LeftHand’s SAN/iQ software stripes and mirrors multiple copies of data across the storage modules in a cluster using patented SAN/iQ Network RAID capability, completely eliminating any single point of failure. You’ll have continuous data availability in the event of a network, disk, controller, or entire storage module failure. No other vendor offers this capability, which eliminates the risk of storing all your data on a single box. SAN/iQ Network RAID can also be integrated into environments where application servers are clustered, enabling true, seamless, geo-cluster solutions that provide both application and storage clustering across geographies.
SAN /iQ manages the redundancy at the volume level, thus for each volume created, an administrator selects the SAN/iQ Network RAID level. Network RAID can be set to create one, two, or three copies of data. In the case of a single copy of data, the data is striped across the storage modules. In Network RAID 10 configurations, the data is both striped and mirrored either two or three times. The figure below demonstrates the block level write-scheme for each Network RAID level in a cluster of four storage modules. The ability to choose Network RAID by volume optimizes storage utilization, using additional storage only for data that warrants additional protection. |
