The Compaq Enterprise
Net-work Storage Architecture (ENSA) is a new approach to stor
age in the enterprise, one in which servers can acquire storage
through a unique utility gateway. It can be widely deployed and
managed symbiotically with computing systems and applications. ENSA
provides reliable means to manage storage, including the ability
to easily modify storage configurations, and to dynamically and
automatically allocate storage on an as-needed basis to distributed
application servers. The architecture also includes ways to quickly
and easily restore or backup application data with minimal interruption
of application activity. In addition to its own management capabilities,
ENSA can readily be integrated with general enterprise computing
management frameworks and tools.
ENSA
in knowledge stores
ENSA addresses key business issues facing the IT industry today:
- Knowledge
is an important competitive advantage for any business. The drive
to grow knowledge stores and improve storage hardware economics
leads to an explosive growth in storage and computing resources.
- As overall
business success depends increasingly on applications and their
underlying data, continuous, reliable and rapid access becomes
critical and mandates guaranteed online access and quick restores
of lost data.
- Storage management
is becoming increasingly complex. Acquisition, retention and efficient
use of valuable IT professionals is critical.
- Rapid technology
shifts offer competitive advantage opportunities for early adopters,
but require investment protection and non-disruptive integration
of new products.
ENSA addresses
these issues by transforming storage into a utility service that
is accessed reliably and transparently by users, and professionally
managed with tools and technology behind the scenes. It is inclusive,
and envisions an enterprise where storage area networks, network-attached
storage and direct attached storage play important roles in meeting
business requirements.
It offers significant
benefits over other implementations. Many applications require storage
with various performance attributes. ENSA provides performance attributes
specific to each application. Conventional configurations offer
centralized storage, but may not provide a single repository. Only
ENSA offers the range of configuration, performance tuning, monitoring
and data protection capabilities needed to unify the enterprise
storage
environment.
The ENSA concept
of a storage web allows a single storage repository to extend to
any location in the world within a framework of open standards by
partnering with the best solutions providers in the industry. This
unified worldwide storage entity simplifies data management benefits
of a single storage resource.
Creating
convenience
MANAGING GROWTH: Enables economies of scale to lower acquisition
costs. Easily scaled storage capacity is allocated to heterogeneous
systems from a single common pool on an as-needed basis.
LEVERAGING RAPID TECHNOLOGY CHANGE: New products and technologies
can quickly be incorporated into the storage infrastructure with
minimal disruption. ENSA builds upon and leverages today's storage
products, thus preserving investments in current storage and management
technology.
DATA MANAGEMENT AND PROTECTION: Allows small teams to design,
manage and grow the storage pool for the entire enterprise. ENSA
provides automated alternatives for many of today's management activities.
This is accomplished by disk virtualization. The key to making this
work is dual virtualization, where physical disks are consolidated
into a large pool from which disks are created for use by applications.
ENSA adopts a primary data protection mechanism of instantaneous
replication, significantly reducing the cost of recovering damaged
data. Rapid restores, unobtrusive to applications, are now possible.
ENSURING BUSINESS CONTINUANCE: Supports continuous operation
by providing prompt, reliable and uninterrupted access to data.
ENSA allows for automatic, online data duplication over unlimited
distances worldwide.
BALANCING SECURITY AND INFORMATION ACCESS: Professional storage
managers control access and ensure proper security and data protection.
PROVIDING RAPID RESPONSE TO USER DEMANDS: Allows resources
to be reallocated quickly, providing rapid support for new applications,
changing performance requirements and new servers.
ENSA is unique
because it provides the storage utility at all levels of cost, availability
and performance that the customer requires-from inexpensive workgroup
file and print to highly available databases. Physical centralization
of storage or investments in large storage increments are unnecessary.
Instead, storage is delivered dynamically at the availability and
performance levels required by applications.
Through commonality
of components and software tools throughout the enterprise, ENSA
also enables the investments in storage to be migrated among applications,
availability levels, performance requirements and other needs dictated
by the user. Total cost of ownership is minimized by logically centralizing
configuration, management and backup tasks for all storage rather
than consolidating physical storage centralized in a datacenter.