More Storage Space, Better Reliability Now at the ARM Data Management Facility

Published: 15 September 2005

To support the ever-increasing file storage needs of the ARM Data Management Facility (DMF) and ARM Engineering computers, a Network Appliance (NetApp®) file server with 2.68 terabytes, or 2.95 trillion bytes, of highly-reliable and extremely-fast, usable disk storage joined the DMF servers. The NetApp system performs nearly four times faster than the previous file server and is engineered for a higher degree of reliability—critical improvements needed to maintain uptime for ARM data availability at the DMF.

The new file server uses its own operating system, Data ONTAP^TM, and provides a suite of data management features including the ability to resize and manipulate storage volumes without interrupting access to the data and a simplified backup and recovery process. It has 28 fibre-channel disks connected with two loops for redundancy. The disks are configured into Redundant Array of Independent Disks (RAID) sets—two or more disk drives that work together to disperse the data across the drives for fault tolerance and performance—with “dual-parity,” which means that two disks could fail without losing DMF data. The system yields plenty of bandwidth with its 4-gigabit ethernet ports and can be scaled up to 50 terabytes of disk space—space that may be needed as ARM continues to grow. ARM has seen an approximate 50% increase in users in the past 2 years, based on site visits and computer accounts.

With assistance from a data storage consulting firm, Sanz Inc., selection of the NetApp file server resulted from a thorough engineering review of the DMF requirements and available solutions. Working with Sanz and NetApp engineers, ARM data management staff installed and tested the system in July and successfully deployed it in August. The previous file server is still in use for data sets that are less-frequently accessed, helping to maximize the use of both file server resources.