Your essential guide to make the most from storage

NAS comes of age

The ability to buy storage with protocols for SAN and NAS overshadows one of the big developments in storage – the maturation of the file server. For years the thinking was that if you wanted high performance, you needed a SAN.

“There’s often a misconception that NAS is a low- end, file-serving device. The truth is a good NAS appliance like Sun ZFS server and NetApp have good performance,” Dr McIsaac says. “Speaking to admins, many prefer to run VMware clusters on NetApp NAS than [EMC’s] Clariion SAN.”

The rising capabilities of NAS servers have even seen them take on the arduous role of running databases. McIsaac points to Oracle which released “a great little machine” which can run applications or files as a NAS server or an Oracle database.

“It really tells you that NAS servers aren’t just for serving up files. They can run databases serving up big clusters,” Dr McIsaac says, who adds Oracle has been running databases on NAS since 2002.

According to Angus MacDonald, chief technology officer, Systems Line of Business, Oracle ANZ, “SANs to a great extent are the reliable and safe enterprise storage and NAS had always been seen as the second tier. We’ve now reached the stage where NAS is good enough and is still cheaper and easy to use”.

Oracle’s 7000 range of ZFS-based unified storage comes with 10 data protocols in one box and can use SATA disks or flash storage. Customers can use it just as a NAS, or they can use it as a SAN without buying any more software. A separate connector needs to be bought for Fibre Channel but none is required if using Infiniband or Ethernet.

Oracle still sells its SAN-only 6000 range of appliances but MacDonald says “more and more” people are interested in the unified storage approach because of its flexibility and manageability. Oracle doesn’t sell standalone NAS storage.

“It’s not really economical to manufacture a NAS-only type device. The intention behind the 7000 is to change the dynamics of that market,” MacDonald says.

Unified storage gives SMBs the opportunity to experiment with the more expensive SAN technology which has often been out of reach. Direct attached is still the most cost-effective way to add storage, “but that’s changing”, EMC’s Oakey says.

Small-business owners lack the knowledge to buy SAN storage which opens the door to resellers becoming the trusted adviser to their customers. “These business owners don’t have the time to step away and educate themselves. Typically the partner needs to put this into business sense – what does it mean for the business – rather than talking in IT speak.”

Although analysts predict sales of unified storage will sweep past dedicated SANs, it’s too early to consign the technology to the museum. “We don’t see SAN going away for some time, if ever,” Oracle’s MacDonald says.

IBM remains a true believer in SANs. Most of its storage sales – as much as 90 percent, according to IBM storage manager Gavin Toovey – are SANs, with the rest made up of NetApp unified storage devices rebadged as the N Series.

It is an entry-level product which combines SAN or NAS and is built to scale up. And it sells SONAS, a NAS for massive input-output, scale-out storage.

Toovey says that when it comes to databases, SAN block storage is superior. He says a unified or NAS-only appliance can run into trouble if deployed incorrectly. “All storage devices when deployed in the right environment are fine, the performance is good. You just need to be careful that you don’t put the wrong device in the wrong environment.

“If it is deployed in the wrong environment it can have problems. If you deployed it to support a database for example, it might struggle. That’s where a SAN-type box would be better suited.”

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