NAS

Network Attached Storage

Network attached storage arose as a solution to the many problems associated with DAS (direct attached storage). Direct attached storage was the only way for enterprises to store centralized data at first, and as storage needs increased, there were problems with manageability. Adding capacity usually meant adding additional servers to your infrastructure, resulting in wasted capacity and increased downtime, as you add servers. Adding servers almost certainly meant increasing IT headcount as well, and file serving functions placed enormous strains on the CPU.

North American Systems can provide your business with the vendor-neutral advice you need when it comes to deciding which NAS head or filer might be best for your business, based on your performance and capacity requirements and budget restrictions. Some of our NAS manufacturers include:

BlueArc - high-performance NAS filer with hard-wired ASICs and the ability to scale capacity, reliability, and performance independently
IBM - designed for NAS & SAN convergence across vendors & platforms

NAS came along as a solution to direct attached storage. NAS gives you the ability to separately scale file storage and serving capabilities, without having to add expensive and difficult-to-manage servers. NAS also features:

easy installation and monitoring
fast data response time
multi-protocol access and support
very scalable
open standards-based access to data

NAS appliances allows concurrent access of both Unix and Windows clients, further reducing complexity and TCO (total cost of ownership), by not requiring the purchase of two different servers for different file systems. Many NAS appliances a variety of filesystems, including, NFS and SMB/CIFS files, as well and HTTP, FTP, and NDMP.

NAS also helps to reduce backup time, by keeping backup data off the network and streaming data from the disk volumes to the tape devices attached to the NAS devices, allowing for an interrupted, rather than start/stop cycle, if data being backup is being accessed as well.

In all, NAS is a great solution for small- and medium-business that seek to simplify and reduce the cost of their rising storage needs. NAS allows you to separate the purchase of storage capacity and/or bandwidth, without having to purchase additional servers.

NAS is best suited for file-based I/O applications, but struggle to offer the block I/O needs of large databases. For something more suited for file- and block I/O storage, take a look at SAN.

Want to know more? Want to set up an appointment to speak to one of our storage solution specialists, providing you with vendor-neutral advice on what's best for your business requirements? Email us today at sales@nasi.com.

:: North American Systems International ::
:: 2901 E 78^th Street :: Bloomington, MN 55425 ::
:: sales@nasi.com :: 800-927-7474 ::