HP StorageWorks 4000 Compaq RAID Array 4000 Overview - Page 3

Compaq RAID Array 4000 Overview 3 Introduction Note: This paper includes the terms fibre and fiber. Fibre is the international spelling that refers to the Fibre Channel Standards that include optical and copper media. Fiber refers to the optical media used to implement Fibre Channel. Applications central to enterprise operations demand remarkable storage capacity and scalable performance. Data marts, for example, may grow by as much as 400 percent per year. Email data and Lotus Notes data typically double each year. Databases and consolidated print and file applications also demand increasing storage capacity. With its inherent I/O and physical limitations, SCSI technology cannot support the scalability of storage capacity and I/O performance required by such applications. The expanding need for enterprise storage capacity and performance demands new storage solutions. After extensively studying possible alternatives, Compaq has determined that Fibre Channel is the best interconnect technology to propel growth of enterprise storage. As a result, Compaq actively participates in industry standardization efforts for Fibre Channel interconnect technology and is continuing to develop products incorporating that technology. The RA4000 is a primary storage solution incorporating Fibre Channel technology. The Fibre Channel architecture of this solution enables administrators to scale the storage capacity supported by a single, 8 PCI-slot server from gigabytes to more than 25.6 TB, while simultaneously scaling cache, processing power, and throughput of their storage subsystem. The RA4000 is an external array storage system which means the array controller is housed in the hard disk drive (HDD) instead of the server. This design enables clustering and NSPOF configurations that allows the enterprise to reduce its planned and unplanned downtime. Unplanned system downtime, which usually is caused by component failure, can be significantly reduced by using RAID and redundant components. Planned downtime, such as planned maintenance or system expansion, also can be reduced with the RA4000 solution. Features of the RA4000 include: • Online capacity expansion • Hot growth • Hot add (Novell) • PCI hot-plug support • The connectivity benefits of Fibre Channel technology1 The RA4000 solution provides enterprises with increased availability, scalability in both performance and capacity, and a tight integration with ProLiant servers. This leap in capacity, scalability, and availability results from innovations to proven Compaq hardware and software products and from total storage system integration. The RA4000 targets computing environments that require large, rapidly growing storage capacity and scalable I/O performance. This technology brief will explain the hardware components, hardware architecture, firmware functionality, software support, and performance expectations for the RA4000. 1 It is easier to add storage in rack configurations. ECG0205699A