Administrator Guide
Figure 46. FS8600 Architecture
Storage Center
The Storage Center provides the FS8600 scale-out NAS storage capacity; the FS8600 cannot be used as a standalone NAS
appliance. Storage Centers eliminate the need to have separate storage capacity for block and le storage. In addition, Storage
Center features, such as Dynamic Capacity and Data Progression, are automatically applied to NAS volumes.
SAN Network
The FS8600 shares a back-end infrastructure with the Storage Center. The SAN network connects the FS8600 to the Storage
Center and carries the block-level trac. The FS8600 communicates with the Storage Center using either the iSCSI or Fibre
Channel protocol, depending on which NAS appliance conguration you purchased.
Internal Network
The internal network is used for communication between NAS controllers. Each of the NAS controllers in the FluidFS cluster must
have access to all other NAS controllers in the FluidFS cluster to achieve the following goals:
• Provide connectivity for FluidFS cluster creation
• Act as a heartbeat mechanism to maintain high availability
• Enable internal data transfer between NAS controllers
• Enable cache mirroring between NAS controllers
• Enable balanced client distribution between NAS controllers
LAN/Client Network
The LAN/client network is used for client access to the SMB shares, NFS exports, and the FTP landing directory. It is also used by
the storage administrator to manage the FluidFS cluster. The FluidFS cluster is assigned one or more virtual IP addresses (client
VIPs) on the client network that allow clients to access the FluidFS cluster as a single entity. The client VIP also enables load
balancing between NAS controllers, and ensures failover in the event of a NAS controller failure.
How FS8x00 Scale-Out NAS Works
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