Monday, February 8, 2010

Automated storage tiering is a primary capability that file virtualization provides, usually driving down storage costs. Since they control the access to files, virtualization appliances can move these files to the appropriate physical NAS storage devices or file servers in the background, transparent to users. The NAS or file servers don’t need to be from the same manufacturer, or even have the same operating system. They only need to support NFS or CIFS protocols. This also includes moving data off primary storage onto lower tiers where it’s removed from the backup operation, further reducing costs. This file migration is done in accordance with established policies, such as age, file type or access date. Compared with other methodologies, like rudimentary archives that leave file stubs, file virtualization is faster, simpler and non-disruptive.

File virtualization can improve performance by aggregating physical file servers on the back end to balance capacity. When an upgrade is warranted, these NAS devices can also be consolidated, improving efficiency and storage utilization. In addition, the ‘care and feeding’ of these storage assets is enhanced with IT’s ability to move data around the infrastructure non-disruptively, to support maintenance and upgrades.

F5 has recently released the ARX2000 file virtualization appliance, an addition to the ARX product family acquired from Acopia in 2007. Like the other models in this line, the 2U ARX2000 supports NFS and CIFS protocols. But it provides 12 x GbE ports and supports up to 6000 concurrent users, representing a 2x performance increase over the smaller ARX1000 at roughly a 25% increase in cost. In addition, it offers redundant power supplies like the ARX4000. Concurrently, F5 also released their latest ARX software version which enhances support for CIFS environments with Windows 2008 DC and cluster support, NTLM v2, CIFS connection multiplexing and support for Windows 7.

In the ongoing effort to optimize storage infrastructures, IT is pursuing a number of objectives. One of these, storage tiering, has become a central strategy to match storage platforms with data requirements. It can reduce a company’s average cost per GB as well as support archiving to reduce the amount of data actually being backed up. Another goal is improving infrastructure flexibility so IT can stay ahead of growth requirements and increase storage utilization. 

File virtualization can help achieve all of these objectives, while simplifying management, without disruption to end users or applications. For many mid-sized organizations, the ARX2000 now brings these fundamental benefits of file virtualization to a new group of customers, cost effectively.

Eric Slack, Senior Analyst