The document discusses EMC Isilon scale-out NAS storage. Key points include: Isilon uses a scale-out architecture with a single file system that scales from 18TB to 20PB across nodes; it features automated tiering between performance and capacity tiers, high performance and utilization, and easy management through a single interface; the operating system OneFS provides a unified file system across nodes without partitioning.

1. EMC² - ISILON
SCALE-OUT NAS
- Jayaprakash Aridoss

2. Isilon:
An Intelligent Storage Model
 One single unified system to manage
 Single file system, single volume
scaling from 18 TB – 20 PB
 Highest performance, fully symmetric
peer nodes
 Easy to manage - No RAID, LUNS or
multiple FS to manage
 Easy to grow – Scale capacity in
minutes
 No bottlenecks, No hot spots
 80% + utilization
 Automated Tiering
 File, Object and Hadoop Protocols
AUTOMATED TIERING
Tape
Storage
Tier 2 Active
Archive
Storage
Primary High
Performance
Tier 1 Storage
Inactive data
Active data

3. AUTOMATED TIERING
Isilon:
An Intelligent Storage Model
 Automatic data movement
– Policy-based tiering
management
– Transparent reallocation
– NO application changes
 Optimize storage resources
– Automatically migrate data to
Tier 2 to match storage
resources with data
requirements
– Eliminate data migration
Tape
Storage
Tier 2
Storage
Primary Tier
1 Storage
Inactive data
Active data

4. Scale Out – NAS Architecture
•From 3 to 144 Nodes, 18TB a 15PB
•Single cluster Peer-to-peer
•Distributed single File system OneFS™
•Single storage Pool/namespace
•One Management Point

5. OneFS – scale-out operating system
In traditional NAS systems the file system,
volume manager, and the implementation of
RAID are all separate entities.
OneFS creates a single file system for the cluster that also performs the duties of the
volume manager and applies protection to the cluster as a whole. There is no partitioning,
and no need for volume creation. Because all information is shared among nodes, the
entire file system is accessible by clients connecting to any node in the cluster. Because all
nodes in the cluster are peers, the Isilon clustered storage system also does not have any
master or slave nodes. All data is striped across all nodes in the cluster. As nodes are
added, the file system grows dynamically and content is redistributed

6. Advantage of OneFS#

7. Isilon Nodes

8. How to start a design:
Minimum System Configuration
 An EMC Isilon storage system requires:
– At least three (3) nodes of the same type MINIMUM.
– Two (2) Infiniband Switches in the back-end cluster network(for
redundancy).
– The same version of OneFS on each node. Today, the most
updated OneFS version is OneFS 7 (a.k.a. Maverick).
– For user access to the Isilon Storage System, at least one 1GBEth
connection is required (two pors for redundancy). For large files
and high performance access, a 10GBEth network is desirable.
– Each node of an Isilon cluster requires its respective license for
the different software modules:
▪ SnapshotIQ, SyncIQ, SmartConnect, Smartlock, SmartQuotas, SmartPools,
Insight IQ.

9. What happens if a HW upgrade is
required?
 Check the # of Infiniband ports available for the back end. If
needed, upgrade the switches.
 The additional node (nodes) must fit the same configuration
(memory & disk) and model of the existing nodes for the same
tier.
 All the upgrade nodes require the same software licenses as
the exisiting nodes.
 Verify the rack space required for the new nodes.

10. EMC Isilon – On-The-Fly Expansion
•AutoBalance migrates
content to new storage nodes
while system is online and in
production
•NO manual intervention
•NO reconfiguration
•NO server or client mount
point or application changes
•Eliminates “Hot Spots”

11. Data Layout - protection and throughput
Data is striped across the nodes
–Not across disks
–FEC not RAID
Data breakdown:
–8 KB blocks
–16 blocks per stripe unit
–128 KB stripe width per drive
N+M:B
N=Number of nodes
M= Number of Disk Failures
B= Number of Node failures
Default Protection Levels
N+2:1 (clusters over 18TB)
N+1(Clusters less than 18TB)

12. Failure Handling

13. ISILON OPERATING SYSTEM SOFTWARE
ISILON IQ PLATFORM NODES (3 AT LEAST)
INFINIBAND CORE NETWORK
IB back end
3 node minimum
Isilon Starts with a Cluster

14. EMC Isilon: Type of nodes
Scale-Out NAS Product Family
Linear Scaling of Performance & Capacity
Purpose-built for IOPS-
intensive, random access file-
based applications
A flexible solution to accelerate
high-concurrent and sequential
throughput applications
Purpose-built for
cost-effective, large
capacity storage
S-Series
X-Series
NL-Series
NL-400 Nodes:
-36TB
-72TB
-108TB
X-Nodes:
X200
X400
S-200 Nodes

15. Suite of Enterprise Infrastructure Software
Requirements
Data Protection
 Numerous and flexible snapshots
 Fast and flexible asynchronous
replication
 Policy based client failover with
load balancing
 Policy based immutability
 Scalable backup to tape
Innovations
Snapshot IQ - Unlimited and
flexible snapshots
SyncIQ - Fast and flexible
asynchronous replication
SmartConnect - Policy based
client failover with load
balancing
SmartLock - Policy based
immutability
Backup Accelerator - Scalable
backup to tape

16. Suite of Enterprise Infrastructure Software
Requirements
Data Management
 Policy based automated
tiering
 Quota management and
thin provisioning
 Analytics platform to
maximize performance and
resource utilization
 VMware integrated
management features
Software Innovations
SmartPools - Policy based
automated tiering
SmartQuotas - Quota
management and thin
provisioning
Insight IQ - Analytics platform
to maximize performance and
resource utilization
Isilon for Vcenter - VMware
integrated management
features

17. OneFS 7.0 - Mavericks

18. OneFS 7.1 - Waikiki

19. AvailableSimple Scalable
No Compromise Scale-Out Storage

20. In Summary#
✓ Largest and most rapidly growing Scale-out NAS business
• Scale-out NAS market leader with over 3500+ customers
✓ Won the single largest storage deal in history
• 28 petabytes of storage at a leading Web 2.0 company
✓ The fastest file server in the industry
• 1.6 million SPECsfs2008 file operations per second
✓ Lower CAPEX through Scale on need
• Low entry level cost - simple, fast “grow-as-you-do” scalability and avoid over
provisioning
• Over 80% storage utilization
✓ Lower OPEX through automation & simplicity
• Simplified & automated management through a single file system and single volume
• Fast setup time and add capacity / performance within 60 seconds
• Availability and data protection
✓ Enterprise data backup, recover, and security options
• Up to N+4 protection to provide 100% data availability
• Roles-based administration; Authentication Zones; SEC 17a-4 compliant WORM data
security
✓ Performance
• Over 100 GB/s throughput, over 400 MB/s single-stream performance and 1.6M
SPECsfs ops
• Overhead decreases when cluster grows
✓ Operational flexibility
• Integrated support for industry-standard protocols including NFS, SMB, HTTP, FTP and
HDFS; platform REST API; VMware integration