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JANUARY 2008 6
DELL PS SERIES ARCHITECTURE
6
incrEaSED aVaiLabiLity
Consolidated storage increases the need for availability in the storage infrastructure. The availability model
used by the PS Series Architecture essentially eliminates single points of failure and enables an array to
survive multiple, simultaneous failures:
• Each PS Series array is composed of redundant components — disks, controllers with mirrored
write-back caches, network interfaces, power supplies, and cooling fans.
• Hot swappable hardware components help reduce downtime.
• Faults are well isolated — loss of controllers does not cause loss of RAID protection. This works for all
supported RAID types.
• Disks are automatically congured with RAID and hot spares are reserved to help ensure that no data
goes unprotected.
• Hot sparing and data recovery require no user intervention.
• Volume replication can provide site-level disaster protection.
• Group member hardware upgrades can be done while a group is online; simply add the upgraded array
to the group.
• A member can be decommissioned while a group is online; simply remove the array from the group.
In addition, when upgrading to the latest technology, IT managers often find themselves writing off
relatively new equipment because it is not compatible with new acquisitions. The PS Series Architecture
eliminates this problem by ensuring that previously-purchased hardware and advanced technologies will
remain interoperable.
automatED managEmEnt
The PS Series Architecture is designed to simplify storage management in several ways. RAID configuration
and hot sparing is automated, and dynamic storage and network I/O load balancing occur as resources and
performance metrics change. No longer must administrators manually map application data to specific
physical devices, controllers and network ports.
For example, to create a volume from a group’s storage pool, an administrator supplies only the name and
size. The group members handle all details of storage allocation and load balancing.
Because a group is seen as a single entity, an administrator has a centralized view of the storage;
management tasks remain constant, regardless of scale. A group can be managed through several
built-in mechanisms, including SNMP, serial line, telnet and Web-based user interfaces. No external
management station or management software is required, essentially eliminating the need for additional
purchases and administrator training.
In addition, a group can alert responsible individuals to management activity or problems through log files,
SNMP traps, and e-mail notification methods. Finally, data and management access is protected with
authorization and authentication mechanisms.
aDVancED FEaturES
With traditional SANs, many advanced features are typically expensive add-ons. For example, conventional
SAN solutions require server licenses or additional fees for snapshot and replication capabilities. Solutions
developed with the PS Series Architecture include these features at no extra charge.