Commercial Networked Storage Systems Support

Since the PostPath Server™ operates at the files system interface level, the nature of the storage whether it be DAS, NAS, or SAN is transparent to the PostPath Server™. This enables more or less any type of storage to be used based on internal requirements and budget.

Commercial pre-packaged networked storage systems that can commonly be used with the PostPath Server™ include NetApp, EMC, and Hitachi. There are a number of ways in which the capabilities of commercial networked storage products can be exploited when using the PostPath Server™:

Reliability and local clustering - Multiple levels of storage redundancy can be used. By attaching an active/passive server pair to highly redundant storage, a very reliable system can be constructed - if one server fails, the other server takes over, and the reliability of the storage is ensured by its internal redundancy. Examples include NetApp's Clustered Failover solution and EMC's Celerra Clustered Network Server (i.e. EMC's CNS, possibly in combination with EMC's DMX or CLARiiON).
Remote office replication - By configuring packaged networked storage appropriately, data that is written to a store by a server in a remote office can also be asynchronously written to a mirrored store that is located in a central NOC. With this kind of configuration, backups can be made at the NOC, without needing to reach down to the remote office for backup. Also, by placing a standby PostPath Server™ at the NOC, if the server at the remote office goes offline the standby server can immediately be brought up to provide continued service. NetApp SnapMirror in asynchronous mode, and EMC's SRDF/A ("Symmetrix Remote Data Facility/Asynchronous"), are examples of tools that can maintain this kind of replication.
Storage virtualization/storage sharing - A single storage cluster, or virtualized storage pool, can support multiple PostPath servers. Storage within the storage cluster or pool can be used by whichever PostPath Server™ needs it.
Snapshotting - Many of the most popular storage products automatically take regular snapshots of the content of storage. The PostPath Backup and Restore Tool can browse such snapshots and, if desired, restore lost content from a snapshot directly to the live store of a running PostPath Server™. No special features are required for the snapshot, the PostPath Tool simply copies back the appropriate files to effect a restore. Similarly, in the event of a server collapse, data can be reverted to an earlier snapshot to restore a previous state.
Compliance and archiving - Never-delete solutions like NetApp LockVault and/or SnapLock allow review of file-system (and hence PostPath Server™) state at any time in the past. Customer may also consider EMC's CAS/Centera Compliance Edition type solutions. Alternatively, however, note that message archiving can also be achieved through duplication of messages by the PostPath Server™ (unlike Exchangeï¿½) to a standards-based SMTP receiver, which can itself permanently archive the messages.

Note also that the storage efficiency of the PostPath Server™ can be exploited with packaged storage systems, just as it can for direct attached storage, by allowing the customer to purchase lower performance storage units at much reduced cost-per-gigabyte while still enjoying excellent system performance thanks to the PostPath Server™ software. Similarly, packaged storage can be mounted on the PostPath Server™ using NFS and Ethernet for installs that, with Exchange™, would require a low latency Fibre-Channel connection.

Clustered Storage:
Mirrored Data with Clustered Pre-packaged Storage and Server Failover