Storage Terms Glossary A

Asynchronous Replication After data has been written to the primary storage site, new writes to that site can be accepted, without having to wait for the secondary (remote) storage site to also finish its writes. Asynchronous Replication does not have the latency impact that synchronous replication does, but has the disadvantage of incurring data loss, should the primary site fail before the data has been written to the secondary site.

B
Backup/Restore A two step process. Information is first copied to non-volatile disk or tape media. In the event of computer problems (such as disk drive failures, power outages, or virus infection) resulting in data loss or damage to the original data, the copy is subsequently retrieved and restored to a functional system. Block Data Raw data which does not have a file structure imposed on it. Database applications such as Microsoft SQL Server and Microsoft Exchange Server transfer data in blocks. Block transfer is the most efficient way to write to disk. Business Continuity The ability of an organization to continue to function even after a disastrous event, accomplished through the deployment of redundant hardware and software, the use of fault tolerant systems, as well as a solid backup and recovery strategy.

D
DAS (Direct Attached Storage) DAS is storage that is directly connected to a server by connectivity media such as parallel SCSI cables. This direct connection provides fast access to the data; however, storage is only accessible from that server. DAS include the internally attached local disk drives or externally attached RAID (redundant array of independent disks) or JBOD (just a bunch of disks). Although Fibre Channel can be used for direct attached, it is more commonly used in storage area networks. Disaster Recovery The ability to recover from the loss of a complete site, whether due to natural disaster or malicious intent. Disaster recovery strategies include replication and backup/restore.

F
Fabric A Fibre Channel (or iSCSI) topology with at least one switch present on the network. Fibre Channel A highspeed interconnect used in storage area networks (SANs) to connect servers to shared storage. Fibre Channel components include HBAs, hubs, switches, and cabling. The term Fibre Channel also refers to the storage protocol.

H
High Availability A continuously available computer system is characterized as having essentially no downtime in any given year. A system with 99.999% availability experiences only about five minutes of downtime. In contrast, a high availability system is defined as having 99.9% uptime, which translates into a few hours of planned or unplanned downtime per year. HBA (Host Bus Adapter) The HBA is the intelligent hardware residing on the host server which controls the transfer of data between the host and the target storage device.

I
ILM (Information Lifecycle Management) The process of managing information growth, storage, and retrieval over time, based on its value to the organization. iSCSI (Internet SCSI) A protocol that enables transport of block data over IP networks, without the need for a specialized network infrastructure

J
JBOD (Just a Bunch of Disks) As the name suggests, a group of disks housed in its own box; JBOD differs from RAID in not having any storage controller intelligence or data redundancy capabilities.

L
Load Balancing Referring to the ability to redistribute load (read/write requests) to an alternate path between server and storage device, load balancing helps to maintain high performance networking. LUN (Logical Unit Number) A logical unit is a conceptual division (a subunit) of a storage disk or a set of disks. Logical units can directly correspond to a volume drive (for example, C: can be a logical unit). Each logical unit has an address, known as the logical unit number (LUN), which allows it to be uniquely identified. LUN Masking A method to restrict server access to storage not specifically allocated to that server. LUN masking is similar to zoning, but is implemented in the storage array, not the switch.

M
Multipathing Multipathing is the use of redundant storage network components responsible for transfer of data between the server and storage. These components include cabling, adapters and switches and the software that enables this.

N
NAS (Network Attached Storage) A NAS device is a server that runs an operating system specifically designed for handling files (rather than block data). Network-attached storage is accessible directly on the local area network (LAN) through LAN protocols such as TCP/IP.

R
RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks) A way of storing the same data over multiple physical disks to ensure that if a hard disk fails a redundant copy of the data can be accessed instead. Example schemes include mirroring and RAID5. Replication Replication is the process of duplicating mission critical data from one highly available site to another. The replication process can be synchronous or asynchronous; duplicates are known as clones, point-in-time copies, or snapshots, depending on the type of copy being made.

S
SAN (Storage Area Network) A storage area network (SAN) is a specialized network that provides access to high performance and highly available storage subsystems using block storage protocols. The SAN is made up of specific devices, such as host bus adapters (HBAs) in the host servers, switches that help route storage traffic, and disk storage subsystems. The main characteristic of a SAN is that the storage subsystems are generally available to multiple hosts at the same time, which makes them scalable and flexible. Storage Array A subsystem which houses a group of disks (or tapes), together controlled by software usually housed within the subsystem. Storage Controller Providing such functionality as disk aggregation (RAID), I/O routing, and error detection and recovery, the controller provides the intelligence for the storage subsystem. Each storage subsystem contains one or more storage controllers. Synchronous Replication In synchronous replication, each write to the primary disk and the secondary (remote) disk must be complete before the next write can begin. The advantage of this approach is that the two sets of data are always synchronized.

T
Tiered Storage Data is stored according to its intended use. For instance, data intended for restoration in the event of data loss or corruption is stored locally, for fast recovery. Data required to be kept for regulatory purposes is archived to lower cost disks.

V
Virtualization In storage, virtualization is a means by which multiple physical storage devices are viewed as a single logical unit. Virtualization can be accomplished inband (in the data path) or out-of-band..

Z
Zoning A method used to restrict server access to storage resources that are not allocated to that server. Zoning is similar to LUN masking, but is implemented in the switch and operates on the basis of port identification (either port numbers on the switch or by WWPN of the attached initiators and targets).