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Access "NAS heads: Gatekeepers for enterprise storage"

Published: 19 Oct 2012
Exploring the most innovative midrange systems

This article is part of the Vol. 4 No. 1 March 2005 issue of Exploring the most innovative midrange systems

NAS heads Click here for a comparison table about NAS heads (PDF). Managing files has become a big headache for enterprises. How should the files be stored, and on what tier of disk? And are there other considerations, such as legal regulations pertaining to the disposition of the files? Consolidating disparate NAS filers behind a NAS appliance gateway offers companies an effective way to scale file systems and manage back-end storage arrays, but it also creates its own set of problems. As NAS gateways move off the array and into the network, organizations must start to plan how best to use them. A NAS head appears in the network in one of two ways. In the traditional sense, it ships as part of a larger storage subsystem with its own set of disk, such as Network Appliance (NetApp) Inc.'s FAS980, and as a standalone appliance, such as NetApp's gFiler that functions as a gateway to connect storage arrays of different tiers and even different vendors. These gateway products generally use Fibre Channel (FC) to connect to back-end arrays. Using one central NAS ... Access >>>

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