NAS improves design performance - Trends - network attached storage

Communications News, March, 2002 by Ken Anderberg, Carren Bersch, Ray Peckham

SHORT TAKE

On telecom network community: "In New York, telecommunications companies put aside their everyday marketplace rivalry and came together as one to help restore communications ... (Congress) should complement these efforts by enacting legislation increasing the penalties for cyberattacks and acts of vandalism that impair the telecommunications infrastructure, and by giving law enforcement greater latitude to investigate and prosecute these attacks."

--Qwest Communications Chairman and CEO Joseph Nacchio.

Legerity, a communication integrated circuit (IC) company in Austin, TX, provides system solutions that accelerate the deployment of integrated voice and data networks. In fact, one-third of all voice or data calls pass through Legerity ICs.

When the number of users and average file sizes grew on the company's network, however, response times slowed noticeably. The firm's storage system, which had served the company well for years, needed an upgrade. Legerity chose to install two network attached storage (NAS) systems, which have reduced the time required to download files and run simulations.

With storage capacity at enterprises growing at more than 50% annually, many organizations like Legerity are choosing a NAS approach. According to Forrester Research, 22% of companies currently use NAS, while 46% expect to be using NAS in 2003.

Legerity information technology manager Edward Christians selected an Auspex NAS (www.auspex.com) with an architecture that splits file storage and network communications onto separate processors. "The two new NASs provide 120 engineers with performance that's hard to distinguish from local storage, while, at the same time, concentrating storage into a few locations, which saves money in upgrading and reduces maintenance time," Christians says.

"The fact that engineering is at the core of our business highlights the importance of data storage in our mission-critical engineering operations," Christians adds. "When our engineers are waiting for a file to be downloaded, or sitting on their hands because the file server is down, the heart of our business just comes to a halt. That's why, in every storage decision that has been made over the years, reliability is the number one factor and performance is a close second."

Legerity was a pioneer in the move toward NAS, initially investing in an Auspex Roadrunner system and a second similar one, which provided a substantial improvement in performance and storage capacity over the server-attached storage that was used up to that point. The company increased its output of leading-edge designs, however, and file size increased in response to the shrinking design rules, resulting in complaints from users about slow response times.

"We selected the Auspex NS2000 for several reasons," Christians says. "First, there was the reliability that I had seen with the Auspex data servers up to that point. Second, was the scalability of up to 18 TB with 36-GB drives, or up to 36 TB with 72-GB drives. Third, the architecture, which uses separate, dedicated processors for network and data storage tasks, provides exceptional throughput. Finally, it provides support for the common Internet file system, or CIFS, which makes support possible of Unix and Windows users from a single box.

"We instantly saw substantial improvements in response time," Christians adds. "Best of all, the processors on the new NAS are idle most of the time. That means we should be able to handle increased design activity for years without taking any kind of a performance hit."

Circle 264 for more information from Auspex Systems

TREND SETTER

Security surge

A survey of the nation's 2,000 largest companies
reveals that close to half will be integrating
security solutions in the next 12 months.

Secure sockets layer    47%
Antivirus               44%
VPN                     42%
Intrusion detection     42%
Firewall                41%

Note: Table made from bar graph.

Source: J. P. Morgan Securities