17 - Large and High-Performance Examples

Abstract

This chapter deals with some large and high-performance storage networks and builds. Storage-intensive environments require a large amount of storage to support data mining, data warehousing, imaging, video, archiving, backup, and other applications, requiring extensive amounts of data. Storage-intensive environments do not have to have large input/output (I/O) rates and throughput volumes, particularly if the data is accessed infrequently. I/O-intensive environments can have large, medium, or small amounts of storage with a large number of I/Os (transactions) processed, large volume (bandwidth), or a combination. An example of an I/O-intensive application is On-Line Transaction Processing (OLTP). Applications can be I/O intensive, storage intensive, or a combination. These applications can have a small number of servers or a large number of servers. Storage networks are of various sizes, using different storage interfaces to meet diverse needs. Storage networks can be built as one large network or divided up into multiple smaller networks. Large and high-performance storage networks are used to support many different environments and applications including Storage- and I/O-intensive processing; grid and high-performance computing; life sciences, geophysical, forecasting, simulations, Vertical applications such as aerospace, automobile, oil and gas, forecasting; video, image serving, and large-scale records retention; and centralized backup and data protection.