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ASSIGNMENT

PROGRAM BSc IT
SEMESTER FIFTH
BT9003, Data Storage management

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Q.No. 1 Discuss DAS, NAS and SAN storage technologies.


ANSWER:
Direct Attached Storage (DAS) refers to any storage that is attached locally to a computer. In the case of
large arrays of devices, the computer may be connected to a controller. The controller then provides a
single interface for many devices. The hard drive in a PC is an example of DAS. A multiterabyte disk
array that is connected to a server via an SCSI cable is also DAS. Size does not determine whether
storage is DAS only its architecture.
Most open-system DAS devices use the SCSI or ATA standards to communicate to the storage devices or
to a controller. ATA is more commonly used for slower, less reliable storage such as desktop storage,
whereas SCSI is used for high-performance, high-reliability systems. That said, SCSI has shown up in
desktop computers and ATA in enterprise-class arrays. Mainframes use their own protocols and
specifications, most of which are proprietary.
Network Attached Storage (NAS) provides large amounts of file space as a network resource. In some
respects, NAS is little more than a self-contained and highly optimized file server. NAS units support the
same network storage protocols as network operating systems do. Many high-performance NAS disk

arrays use proprietary operating systems; others use embedded versions of the Windows or Linux network
operating system.
NAS has several advantages over a traditional file server. Some characteristics that make NAS attractive
to system architects are the use of open protocols for shared file services, ease of installation and
management, scalability, and high performance. The ability to install and manage NAS devices easily also
translates into lower operating costs. A file server may take hours, or even days, to get up and running in
its most basic form. A NAS system might do the same in minutes.
Another important advantage is that a NAS device does only file services. At first this seems like a small
thing, but it makes a difference when it comes to maintenance, performance, and uptime. NAS devices are
unencumbered by the extra capabilities that a general-purpose operating system has to have. Everything
that is not related to efficient file serving can be stripped out. There is also a lower chance that a nonstorage program will crash the system, because none can be installed. In the early days of networked
storage, there was a tendency for storage vendors to argue over which was better: Network Attached
Storage or Storage Area Networks. Both are useful for different applications and must be viewed by
themselves, not in opposition to each other.
Storage Area Networks (SAN) is not a specific technology. It has become so closely associated with Fiber
Channel that some people think they are the same, but they are not. A SAN is a storage system
architecture, and Fibre Channel is one way of implementing it. There are other technologies that can be
used to build a SAN. iSCSI is emerging as a way of creating a SAN without the expense and aggravation
of dealing with Fibre Channel. It uses the more common Ethernet and IP infrastructure instead.
The SAN architecture replaces the I/O channel bus common to technologies such as SCSI and ATA, with
a network. Whereas NAS is file storage on a network, SANs are a network architecture for storage,
capable of block I/O.
The storage bus architecture, developed for SCSI, suffers from a number of common restrictions.
Distance, address space restrictions, number of supported devices, and a one-host/several device
limitation make scalable, highly resilient storage systems difficult (and costly) to build and maintain.
SANs, being network-based, overcome these limitations. Maximum distance is measured in many
kilometers. Address space can be in the millions. The number of devices is usually limited only by the
address space. SANs are many-to-many systems and can easily support multiple paths between devices.
This makes SANs less susceptible to failures due to path failure.

2 Define Perimeter Defense and give examples of it. [3+7] 10


ANSWER: Perimeter Defense
Perimeter defenses are designed to inhibit attacks from outside the network, primarily from the Internet.
The goal is to keep an attacker from gaining access to the interior corporate network. Besides protecting
the network from intruders, perimeter defense includes the ability to detect attacks, whether they are
successful or not. This gives system security personnel the ability to track the attacker and protect interior
systems from future harm.
Following are the examples for perimeter defenses :
Firewall: The primary method of protecting the corporate or home network from intruders is the firewall.
Firewalls are designed to examine traffic as it comes in and deny entry to those who do not have access
rights to the system. The most common functions of firewalls are proxy services, packet filtering, and
network address translation (NAT).
Packet filtering admits or denies traffic attempting to access the network based on predefined rules. A
common version of packet filtering is port blocking, in which all traffic to a particular TCP/IP port is
blocked to all external connections. Host-based firewalls, common in home and small-business situations,
use this method to protect individual desktop computers.
Network address translation services translate internal addresses into a range of external addresses. This
allows the internal addressing scheme to be obscured to the outside world. It also makes it difficult for
outside traffic to connect directly to an internal machine.
All firewalls provide a choke point through which an intruder must pass. Any or all traffic can then be
examined, changed, or blocked depending on security policy.
Intrusion detection systems and intrusion response systems: A device or software system that
examines violations of security policy to determine if an attack is in progress or has occurred is called an
Intrusion Detection System (IDS). An IDS does not regulate access to the network. Instead, it examines
violations of security policy to determine whether an attack is in progress or has occurred. It then reports
on the alleged attack.
Intrusion Response Systems are devices or software that are capable of actively responding to a breach in
security. They not only detect an intrusion but also act on it in a predetermined manner.

3 Explain SCSI Logical Units and Asymmetrical communications in SCSI.


ANSWER:
SCSI logical units: SCSI targets have logical units that provide the processing context for SCSI
commands. Essentially, a logical unit is a virtual machine (or virtual controller) that handles SCSI
communications on behalf of real or virtual storage devices in a target. Commands received by targets are
directed to the appropriate logical unit by a task router in the target controller. The work of the logical unit
is split between two different functions the device server and the task manager. The device server
executes commands received from initiators and is responsible for detecting and reporting errors that
might occur. The task manager is the work scheduler for the logical unit, determining the order in which
commands are processed in the queue and responding to requests from initiators about pending
commands. The logical unit number (LUN) identifies a specific logical unit (think virtual controller) in a
target. Although we tend to use the term LUN to refer to a real or virtual storage device, a LUN is an
access point for exchanging commands and status information between initiators and targets.
Metaphorically, a logical unit is a "black box" processor, and the LUN is simply a way to identify SCSI
black boxes. Logical units are architecturally independent of target ports and can be accessed through any
of the target's ports, via a LUN. A target must have at least one LUN, LUN 0, and might optionally
support additional LUNs. For instance, a disk drive might use a single LUN, whereas a subsystem might
allow hundreds of LUNs to be defined.

4 Explain techniques for switch based virtualization with necessary diagram.


ANSWER:
Techniques for Switch-Based Virtualization
As in array-based storage virtualization, fabric-based virtualization requires additional processing power
and memory on top of a hardware architecture that is concurrently providing processing power for fabric
services, switching and other tasks. Because large fabric switches (directors) are typically built on a
chassis and option blade or line card scheme, virtualization capability is being introduced as yet another
blade that slots into the director chassis, as shown in Figure 12.8. This provides the advantage of tighter
integration with the port cards that service storage and servers but consumes expensive director real estate
for slot that could otherwise support additional end devices. If a virtualization blade is not properly

engineered, it may degrade the overall availability specification of the director. A five-nines (99.999%)
available director will inevitably lose some nines if a marginal option card is introduced.
Because software virtualization products have been around for some time, it is tempting to simply host
one or another of those applications on a fabric switch. Typically, software virtualization runs on
Windows or Linux, which in turn implies that a virtualization blade that hosts software will essentially be
a PC on a card. This design has the advantage, for the vendor at least, of time to market, but as with host
or appliance virtualization products in general, it may pose potential performance issues if the PC logic
cannot cope with high traffic volumes. Consequently, some vendors are pursuing hardware-assisted
virtualization on fabric switches by creating ASICs (application specific integrated circuits) that are
optimized for high- performance frame decoding and block address mapping. These ASICs may be
implemented on director blades or on auxiliary modules mounted in the director enclosure.

Figure: A storage virtualization engine as an option card within a director should enable
virtualization of any storage asset on any director port.

5 Explain in brief heterogeneous mirroring with necessary diagram.


ANSWER:
Abstracting Physical Storage, storage virtualization enables mirroring or synchronized local data copying
between dissimilar storage systems. Because the virtualization engine processes the SCSI I/O to physical
storage and is represented as a single storage target to the server, virtualized mirroring can offer more
flexible options than conventional disk-to-disk techniques.
In traditional single-vendor environments, mirroring is typically performed within a single array (one set
of disk banks to another) or between adjacent arrays. Disk mirroring may be active/passive, in that the

secondary mirror is only brought into service if the primary array fails, or active/active, in which case the
secondary mirror can be accessed for read operations if the primary is busy. This not only increases
performance but also enhances the value of the secondary mirror. In addition, some vendors provide
mutual mirroring between disk arrays so that each array acts as a secondary mirror to its partner.
Heterogeneous mirroring under virtualization control allows mirroring operations to be configured from
any physical storage assets and for any level of redundancy. As shown in Figure 13.9, a server may
perform traditional read and write operations to a virtualized primary volume. The target entity within the
virtualization engine processes each write operation and acts as an initiator to copy it to two separate
mirrors. The virtual mirrors, as well as the virtualized primary volume, may be composed of storage
blocks from any combination of back-end physical storage arrays. In this example, the secondary mirror
could be used to convenience non-disruptive storage processes such as archiving disk data to tape or
migration of data from one class of storage to another.
Like traditional disk-based mirroring, this virtualized solution may be transparent to the host system,
providing there is no significant performance impact in executing copies to heterogeneous storage.
Transparency assumes, though, that the virtualizing is conducted by the fabric or an appliance attached to
the fabric. Host-based virtualization would consume CPU cycles to perform multiple mirroring, and
array-based virtualization typically cannot cross vendor lines. Because mirroring requires the completion
of writes on the secondary mirrors before the next I/O is accepted, performance is largely dependent on
the aggregate capabilities of the physical storage systems and the processing power of the virtualization
engine itself.

Figure 13.9: Heterogeneous mirroring offers more flexible options than conventional mirroring,
including three-way mirroring within storage capacity carved from different storage systems.

6 Discuss Disk-to-disk-to-tape (D2D2T) technology in brief.


ANSWER:
Inserting an additional disk array into the disk-to-tape path may not seem like a particularly good idea
from the standpoint of cost or simplification of management. Tape emulation, however, does offer
substantial benefits in terms of performance, both for executing periodic tape backups and for retrieving
archived data.
Originally used in mainframe environments, disk-to-disk-to-tape technology combines standard disk
RAID functionality with a tape emulation application that can mimic the behavior of a variety of physical
tape subsystems. As shown in Figure 14.5, a tape emulation disk array attaches to the SAN as another
tape resource. Backup traffic may flow through a server or move through a third-party copy agent
between the production array and the emulator. Tape backup applications communicate with tape devices
to verify capability and to ensure that tape cartridges are loaded and available. With tape emulation, the
specialty hardware posing as a tape device must respond to the tape backup application with the
appropriate status characteristic of a specific tape unit. When a backup is launched, the data is written to
back-end RAID disks, typically lower cost ATA drives. Depending on customer requirements, the data
may secondarily be written from the tape emulator to a physical tape device or library. This provides
transparency to the tape backup application while enabling significantly faster restore operations.
Secondary archiving to physical tape provides long term storage on removable media that can be secured
off-site.

CONTACT ME TO GET FULLY SOLVED SMU


ASSIGNMENTS/PROJECT/SYNOPSIS/EXAM GUIDE PAPER
Email Id: mrinal833@gmail.com
Contact no- 9706665251/9706665232/

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COST= 100 RS PER SUBJECT

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