IV.
Networking Equipment
GOLD:
Acopia Networks' ARX 1000 and 6000 switches
In an industry dominated by proprietary solutions, Lowell, MA
-
based Acopia Networks Inc.'s ARX 1000 and ARX 6000
switches create a unified storage pool with a g
lobal
namespace from disparate NAS devices. It's a less
-
expensive,
easier way to manage NAS, and the switches can also move
less
-
critical files onto tiered storage platforms.
With a single pool of Unix/Linux NFS and Microsoft CIFS files,
storage administ
rators can make changes to the composition
or location of storage resources in the pool without disrupting
users or changing client configurations.
The benefits of a single storage pool are huge: It becomes a no
-
brainer to establish policies
delivered thr
ough the in
-
band ARX switches for fine
-
grained file management, such as capacity
balancing and information lifecycle management (ILM). An administrator, for example, can set
policies to migrate files from primary to secondary storage based on file type, fi
le age, frequency
of access or other criteria.
"This is the first product to put NAS virtualization within an Ethernet switch," one judge wrote. "It
delivers lots of functionality, excellent performance and value."
Speaking of performance, any in
-
band de
vice that's making real
-
time decisions in an enterprise
-
class network needs to be fast and have exceptionally low latency. In a recent test conducted by
the Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG), Milford, MA, the Acopia switches achieved 600,000 file
operations
per second and 2.6GB/sec of throughput while incurring 0.5% insertion latency. "The
performance and scale of the Acopia products comfortably exceed the capabilities of any single
traditional NAS system," ESG reported.
Because they reside smack in the midd
le of the network, ARX switches can adjust to client
access or network conditions. For example, if users consistently access certain files across a
WAN link, a policy might automatically move those files to storage closer to users to minimize
WAN traffic a
nd improve access times. Another benefit of an in
-
band device is that there's no
need to install (and manage) agents on hosts or storage devices. And security poses no problem
for the switches because all client permissions are passed through to the partic
ular device where
the files reside.
In a world of rapidly proliferating NAS boxes, Acopia brings a sensible, elegant way to manage
NAS capacity and has the switch smarts to implement tiered storage at the network layer.
Acopia's ARX switches
manage NAS boxes to create
a virtual pool of storage.
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