Administrator Guide

Term Description
Backup power supplies Each NAS controller contains a backup power supply that provides backup battery power in the
event of a power failure.
FluidFS cluster One to six FS8600 scale-out NAS appliances configured as a FluidFS cluster.
Storage Center Up to eight Storage Centers that provide the NAS storage capacity.
Storage Manager Multisystem management software and user interface required for managing the FluidFS cluster and
Storage Centers(s).
FS8600 Scale-out NAS A fully configured, highly available, and scalable FluidFS cluster, providing NAS (SMB and NFS)
services. The cluster comprises NAS appliances, storage provided by one or more Storage Centers
and Storage Manager.
FTP File Transport Protocol, used to transfer files to and from the FluidFS cluster.
NAS pool The sum of all storage provided by up to eight Storage Centers minus space reserved for internal
system use.
NAS volume A virtualized volumes that consumes storage space in the NAS pool. Administrators can create SMB
shares and NFS exports on a NAS volume and share them with authorized users.
LAN or client network The network through which clients access SMB shares or NFS exports. This network is also used by
the storage administrator to manage the FluidFS cluster.
Client VIP One or more virtual IP addresses that clients use to access SMB shares and NFS exports hosted by
the FluidFS cluster.
SMB Share A directory in a NAS volume that is shared on the network using the Server Message Block (SMB)
protocol.
NFS export A directory in a NAS volume that is shared on the network using the Network File System (NFS)
protocol.
Network Data Management
Protocol (NDMP)
Protocol used for NDMP backup and restore operations.
Replication Copies NAS volume data between two FluidFS clusters or between two NAS volumes.
Replication partners FluidFS clusters participating in a replication operation.
Snapshot An image of all the NAS volume data frozen as read-only at a specific point in time.
Key Features of the Scale-Out NAS
The following table summarizes key features of scale-out NAS.
Feature
Description
Shared back-end infrastructure The Storage Center SAN and scale-out NAS leverage the same virtualized disk pool.
File management Storage Center SAN and scale-out NAS management and reporting using Storage Manager.
High-performance, scale-out NAS Support for a single namespace spanning up to four NAS appliances (eight NAS controllers).
Capacity scaling Ability to scale a single namespace up to 4-PB capacity with up to eight Storage Centers.
Connectivity options Offers 1GbE and 10GbE copper and optical options for connectivity to the client network.
Highly available and active-active
design
Redundant, hot-swappable NAS controllers in each NAS appliance. Both NAS controllers in a NAS
appliance process I/O.
Multitenancy Multitenancy enables a single physical FluidFS cluster to be connected to several separated
environments and manage each environment individually.
Automatic load balancing Automatic balancing of client connections across network ports and NAS controllers, as well as
back-end I/O across Storage Center volumes.
Multiprotocol support Support for SMB (on Windows), NFS (on UNIX and Linux), and FTP/FTPS protocols with ability
to share user data across all protocols.
324 FluidFS Administration