ISILON SYSTEMS
The Clustered Storage Revolution
Defining the Paradigm Shift to Clustered Storage
An Isilon Systems Technical Whitepaper
September 2006
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Table of Contents
1
Introduction.......................................................................................................................................... 3
2 Three Macro Trends Driving the Clustered Storage Revolution................................................. 4
3 A New Category of Storage: Clustered Storage ............................................................................ 7
4 Clustered Storage Defined................................................................................................................. 9
5
Isilon Systems: The Leader in Clustered Storage ....................................................................... 11
6 Conclusion ......................................................................................................................................... 16
Figures
Price history of hard disk products versus year of product history
6
Categories of Storage
7
2-way simple failover clustering
7
Namespace Aggregation
7
Differences between the types of Clustered Storage in how data is controlled
8
Scalable Distributed File System
9
Differences in types of Clustered Storage
10
Isilon IQ: OneFS
11
Isilon IQ: Network Architecture
12
Average Disk Rebuild Time
13
Isilon IQ: Linear Scalability Throughput
14
Isilon IQ: Infiniband Backend
15
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1
Introduction
“Clustered Storage is becoming pervasive and is a major paradigm shift from previous generations of
storage products, much like when CDs made records obsolete.”
~ Tony Asaro, Enterprise Strategy Group, Oct 2005
In 1962, Thomas Kuhn published a groundbreaking book entitled The Structure of Scientific
Revolutions. He argued that progress of science is not gradual but a kin