This brings up another benefit: Since a virtualized file services architecture can sub-divide into multiple virtual file servers, each file server to be replaced by NAS can be virtualized into that environment. The users see no change in the way they interact with the system. As a result, migration to the new, more power-efficient virtualized environment is quick and seamless. In contrast, if consolidation of file servers requires redirection of users to a single new mount point, it will create user confusion, take time, and be very disruptive to the environment.
Virtualized NAS clusters enable the move of file systems to new, faster nodes or it enables the movement of an old file system to less expensive and higher capacity SATA drives. Power requirements are further driven down by storing more data in less space, yet that data is still easily accessible in case it is needed again.
A component of any good virtualized NAS cluster is a global file system. The global file system brings all the components together by allowing specific file servers, file systems, or folders within the file systems to be moved to different nodes or types of disk without user disruption.
Cost savings
As an example of how these power requirements deliver cost savings in a data center, look at a typical data center with 1,000 users accessing 24 servers storing 6 Tbytes of actual used storage on 20 Tbytes of total capacity.
The virtualized NAS Cluster can deliver the same performance with 4 nodes and 10 Tbytes of capacity supporting the same number of users. The space used by the 24 servers is over 48U, the space utilization of the virtualized NAS cluster is 8U, and power utilization drops from 25,600 watts to 1,680 watts, a savings of 93 percent. Other savings result from eliminating free excess capacity, as well as enabling a more flexible time-responsive environment. For example, storage can be added automatically and resources can be reallocated in seconds.
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