations above about applications apply equally to the file system's internal operation. ... Of course, what you've described isn't a very broadly-useful cache, but just a means of supporting lazy inter-site replication. ... "you need something in the replication layer that understands synchronization issues at the file system" ... (comp.arch.storage)
Re: EMC to IBM SAN LUN replication ... you've characterized as 'emerging technology' is in fact very old hat: VMS had it over two decades ago, IBM had it a decade ago in Parallel Sysplex, other Unixes have been developing it more recently, as well as third-parties: it's Windows that's the real laggard. ... you can use the inter-site VMS cluster as a distributed CIFS file server to serve Windows clients - in the manner that you suggested using a distributed 'storage appliance'.... Only if a) that storage appliance is interlocking raw block access synchronously and b) you're using higher-level shared-storage distributed file system software for file-level accesses. ... Now, if you're using 'distributed cache' to mean something much more like 'distributed locking mechanism' (which tracks potential synchronization issues such that they can be properly addressed should they occur), then we're just using different terminology to describe the same thing. ... (comp.arch.storage)
Re: VMS SAN Primer ... (SAN - as in the interconnecting infrastructure). ...Area Network), corrolary to a VLAN. ... have different seperate nodes accesing drives in a SAN, ...CI-based storage array.... (comp.os.vms)
Re: Performance problem (I/O) ... This could be due to the way the last 8K allocation... in space can be obtained by turning the last 8K into a frag,...storage in multiples of 8K. ... frag'ing would increase the storage usage for that file system by about ... (comp.unix.tru64)
