This document discusses Integral Networks' transition from legacy SAN storage solutions like NetApp and Dell EqualLogic to NexentaStor software-defined storage. It provides an overview of Integral Networks, their infrastructure workload, and the pain points they experienced with their previous storage platforms. It then outlines how the Nexenta architecture and NexentaStor software address their scalability, availability, and cost needs without compromising on features.

1. Scaling Storage Without
Compromising on Features
Bryan Badger, CEO
Integral Networks

2. Agenda
• Company & Technology Overview
• Nexenta Architecture
• Best-Practices
• Q & A Period

3. About Me
• Bryan Badger CEO/CTO
• Oversees daily business & technology operations
• Two primary and one secondary data center
locations in Rancho Cordova and Natomas, Calif
• Hosted Service Provider’s Perspective on Nexenta

4. Company Overview
• Integral Networks, Inc was
founded in 2004 and is based
out of Rocklin, Calif.
• Established provider of turn-key
cloud-based technology solutions,
• Managed services, infrastructure management, and
value-added technical services to the channel and
organizations of all sizes and from all market sectors

5. Technology Infrastructure
• 140+ servers – 90 VMWare vShpere and 50
XenServer, 1 physical server no hypervisor
– 500 Virtual Servers / 1100 Hosted Desktops
– 2500 Hosted Exchange Mailboxes / 800 Websites
• Dell PowerEdge C6105 & R710 powered by VMware
vShpere & Citrix XenServer hosted in SunGuard
Availability Services & Webion Internet Data Center
facilities

6. Day-to-Day IT Workload
• Serving 1100+ Hosted Desktops, 2500 Exchange
Mailboxes & 400+ Virtual Servers for both in-house
infrastructure and clients
– Highly-Accessible, Always-on Business-Critical
Services, 24x7x365
• Data Protection: Hourly Exchange & Data Back-ups,
Nightly VM Images

7. Previous Storage Platform
• NetApp FAS2020 – Backend SAN
– Unable to keep up with I/O load; caused poor
performance
– Storage costs per gigabyte almost 20x more than
NexentaStor solution
• Dell EqualLogic PS5000/6000 Series – Backend SAN
– Cost-prohibitive scale-out solution as business
needs out-grew capacity
– Finite amount of storage per head node

8. Legacy Storage Pain Points
• Storage costs per GB almost 10x more than
NexentaStor solution (both NetApp and EqualLogic)
• Network Bandwidth to low, 10Gb, Fiber costs
prohibitive
Meet growing network storage needs
without spending a fortune!

9. Finding the Right Solution
Storage needs Storage solution
• Rich feature-set Open Storage
• Scale-out solution that is not solution that tops legacy SAN
cost-prohibitive technologies
• High availability to hosted
services while eliminating a • Cost-effective scalability, as
single-point of failure business needs grow
• Support for VMware ESX &
XenServer • Active/Active failover for
•Ability to Virtualize multiple always-on access to data
vendor storage systems
•Unlimited Snapshots, Offsite • Vmware, XenServer-Ready
Replication, De-Duplication Solution
•Multi Protocol Support, iSCSI,
NFS, CIFS and AD Integration

10. The Business Value of Nexenta for High Availability
Nexenta Architecture
IT Infrastructure • vShpere Cluster •XenServer •ISO & File
• 400+ VMs Cluster Repository
• AD, DB,Exchange •1100+ Desktops •VM Templates
NFS NFS NFS/CIFS
10Gb Networking
Community Edition
Enterprise Edition
• Replication • Snapshots

11. StorageDirector l Z Series
Dual Head Nodes (Active/Active)
• 2x Intel® Xeon ® 5600 Series CPUs
• 82GB DDR ECC Memory
• 2x Intel 2-Port Copper 10 Gigabit Adapters
• OS Drives: 2x 73GB 10k 2.5” SAS Drives
• NexentaStor™ w/ HA Cluster Plug-in
JBOD Expansion
• 8x Intel X25-E 32GB SSD for Logs
• 8x Intel X25-M 80GB SSD for cache
• 26x Seagate 2TB 7.2K 6GB SAS
• 13x 300GB 15k 6GB SAS
• 4x LSI JBOD Chassis
Volume(Disk) Configuration
• 2x Volumes w/ 12 disks in 3 groups of raidz1 w/ SSD
drives for logs and cache w/ 1 spare
• 1x Volume w/ 12 disks in 6 groups of mirrored sets
w/ SSD drives for logs and cache w/ 1 spare

12. Enterprise Storage w/o the Cost
Technology Benefits
 Unlimited Snapshots
 TBD
 TBD
 Community Edition
Business Benefits
 Scalable solution that’s 20x
less than legacy SAN
 Ability to add HA &
virtualization

13. Services Best-Practices
 Deploy a complete solution to minimize risk
 Use Nexenta pre-tested & pre-certified hardware
solutions
 Pogo Storage Director hardware configuration
had gone through the rigorous testing and QA by
Nexenta
 Take advantage of Nexenta Professional Services
 Test and document: failover, expected IOP loads,
and de-duplication scenarios – cannot over-
emphasize this!

14. Deployment Considerations
 Use SAS SSDs for shared write log(zlog) and/or
cache (l2arc)
 Use aggregate network ports for redundancy
 Dedicate NAS network traffic; separate management
network
 RAM in headnodes is essential for De-Duplication