Hardware Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 11
OneFS
Nick Kirsch
Isilon
11.1
Motivation :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 135
11.2
Design/Architecture :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 136
11.2.1
Isilon Node ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 137
11.3
Network :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 138
11.3.1
Back-End Network :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 138
11.3.2
Front-End Network :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 138
11.3.3
Complete Cluster View :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 139
11.4
OneFS Software Overview ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 139
11.4.1
Operating System ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 139
11.4.2
File System Structure ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 139
11.4.3
Data Layout ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 141
11.5
Data Protection :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 142
11.5.1 Power Loss ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 142
11.5.2 Scalable Rebuild ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 142
11.5.3 Virtual Hot Spare ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 143
11.5.4 N + M Data Protection ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 143
11.6
Dynamic Scale/Scale on Demand :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 145
11.6.1
Performance and Capacity :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 145
11.7
Conclusion :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 147
11.1 Motivation
In 2000, seeing the challenges with traditional storage architectures, and
the pace at which file-based data was increasing, the founders of Isilon be-
gan work on a revolutionary new storage architecture|the OneFS Operating
System. The fundamental difference of EMC Isilon storage is that it uses in-
telligent software to scale data across vast quantities of commodity hardware,
enabling explosive growth in performance and capacity. The three layers of
the traditional storage model|le system, volume manager, and RAID|have
evolved over time to suit the needs of small-scale storage architectures, but
introduce significant complexity and are not well adapted to petabyte-scale
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