OpenStorage refers to open source storage software that allows for disaggregated hardware components from different vendors. NexentaStor is a leading OpenStorage solution that runs on standard hardware and provides file and block access using protocols like NFS, CIFS, and iSCSI. It offers storage efficiency features like deduplication, compression, and thin provisioning. NexentaStor can also be used with OpenStack Nova to provision volumes and attach them to virtual machines. Nexenta has contributed code to OpenStack Swift to leverage NexentaStor's self-healing capabilities for object storage. OpenStorage is growing with adoption in cloud computing and more integration with projects like OpenStack.

1. OPENSTORAGE WITH
OPENSTACK
BRAD STONE
GM,
NEXENTA CHINA
© Copyright Nexenta 2012
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2. Enterprise Storage
• Storage is 40% of an enterprise IT’s budget
• Market leaders are EMC, IBM and NetApp

3. Enterprise Storage Continues to Grow

4. Storage Trends
“More data will be stored in the next three years than in the previous 40,000”
- Berkeley’s School of Management (2010)
• Commodity components replacing specialized
hardware for data storage
• Storage virtualization
– Commoditize by abstracting physical attributes
• Global economic downturn putting pressure
on capital and energy costs
– Motivation to buy newer, more energy-efficient
hardware

5. New use cases for data
Machine-generated files
Video surveillance

6. What is OpenStorage?
a) Storage software is open source
b) No vendor lock-in; components no longer
need to all come from the same vendor
c) Open data formats
d) All of the above
e) Some of the above

7. Top Reasons to use Open Source
Software
• Avoid vendor lock-in
• Lower costs
• Competitive advantage
• Improve quality

8. Brief Biased History of OpenStorage
• 1991: Linux kernel publicly announced
• 2004: Google MapReduce paper
• 2005: linux-iscsi and open-iscsi projects merge
• 2005: OpenSolaris released
• 2008: Nexenta ships first commercial product
• 2008: Sun FISHworks storage appliance released
• 2010: OpenStack Nova released
• 2010: OpenStorage Summit features storage
software vendors and commodity hardware
• 2013: OpenStorage Summit in China!

9. NEXENTASTOR: A CASE STUDY FOR
OPENSTORAGE

10. What is NexentaStor?
File and Block Access
iSCSI NFS Software-based, unified storage appliance
CIFS
FC Leading OpenStorage solution
• Runs on standard hardware
Key features:
• 128-bit architecture
• Unlimited file size & snaps
iSCSI AoE
• Synchronous and asynchronous replication
SAS (including replication to OpenStack Swift)
FC
Superior storage for virtualized environments
InfiniBand
Nexenta is a private company
with an office in Beijing!

11. Storage Pooling
Discover logical disks
Determine RAID requirements
Pool-A Pool-B Create storage pools
NFS iSCSI CIFS NFS
Create datasets
Assign properties (e.g. de-dup)
Share (NFS, CIFS, iSCSI, FC)
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12. De-duplication
• In-line de-duplication
– Verify option
Block-based • In-flight de-duplication
– No verify option
Flexibility
De-duplication options can vary
- Per volume
- Per dataset
- Per replication service
Existing data can easily be de-duped via NexentaStor’s auto-tier capability

13. Compression
• Compression done in-line at time of write
• Enabled by default
– Leverages typically idle processing power
– Can improve overall I/O performance
• Compresses only if at least 12% benefit
• Many algorithms supported
– LZJB for loss-less compression
– GZIP 0-9
– Extensible
• Compression algorithm can be changed on-the-fly
– Affects future writes

14. Block support
• iSCSI and FibreChannel supported
– SCSI multi-pathing supported for each
• Storage efficiency
– Compression
– Cloning
– De-duplication
– Thin provisioning
• Support for variable block sizes

15. Technical Advantages
Description Limit
Number of data volumes on a system 264
Maximum size of a data volume 278 bytes
Number of file systems in a data volume 264
Maximum size of a file system 264 bytes
Number of devices in a data volume 264
Number of files in a directory 256
Maximum file size 264 bytes
Number of attributes of a file 248
Maximum size of any attribute 264 bytes
Number of snapshots of a file system 264
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16. Self-healing
• NexentaStor doesn’t blindly trust the data
• Relies on 256-bit checksums on every block
• Transparently return only the good data to the user Prevents silent data corruption
• Use the good data to fix the bad copy Self-healing
0100110101
Data checked before
it is returned to user
X Good copy used to fix
the bad copy of data
0110110101
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17. Triple-parity RAID
• Disk capacities doubling, but disk throughput not increasing at same rate
– Result is longer time to recover from bit errors
– More likely that you can be recovering from two bit errors at once
– Data can then be at risk during recovery period
NexentaStor provides triple-parity RAID
Available with NexentaStor since 2009

18. A Broad set of Customers and Partners
Customers Premier Partners
Healthcare
Finance
Technology
Media
Education
Internet
More

19. Cloud Hosting and Telecom in Asia
Cloud services do not require cloud storage 20

20. OpenStorage Adoption
Finance
Governments
VDI
Hosting, cloud compute, private cloud, virtualization
R&D
Universities
2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014

21. NEXENTA AND OPENSTACK

22. Cloud Storage Use Cases
• Storage for cloud applications
• File replication of critical data for disaster
recovery
• Off-site backup for power and floorspace benefits
in the datacenter
• Geographically dispersed teams that need to
write to centralized storage for long-term data
access
• Long-term deep data archives

23. OpenStack Nova
• OpenStack
– Open source cloud computing project
– Started by Rackspace and NASA
– Now more than 150 participating companies
• OpenStack the largest open source cloud
community
• OpenStack Nova targets cloud computing
– Includes a storage component

24. Nova Orchestrates Volume
Provisioning
• Provisions LUNs
• Interacts with storage systems
• Assigns volumes to compute nodes
• Ensures LUNs are assigned to at most one VM
at a time
Currently only iSCSI is supported by OpenStack Nova (not FibreChannel)

25. Simplified Nova Architecture
Nova Manage
Nova API
Nova Compute
Nova Schedule Rabbit MQ
Nova Network
Volume Controller
NexentaStor
Nova Nova Volume
Database
Nova driver(s)
/etc/nova/nova.conf

26. Nova and NexentaStor
Nova Manage
NexentaStor cloning can be 1. Request to create a volume
used to create a new Nova
6. Request to attach volume to a VM
volume from a snapshot
Nova API
Virtual machine
5. Volume Controller updates
database with volume details
Volume Controller
NexentaStor
Nova Nova Volume
Database 3. Driver talks to NexentaStor
Nova driver(s) to create volume
4. NexentaStor creates volume
2. Lookup in configuration file /etc/nova/nova.conf
to determine which driver to use

27. Nexenta Nova Driver – Project Status
• Implementation complete and available
• Initially tested with OpenStack Diablo release
• Only Netapp and Nexenta have provided Nova
storage drivers
• Wiki posted:
– http://wiki.openstack.org/NexentaVolumeDriver
• Next: Test with Cinder
28 Nexenta Systems Inc. CONFIDENTIAL

28. What is Cloud Storage?
• Provide storage as a service
• Treat data as object or chunks
• Improves ability to access unstructured data
• Files divided into objects and stored across
multiple systems
• Defacto standard transports
– Amazon S3, Google Storage, OpenStack Swift

29. Benefits of Object Storage
• Scalable capacity
• Relocation on demand (disaster recovery)
• Access data anywhere

30. Cloud Storage
• OpenStack Swift contributor
• OpenStack Swift
– Running Swift on NexentaStor
– Technology preview downloadable from Nexenta
website
• Contributed Local File System patch to Swift
– Leverage self-healing and advanced RAID of
NexentaStor

31. NexentaStor’s Unified Architecture
Raw Dump Swap iSCSI FC ZFS NFS CIFS
ZFS Volume Emulator ZFS Posix Layer
Transactional Object Layer
Pooled Storage Layer
Block Device Driver
HDD SSD iSCSI FC

32. Unified Appliance
Object Storage
File Block
Swift Account Server
Swift Container Server
Swift Object Server
iSCSI, FibreChannel, SAS, AoE

33. Nexenta’s LFS Swift Patch
• Modifies Swift ring builder logic
• Allows a file system with Nexenta’s self-
healing to be counted as two replicas
• Can save network bandwidth when initially
storing data
• Can save network bandwidth by creating
replacement replicas less often

34. WHERE IS OPENSTORAGE
HEADING?

35. Next Generation Cloud
• Nexenta is active in the cloud storage
community
• Defining the next generation of OpenStorage
– Enabling exabyte deployments!

36. OpenStack Nova Extensions
• OpenStack Nova will be extending its
capability to map generic volumes to
iSCSI for guest VMs to access, not just the
virtualized boot volume
• Interface between this new Volume
service and Nexentastor Appliance
should be unchanged
37 Nexenta Systems Inc. CONFIDENTIAL

37. THANK YOU!!