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Next are devices geared more towa rd s

medium-sized wo r k groups or offices,t o

either replace existing network serve rs or

to augment their storage capabilities.T h e s e

d e vices have more sophisticated feature s ,

including backup softwa r e and re d u n d a n t

d rives and power supplies,to keep re l i a b i l i t y

h i g h .A good example here is the Snap

S e rver 4100 series and the DiskZerve r.

Typical prices are less than $10,000.T h e s e

d e vices have multiple drives inside,

sometimes a dozen or more.

F i n a l l y,t h e re are more enterp ri s e - l eve l

u n i t s ,f rom EMC and A u s p e x .These units

a r e usually ava i l a ble in 19-inch rack

mounts or come with their disk drive s

packaged in re f rigerator-sized cabinets.

T h e y also come with dozens of re m ova bl e

d rives and terabytes of storage,ava i l a ble to

supply hundreds of users with a va riety of

n e t work interfaces beyond simple 10BaseT

E t h e rn e t .Typical of these kinds of pro d u c t s

a r e the EMC CLARiiON IP4700 Seri e s ,

which have several redundant powe r

supplies for the disk drive arr a y as well as

multiple network attachments.P rices for

units in this class start at more than

$10,000 and can easily top ten times that

a m o u n t ,depending on feature s .

For links to product information and

additional Web re s o u rc e s ,go to

w w w. c d w. c o m / n a s .

Choosing the Right Application

Which storage product is right for yo u ?

We l l ,it depends on your application

re q u i re m e n t s .H e re is a quick guide.

— S e rver consolidation

If your file serve rs are scattered aro u n d

your enterp rise and difficult to track

d ow n ,perhaps it is time to consider some

kind of server consolidation.This means

running fewer serve rs with more storage

installed on each serve r.Consolidation will

reduce management headaches and

i n c rease availability and re l i a b i l i t y, a s

typically the replacement serve rs are more

c a p a ble in these are a s . Either NAS or

SANs make sense for this task.

— E n gi n e e ring applications

NAS devices are the most appro p riate for

high-demand engi n e e ring applications like

computer-aided design and softwa r e

d e ve l o p m e n t .These applications typically

c r eate and have to manage huge files,p l a c i n g

h e a vy demands on traditional file serve rs .

— H i g h - a va i l ability applications

C o n c e rns about application ava i l a b i l i t y

and re l i a b i l i t y, such as for mission-cri t i c a l

d e c i s i o n - s u p p o rt systems and customer

c a r e systems,a re increasing the need for

m o r e re l i a ble storage systems on serve rs .

Both NAS and SAN devices can help

h e r e,in terms of providing more than just

a redundant arr a y of disk drives and

including integrated management tools

and monitoring systems.These tools can

a l e rt you to any potential storage system

fa i l u r es and allow you to keep track of

when you will need to add additional

storage devices to accommodate yo u r

i n c reasing data needs.

— I n t e rn e t - related storage

If you are running Internet applications or

staffing up an Internet data center, t h e n

NAS devices are a good match for yo u .

Things such as Web serv i c e s ,Web caching,

e - c o m m e r ce store f ro n t s , and We b / d a t a b a s e

applications will re q u i re systems that can

be managed remotely via Web brow s e rs

and incorporate Web serve rs into their

o p e r a t i o n s .

—UNIX/NT file shari n g

If you have both UNIX and Wi n d ow s

u s e rs on your network and you want both

groups to be able to share files,N A S

d e vices are most appro p ri a t e. Some of the

p r oducts allow you to share files with

Macintosh users as we l l .

F e a t u res of NAS

A p p l i a n c e s

G i ven that NAS serve rs come in all shapes

and sizes,it isn’t too surp rising that these

d e vices have a va riety of features as we l l .

Perhaps the first thing to determine is

exactly how much disk space is ava i l a ble on

the unit itself.Ty p i c a l l y, each manu fa c t u re r

o f f e rs a range of different capacities,a n d

f r om this information you can generally get

an idea of where the unit is intended to be

used—20 to 30GB units are for smaller

wo r k gro u p s ,while units in the teraby t e

range such as A D I C ’s StorNext are

designed more for enterp rise netwo r k s .

Most NAS devices come without a

key b o a rd ,a mouse,or any monitor port s

(see Does a Key b o a r d Mat t e r ? , on page 7).

NAS devices can make use of existing

d i re c t o ries of user accounts from Wi n d ow s ,

N e t Wa r e,or UNIX serve rs ,or can be set

up to

j u s t

a u t h e n t i c a t e

u s e rs fro m

their own user

l i s t s .U s i n g

existing dire c t o ri e s

m a kes sense if yo u

h ave already set up

your netwo r k

access controls and

u s e rs and don’t want to maintain two

d i f f e r ent sets of lists.Authenticating users

f r om their own user lists is useful if the NAS

will be the first network server on yo u r

n e t work and you don’t want to set up a

separate NT or 2000 server just to maintain

user accounts and authentications.

Most of the products come with auto-

sensing 10/100Mbit Ethernet connections.

This makes it easy to move them from one

n e t work to another—you wo n ’t have to

wo rry about resetting your netwo r k

connection type.O t h e rs come with plug-in

a d a p t e rs for higher-speed netwo r k s ,

including Gigabit Ethern e t ,AT M ,a n d

FDDI connections.

Some of the pro d u c t s ,such as the Snap

S e rve r ,include support for Macintosh and

UNIX clients in addition to prov i d i n g

n e t work files for Wi n d ows users .This means

that if you have a mixed operating system

e nv i ro n m e n t ,these users can share files with

each other and there by collaborate with

their colleagues.Of cours e ,if you do intend

to use these devices in a mixe d

e nv i ro n m e n t ,you’ll need to make sure that

you have consistent softwa re ve rsions acro s s

all of your platform s ,such as Micro s o f t

Office 2000 (which can read and write files

b e t ween Wi n d o ws and Macintosh users ,

p rovided that the files are saved in the

c o rrect form a t ) .H e re is a sample setup

s c r een from the DiskZerver that shows all

the va rious protocols ava i l a bl e :

CDW 888-419-7207

N E T W O R K S T O R A G E • N E T W O R K S T O R A G E • N E T W O R K S T O R A G E • N E T W O R K

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