Windows Powered Network Attached Storage (NAS) can increase your company's profitability and performance. About 2 years ago, Microsoft created Windows Powered NAS, a version of Windows 2000 Server that's optimized for file serving and storage management. Microsoft's OEM partners use Windows Powered NAS to build state-of-the-art storage systems that easily integrate into existing Windows infrastructures. The goals of Windows Powered NAS systems include ease of installation (30 minutes or less), high availability through advanced technologies and clustering, Web-based remote management, and support for all file systems and clients (e.g., UNIX, Linux, Macintosh, Novell Netware).
Originally, vendors positioned NAS as an OS-independent device that provides additional storage. Their message was that the OS doesn't matter. However, in production use, IT administrators ran into compatibility troubles with third-party virus scanners, integration difficulties with Active Directory (AD), and other problems. In reality, the OS does matter. Because Windows Powered NAS is based on Win2K Server, it works with most third-party applications that support Win2K Server.
Companies are drawn to Windows Powered NAS systems because of their cost savings and other benefits. A wide range of Windows Powered NAS hardware solutions and software options let companies use Windows Powered NAS systems for many purposes, including file-server consolidation, archiving and backup, as a file server, and as a front end to a Storage Area Network (SAN).
The Benefits
One of the biggest benefits of using Windows Powered NAS is that it can save you money. Zane Adam, director of product management and marketing enterprise for Microsoft's Enterprise Storage Division, cites the following scenario as an example. Suppose that a 1000-user company has 100 general-purpose Windows NT servers. Companies typically have one IT administrator for every 20 production servers, so five administrators tend to those NT servers. If the company consolidates the 100 servers into three 2-node clusters of Windows Powered NAS devices (i.e., six Windows Powered NAS servers), the company can reduce the number of administrators from five to one and save as much as $300,000 per year.
Windows Powered NAS can save you money another way: General-purpose NT boxes require Client Access Licenses (CALs) for file services. Because Windows Powered NAS doesn't require CALs, you can eliminate that cost. Other benefits include support for out-of-the-box clustering, deep (down to the file level) quota services, and other features that typically aren't part of Win2K.
The current version of Windows Powered NAS is 2.0. This version optimizes Win2K features for reliable, high-performance file and data serving. In addition, Windows Powered NAS 2.0 includes Columbia Data Products' (CDP's) snapshot technology. This feature lets you take as many as 250 snapshots of the file system at user-configurable points in time. If needed, you can roll back data to previous points in time based on these snapshots. Windows Powered NAS 2.0 also includes a portion of Precise Software Solution's Precise/StorageCentral SRM software under the name of Storage Manager. (At press time, VERITAS Software signed a definitive agreement to acquire Precise.) Storage Manager provides realtime quotas on shares and directories, file blocking by extension, and a limited number of reports.
About 90 days after Windows Server 2003 ships, Microsoft will make the next version of Windows Powered NAS available to its partners for inclusion in their products. Windows Powered NAS 3.0 will take advantage of several Windows 2003 features and functions, including Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS), multipath I/O support, virtual disk service, and additional storage APIs.
The inclusion of VSS is notable. VSS includes an API that lets applications initiate a snapshot. With Windows Powered NAS 2.0 devices, you can take a snapshot of data, but the application isn't aware of the snapshot and thus can't help create clean snapshots. This situation is one of the reasons that Windows Powered NAS 2.0 prevents you from running applications such as Microsoft Exchange Server. Although the snapshot management system in Windows Powered NAS 2.0 is good enough for file serving, Microsoft felt that the snapshot system would need to be enhanced significantly to provide an adequate platform for hosting Exchange.
Windows Powered NAS 3.0 provides these enhancements. The VSS snapshot capability lets backup software, for example, make a request to the Windows Powered NAS 3.0 device to take a snapshot of the current mail store in Exchange. The Windows Powered NAS 3.0 device can then ask Exchange to flush its cache to create a clean environment before the device takes a snapshot of the mail store and gives it to the backup software.
As Windows Powered NAS solutions gain more functionality, applications will become increasingly storage aware. In the future, applications will be able to perform functions such as adding storage on the fly or reconfiguring the hardware to match the current storage requirements.
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