Qlogic SANbox 6142 Manual

CASE STUDY
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.”

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CASE STUDY
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).
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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