Qlogic SANbox 6142 Supplementary Manual

Brand: Qlogic

Model: SANbox 6142

Type: Supplementary Manual

C A S E S T U D Y

Nashville Wire

Products

QLogic Data Mirroring Protects

Critical Data Cost-Effectively

Challenge

Improve data center resiliency to a storage failure by

mirroring data at two locations without incurring the

high cost of traditional data protection approaches.

Solution

Two QLogic

SANbox

6142 Intelligent Storage Routers

support mirrored storage between two locations; the

QLogic router at the primary location is connected using

Fibre Channel to an IBM

System Storage DS4300 SAN;

that router also connects via a high-speed FCIP link to a

second identical QLogic router located 14 miles away,

and has a Fibre Channel connection to an IBM DS4100

disk storage system.

Result

With two QLogic SANbox 6142 Intelligent Storage

Routers used to mirror data from one location to another,

equipment prices are 80 percent below other storage

synchronization products. In the event of storage failure,

data can be accessed over a wide-area link, maintaining

access to critical business applications.

“When we began discussions with Nashville Wire, it was clear they

needed a trusted advisor to help them arrive at the right solution and

stay within budget,” said Nick DeMaria, Solutions Architect for QLogic

Corporation. “Steve Moore, our local Systems Engineer and I brought the

experience and knowledge of Best Practices for SAN deployment to the

table to share with them and together we managed to hit upon the ideal

way to tackle their technology challenge.”

Nashville Wire Products, a leading manufacturer of wire decking, dividers,

and accessories for storage racks, has 11 ofﬁces throughout Tennessee, all

accessing a central data center at a co-location facility. But the company’s

system architecture had single points of failure. “Because our whole company

relies on the one data center, we wanted to improve the system’s resiliency to

storage system failures. Without access to critical applications, such as our

ERP system, our business would slow to a crawl,” said Megan Meier, Nashville

Wire’s network administrator.

To avoid this possibility, the IT staff decided to set up a mirrored storage

system at the company’s headquarters. The mirrored system would be

maintained in sync with the primary storage system, so no data would be

lost in the case of a failure. “In the event of storage system failure, we could

take the secondary storage system to the co-location site and restart the

applications. The interruption to our business would be minimal,” Meier

explained.

Price point makes the difference as Nashville

Wire considers data backup system

When Meier researched the options available to mirror storage across a wide

area network, she experienced sticker shock. “We received recommendations

for dedicated storage synchronization products that cost up to $30,000 per

location. That was just way beyond our budget,” explained Meier.

Meier knew of QLogic’s reputation for high-quality, low-cost routers, and

she sought the company out. She found that a pair of QLogic 6142 SANbox

Intelligent Storage Routers costs just one sixth that of other approaches.

“We were really excited because at that price point, we could implement

the storage mirroring project,” Meier said. “We would never have been able

to afford to mirror storage across two locations without the use of QLogic

routers—it would simply have been cost-prohibitive.”

Corporate Headquarters QLogic Corporation 26650 Aliso Viejo Parkway Aliso Viejo, CA 92656 949.389.6000 www.qlogic.com

Europe Headquarters QLogic (UK) LTD. Surrey Technology Centre 40 Occam Road Guildford Surrey GU2 7YG UK +44 (0)1483 295825

C A S E S T U D Y

Mirrored storage protects business-critical applications

The IT staff quickly installed one QLogic 6142 SANbox Intelligent

Storage Router at the co-location facility, where it connects via Fibre

Channel links to an IBM System Storage DS4300 SAN. The QLogic

router also interfaces to a 30 Mbps wide-area link that leads to a

second QLogic 6142 SANbox Intelligent Storage Router located at the

company’s headquarters. There, an IBM DS4100 SAN is connected

via Fibre Channel to the second QLogic router. Using Fibre Channel

over IP (FCIP), the two routers send identical storage commands to

each storage system, maintaining mirrored systems.

With identical data storage at two locations, data used by Nashville

Wire’s business-critical applications is protected. That includes Sage

MAS 500, the key ERP suite from Sage Software, which handles

ﬁnancial reporting, manufacturing, inventory management, and

shipping and receiving functions.

“The protection provided is signiﬁcant because the QLogic routers

maintain identical copies of all our data, updated in real time,”

Meier said. “If something happens to our SAN at the co-location

facility, all we have to do is pull the storage system out of the rack

at headquarters, move it to the co-location site, and conﬁgure the

servers to use it—and off we go.”

Simple installation of QLogic routers saves staff time

The QLogic routers can be set up in a few hours with simple steps,

according to Meier. Installation wizards guided Meier through the

router conﬁguration. “Monitoring, conﬁguring, and managing were

made easy, using wizard-based installation tools,” she reported.

QLogic routers safeguard data and allow Nashville Wire to focus

on business

With data mirroring set up, the Nashville Wire IT staff can now roll

out more applications, and be conﬁdent that the data is protected.

“We are in the process of deploying additional ERP applications.

And down the line, we are going to deploy applications allowing

our customers to view the status of their orders,” Meier said. “All

of these are critical to our business and therefore require that we

safeguard the underlying data.”

“Setting up mirrored storage systems with two routers can be

a huge project if approached in the traditional manner,” Meier

continued. “However, by approaching it as we did with QLogic, we

were able to install the system in a couple of days, saving staff time

for other projects.”

QLogic SANbox 6142 Intelligent Storage Routers provide low-cost

data back up

The QLogic SANbox 6142 Intelligent Storage Router provides a cost-

effective way to maintain mirrored storage systems at primary and

secondary locations, interconnected by a wide-area IP link. Used in

pairs, the QLogic routers can also provide Gigabit Ethernet connectivity

between Fibre Channel SANs, facilitating disaster recovery and other

distance applications.

Nashville Wire Products

QLogic routers help protect critical

application data

As seen in this illustration, QLogic routers

enable low-cost data mirroring between

two locations. One QLogic SANbox 6142

Intelligent Storage Router connects via

Fibre Channel to an IBM System Storage

DS4300 SAN at the primary facility (left).

Using FCIP, that router sends the same

I/O commands over a WAN connection to

a second QLogic SANbox 6142 Intelligent

Storage Router located at the company’s

headquarters. An IBM DS4100 SAN

is connected to that router via a Fibre

Channel connection (right).

© 2007 QLogic Corporation. All rights reserved. QLogic, the QLogic Logo, the Powered by QLogic Logo, and SANbox are registered trademarks or trademarks of QLogic Corporation. All other brands and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks

of their respective owners. Information supplied by QLogic is believed to be accurate and reliable. QLogic Corporation assumes no responsibility for any errors in this brochure. QLogic Corporation reserves the right, without notice, to makes changes in

product design or speciﬁcations.

SN0130957-00 Rev A 5/07

Qlogic SANbox 6142 Supplementary Manual

Qlogic SANbox 6142 Supplementary Manual

Qlogic SANbox 6142 Supplementary Manual

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