Nexsan DataBeast

Overview:

• Consolidate multiple storage systems into centrally managed storage;
• Simplify storage management with the latest tools including virtualization, thin provisioning and storage tiering without the need for special agents or capacity keys;
• Protect data and sites with built-in mirroring, remote replication and snapshots;
• Scale capacity to multiple petabytes or performance to 1000’s of MBs without service disruption;
• Support FC SAN and NAS with one, central solution;
• Increase energy efficiency with Nexsan's revolutionary AutoMAID™ energy-saving technology greatly reducing power and cooling costs

Nexsan DATABeast combines full-service storage management, scalability and mission-critical availability at a price point targeted for enterprises of all sizes. DATABeast consolidates large amounts of storage into a single, high-density, energy-efficient, easy-to-manage solution that can be economically expanded. The DATABeast’s data protection services create an environment where data and sites are protected against loss because they are easy to restore and quick to recover. If need be, operations can be migrated to another location. The DATABeast provides all necessary storage services, storage systems and infrastructure in a pre-assembled and pre-configured system with all redundant components installed and cabled. The DATABeast is designed to be rolled in, plugged in and set up rapidly. Simply attach it to your network and you are ready to configure your storage resources and deliver them to your applications.

Full-Service Storage Management for All Your Data

Organizations do not purchase storage according to some generic market categorization, but according to their specific IT and business needs. Understanding this, Nexsan has an intriguing proposition with its new DATABeast offering. Although priced at a point that would traditionally earmark it for just small to mid-size enterprises, the DATABeast offers a combination of management features like virtualization, thin provisioning and storage tiering as well as data protection features like snapshots, mirroring and replication that extends its suitability to organizations of all sizes that are looking for a straightforward, strong price/performance storage package that also includes tiered energy-saving functionality.

Energy-Saving SAS and SATA

The DATABeast is integrated with SASBoy and SATABeast RAID storage and offers the energy-saving benefits of Nexsan's revolutionary AutoMAID™ technology. AutoMAID™ (Automatic Massive Array of Idle Disks) allows Nexsan storage systems to place their disk drives into several energy-saving levels without compromising application performance. This powerful combination of performance and energy savings enables users to lower the cost of owning storage.

Advanced Features:

• Consolidate multiple Nexsan SAS and SATA storage systems into a single highly managed solution that can grow to several petabytes, addressing different applications and providing tiered storage;
   
• Create custom volumes that precisely address the needs of individual applications, eliminating storage waste;
   
• Use thin provisioning to maximize storage efficiency and eliminate manual volume expansion;
   
• Build large 16TB and 64TB volumes across multiple storage resources;
   
• Migrate data between old and new storage resources within the pool without service disruption;
   
• Grow capacity freely to multiple petabytes without any key restrictions;
   
• Integrate and use DATABeast features with pre-existing / legacy Nexsan storage systems;
   
• Provide block and file (NFS / CIFS) services from the same solution;
   
• Create multiple, persistent, incremental snapshots to recover deleted or inconsistent data to a previous point in time;
   
• Take advantage of Microsoft VSS (Virtual Shadow Service) to make data consistent snapshots;
   
• Use mirroring to maintain an exact real-time copy of production data and volumes locally or remotely across a DWDM or dedicated Fibre Channel connection;
   
• Provide disaster recovery by replicating some or all data and volumes to another DATABeast located at a remote site across an IP LAN, MAN or WAN;
   
• Ensure continuous access during software upgrades or component outage with active / active independent and redundant DATABeast Controller nodes and connectivity infrastructure;
   
• Eliminate down time with highly available storage systems equipped with redundant controllers, power supplies and connectivity;
   
• Reduce power consumption and cooling costs with AutoMAID (MAID 2.0);
   
• Add additional DATABeast controller pairs to double performance and responsiveness;
   
• Deploy DATABeast within hours with preinstalled and preconfigured racks;

IT Benefits:

• DATABeast combines full service storage management with mission critical availability for today’s data intensive environments. DATABeast combines the capacity of multiple storage systems into a single or multiple storage pools that can grow to petabytes. Create 1000’s of virtual volumes, large volumes of up to 64TB or thousands of small volumes. Use DATABeast thin provisioning to maximize storage efficiency and eliminate manual volume expansion.
   
• Incorporate legacy Nexsan storage systems in the DATABeast solution and rapidly deploy active LUNs and volumes without data migration. Provide a NAS interface to deliver file services to both Microsoft and Unix platforms from a single solution.
   
• DATABeast snapshots protect data using time based recovery points. DATABeast mirroring maintains an exact real-time copy of production data and volumes locally, across a DWDM or dedicated Fibre Channel connection. Use DATABeast data replication to provide disaster recovery to another DATABeast across any LAN, MAN or WAN.
   
• Ensure continuous operation with active / active independent and redundant DATABeast Controller nodes. DATABeast racks include redundant switches, cabling and PDUs which are pre-installed and configured to create a fully fault tolerant and redundant infrastructure. DATABeast storage systems are equipped with redundant RAID controllers and power supplies. Use any RAID level including RAID 6 to overcome drive failures.
   
• Scale from terabytes to petabytes in a single system. No storage capacity keys , no server nor application licenses required - DATABeast can scale to perform 100,000 I/Os per second and support millions to billions of files all within the same solution. Expand capacity by adding more DATABeast storage systems or more DATABeast expansion racks to your DATABeast architecture. You can scale performance by simply adding more DATABeast nodes.
   
• Administer and monitor all storage services for 1000's of volumes and petabytes of capacity from a single interface. Manage multiple DATABeast controller nodes, create volumes, and perform replication, view system reports and logs using DATABeast Management Server.
   
• Nexsan’s patented AutoMAID technology requires significantly less electricity for power and cooling when data is at rest or accessed less frequently. Nexsan AutoMAID can reduce power costsby as much as 52%.

Economic Benefits:

Data is growing exponentially in size and complexity, challenging organizations to improve how they store, manage and protect all their data without increasing budgets or staff. DATABeast overcomes these challenges by extending enterprise services to all digital assets, while reducing storage and management costs

• Reduce CAPEX by up to 50%
  DATABeast is a complete system including all required storage services. Most storage systems require that you pay for “extras” to perform snapshot backup to disk, replication to another site or mirroring across multiple storage systems, with DATABeast everything is integrated and included with no additional costs, "one solution, one price".
   
• Cut power and cooling costs by up to 60% without compromising application performance
  DATABeast uses up to 60% less power. Standard array based storage, whether idle or serving data, require large amounts of power and cooling. Nexsan’s patented AutoMAID technology significantly reduces power and cooling usage without compromising application performance.
   
• Conserves data center space by 2.5 times
  Over 2.5 times more capacity per rack than traditional 14 and 16 bay storage systems. With 42 drives in only 4U of rack space, Nexsan DATABeast is a leading storage consolidation solution for optimizing data center space.
   
• Cut the cost of adding capacity by up to 50%
  Most traditional storage solutions force you to pay for performance and licenses when all you’re adding is capacity. DataBeast scales capacity independently, no need to re-invest in management software, capacity, server or application licenses or unnecessary performance if all you need is more storage. Whether you add a few terabytes or petabytes, scale the DATABeast at the price of disk storage.
   
• Increase performance without unnecessary costs
  Most appliance based storage solutions have you invest in both performance and capacity, even if you only need more performance. DATABeast scales performance independently, providing you the flexibility to invest in performance without investing in un-needed capacity. Moreover, if you need more capacity, simply add more DATABeast storage systems to your DATABeast solution.
   
• Deploy and use within hours
  Building a SAN can take days or weeks: selecting and purchasing all the components, mounting systems, formatting storage, zoning ports, loading software, configuring failover and cabling racks. This takes time and resources not to mention the delays in dealing with interoperability issues and multiple service departments. DATABeast eliminates these issues and problems with a pre-mounted, cabled, configured, tested and proven SAN that is built to order. Roll in, plug in, and you’re ready to create and assign resources for production.

AutoMAID™ Energy Saving Technology:

Nexsan's evolutionary AutoMAID (Automatic Massive Array of Idle Disks) energy saving technology transparently places disk drives into an idle state to vastly reduce power and cooling costs. AutoMAID delivers the cost-effecdtive benefits of MAID 2.0 without the limitations of slow access times and special host software.

AutoMAID is granular to an individual drive or RAID set and offers multiple levels of energy savings. AutoMAID is user selectable enabling users to determine the right level of response time performance to energy savings. AutoMAID is the first MAID 2.0 architecture that supports VTL, full file format D2D and standard high performance RAID implementations.

Key Points

• AutoMAID reduces power and cooling costs
• Nexsan’s AutoMAID delivers the benefits of MAID without the limitations
• Available on Nexsan Assureon, SATABoy, SATABeast, and SATABeast Xi

AutoMAID Defined

• AutoMAID automatically reduces power consumption and heat generation on idle drives
• Trade-off between response times and power savings are user configurable
• AutoMAID behavior happens automatically and transparently to host – no software changes required
• Typical configuration settings:
  • Level 1: Heads Unloaded
    • 15% to 20% savings
    • Sub-second recovery time
  • Level 2: Heads Unloaded, slows to 4000 RPM
    • 35% to 45% savings
    • 15 second recovery time
  • Level 3: Stops spinning (sleep mode; powered on)
    • 60% to 70% savings
    • 30 to 45 second recovery time

AutoMAID Safety Features

• In maximum power saving mode, drive spin up is sequenced to reduce power surges
• Drives automatically wake up for periodic surface scan to ensure data integrity (user configurable)
• AutoMAID has no impact on performance if left on in data-intensive server applications
• Only two simple configuration settings – "timeout" and "power savings desired"

Technical Specifications:

Ready to Go

Installed and in production in just a few hours
DATABeast provides all storage services, hardware, storage systems and infrastructure needed to centrally store, protect and manage large amounts of data. DATABeast is delivered pre-assembled and pre-configured with all components already installed and cabled within the DATABeast “Ready to Go” rack. Simply attach it to your network and you are ready to configure your storage resources and deliver them to your applications.

DATABeast Includes:

• DATABeast Controllers with DATABeast Storage Services Software
• DATABeast Management Server(s)
• DATABeast FC Switches and IP Switches
• DATABeast Rack
• Multiple 42 drive / 4U DATABeast SATA Storage Systems
• Multiple 14 drive / 3U DATABeast SAS Storage Systems
• Complete cable harness for all components including all storage systems even if rack is not fully populated with all storage systems when ordered.

Configuration and Management:

The DATABeast management system is simple to learn and use, and offers a single-pane-of-glass view into your system. The DATABeast management system enables administration and monitoring of all storage services for petabytes of capacity and 1,000s of volumes, and can be accessed across any LAN, MAN or WAN. The user interface is simple, automated and intuitive minimizing the time it takes to perform administrative tasks.

The DATABeast management system consists of the DATABeast Management Server and the DATABeast Management Server Client (MSC) that can be installed on any Windows platform providing easy, remote access to the DATABeast Management Server. From a central interface, administrators can manage all DATABeast components and perform all required functions including:

• DATABeast Controllers
• Storage pools, volumes, data access, snapshots, replication and recovery
• DATABeast IP and FC infrastructure
• DATABeast Storage Systems

Solutions:

DATABeast Unique Advantages
 

Cost Correct Some solutions restrict features, hide costs, limit scalability and become complex over time. Estimating the short and long term total cost of ownership for these types of solutions is designed to be challenging and sometimes impossible. DATABeast features are all included, there are no hidden costs, scalability is not restricted and it’s simple to deploy, own and use. DATABeast is cost correct today and into the future. Equality Some storage system treat different information types as second or third class data limiting features and functions, charging more to manage, scale or protect. With DATABeast, all your data can be managed with the latest features and functions providing enterprise storage services cost effectively across all your data regardless of volume, diversity or value. Full Service Storage for All Your Data. Freedom Every data storage environment is different because no two businesses are exactly alike. DATABeast gives you the freedom to grow “how” you need to grow – performance, capacity, or volumes -enabling you to precisely align your storage with your short and long term needs. Future Proof The future is unpredictable. Data growth, service levels, new applications, data diversity, disaster recovery or data center capabilities will change, sometimes rapidly, leaving little time to react. With DATABeast, you don’t need to react – you’re ready.

Comprehensive Protection

Ensure data protection and business continuance
DATABeast data protection services create an environment where data and sites are protected against loss. DATABeast makes it fast and easy to restore information, recover a production site and migrate operations to another location.

Data Protection Local and Remote Snapshots Protect data using time based recovery points. Create multiple, persistent, incremental snapshots to recover deleted or inconsistent data to a previous point in time. Use read only or read/write snapshots for local or remote application testing or to validate local and remote disaster recovery processes and preparedness using “virtual real volumes”.   VSS Support and CLI Take advantage of Microsoft VSS (Virtual Shadow Service) to make data consistent snapshots of Exchange, SQL and SharePoint on DATABeast. DATABeast hardware provider coordinates VSS data quiesing technology with DATABeast snapshot features. Use DATABeast CLI to coordinate DATABeast snapshots with Linux/ Unix data consistency backup and recovery tools.   Synchronous Mirroring Maintain an exact real-time copy of production data and volumes locally or across a DWDM or dedicated fibre channel connection to a remote site. Provide for data protection in the event of physical system or site damage.   Asynchronous Replication Provide disaster recovery by replicating some or all data and volumes to another DATABeast located at a remote site across an IP LAN, MAN or WAN or use FC over FC compatible connections. Failover production services in the event of primary site outage to ensure business continuity and continuous data access.   Non-disruptive Backup Eliminate the backup window by using Snapshots instead of production volumes to backup to tape or disk. Stay in full production while performing full or differential backups to tape or VTLs.

Resilient Architecture
 

Continuous access to business critical data DATABeast is designed for mission critical applications and environments. DATABeast controllers form a redundant “Grid” where a node can take over production for another node. Everything within DATABeast is multi-connected thru independent fabrics. Data can be mirrored to and accessed from separate storage systems through separate nodes. Capacity or performance can be expanded while online to maintain QoS / SLA’s. Data is backed up and protected automatically using snapshots DATABeast Redundancy Dual power circuits Redundant Multi-path 4GB FC ports for FC servers Redundant Multi-path1GB IP ports for NAS clients Redundant DATABeast Controllers Dual management station Redundant IP and FC switches for HA Dual power supplies Dual controllers

Smart and Simple

Easy to Understa nd and Use – Administer and monitor
all storage services for 1000’s of volumes and petabytes of capacity from a single interface. Manage multiple DATABeast controller nodes, create volumes, snapshots, perform replication, view system reports and logs using DATABeast Management Server.

• Simple centralized management
• Intuitive unified GUI
• Standard SNMP alerts and MIB
• Helpful email alerts (User /Nexsan)
• Secure password protection
• Useful reporting tools (IOs, performance, capacity, error rates)

DATABeast provides the answer by providing enterprise-class data and storage services equally across the entire storage pool. DATABeast insures business continuance with included data and site protection technology. DATABeast hardware and software come pre-installed, pre-configured and are fully redundant providing for simple installation and long-term reliability. DATABeast continues to remain cost correct as you expand the number of attached applications and amount of stored data.

Expandable

Remain cost- correct as you expand beyond the first rack
Every data storage environment is different because no two businesses are exactly the same. DATABeast addresses this diversity with a unique architecture that scales the attributes you need without forcing you to invest in others you don’t need. DATABeast’s AutoMAID (MAID 2.0 technology) reduces power and cooling, ensuring long term datacenter cost savings. With DATABeast, your capital expenditure and cost of ownership per terabyte decrease as your data storage environment expands to meet your business needs.

Scale to any size. No storage capacity keys , no server nor application licenses - DATABeast can scale to perform 100,000 I/Os per second and support millions to billions of files all within the same solution. Scale performance by simply adding more nodes or increase capacity by adding more DATABeast storage systems

Documentation:

Nexsan DATABeast Datasheet (.PDF)