A Better Approach

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From their earliest years, children are warned of the dangers in the world. Indeed, for just about everyone, much of life is spent trying to remain safe.

The world of computing is not much different.

From the beginning, a huge amount of research and development time has been focused on making the land of technology a safer place to be. Now, XIOtech's Dimensional Storage Cluster (DSC) architecture defines a new standard in storage reliability by combining remarkably strong resilience with increased responsiveness and scalability.

DSC provides government with an innovative and cost-effective approach to vital business continuity and disaster recovery strategies.

Notable Node
The new Magnitude 3D, XIOtech's DSC storage solution, is built around the company's exclusive Dimensional Controller Nodes (DCNs) -- sophisticated storage controllers -- that can reside apart from the Magnitude 3D's drive bays in locations of the user's choice and up to 300 meters apart from each other.

Yet, the nodes appear to users as if they were a single system.

"This clustered architecture brings all the value of the original Magnitude, the single virtual pool of storage; dynamic provisioning; and the ability to create and expand, change and move virtual disks," said Rob Peglar, chief architect for XIOtech. "And now we've gained increased resilience, yet kept complexity to a minimum."

In fact, a primary goal in designing the Magnitude 3D was eliminating planned downtime traditionally required with storage provisioning changes.

"That's the value proposition we've had since day one," Peglar said. "We implement clustering without complexity. It's easy to use and manage, and that's the way it should be."

Each easy-to-manage controller node includes multiple layers of resilience. With four ports on each node, losing one could spell disaster with conventional storage equipment. But if a single Magnitude 3D node port fails, traffic from that port is instantly redirected to a different port in the same node.

Further, if a node should fail -- or if its power is lost due to blackout or other catastrophic accident -- the entire workload from that node is quickly and transparently shifted to any of the other surviving nodes in the cluster. Because agencies can locate nodes as much as 300 meters apart -- even in different buildings -- continuity of service is almost guaranteed.

With Magnitude 3D, XIOtech achieved an industry first by introducing distributed, clustered storage. Magnitude's modular design places system controllers in a physically separated, distributed cluster topology -- an approach entirely new to the storage industry -- eliminating any single point of failure. Moreover, the system is designed to quickly react to equipment malfunctions by automatically shifting data to another device when a potential failure is detected.

Magnitude 3D's clustered architecture is easily scalable by installing additional nodes or by increasing storage capacity of existing nodes. Clustering occurs without additional software on the server, and Magnitude works with Windows, Linux, NetWare or UNIX operating systems.

And there is more.

Vanishing Footprint
"The beauty of this solution is that the Magnitude 3D as well as the original Magnitude requires no server or host-side software to accomplish clustering," explained Peglar. "We call this zero server footprint. We don't require any additional software on any of the servers to take advantage of the intra-controller failure or cross-cluster fail-over."

Magnitude 3Ds offer simple, affordable scalability with new drives and nodes easily added to a cluster. Currently, each cluster of two nodes can support as much as 32 terabytes of data -- with an increase to 64 terabytes expected next year.

"We think this is the optimal model for scaling economically," said Peglar. "It's the ability to buy the components of a cluster that you can add dynamically and deploy just what you need, when you need it."

Along with the Magnitude 3D's exclusive clustering design comes replication capabilities that allow the 3D cluster to replicate and transparently link from one cluster to another across distance.

All Along the Active Watch Tower
Of course, the entire Magnitude value proposition is backed by XIOtech's innovative Active Watch program, which is embedded in each system and proactively watches over the service needs of the equipment. Active Watch even sends messages to XIOtech's technical support headquarters so that technical issues are addressed -- and replacement parts often dispatched -- even before users know there is a problem.

In all, XIOtech's Magnitude 3D delivers a complete storage solution that provides unique clustered architecture, easy scalability, high resiliency, innovative support, and best of all, peace of mind.