Data center of the enterprise is experiencing a radical revolution. The trend of virtualization and integration of server changes the design, construction and administration of the data center, Data storage and data administration are key elements in such change, and the change of data center makes the “uniform storage” more and more attractive. Uniform storage may solve many existing challenges for the data center. We think that a real uniform storage solution is not only a combination of loose couplings.

Rapidly developing business poses higher and higher requirements on the IT system of the enterprise and the existing data storage system is facing many challenges below:

1. Data is dispersed on many servers that the administration difficulty and data loss risk increase;
2. Expansibility is limited and the performance is comparatively low;
3. Structure of the server system is complicated and hard to expand, and the disk space administration is inflexible and the utilization ratio is low;
4. Data is dispersed that is inconvenient for centralized administration, data backup and disaster recovery.

Therefore, the enterprise wishes to establish a set of effective and flexible fundamental storage architecture that fulfills the current business demand and provides the future expansion with a solid foundation to guarantee the rapid development of its own business. Specifically speaking, the enterprise wishes that the new storage platform may meet following requirements:

1. It shall integrate many application systems to fulfill the current demand and the future expansion;
2. It shall meet the demand for different storage architectures of many applications;
3. It shall make the foundation for the data backup and disaster recovery.

Rich Cloud Technology solves the challenge faced by the enterprise by NetApp uniform storage solution.

Topographical structure of the uniform storage is as below:

NetApp uniform storage system supports NAS, FC/FCoE and iSCSI storage modes that may effectively fulfill the enterprise’s demand for the new application system in the future and protect the existing IT investment. The diversified and simple uniform storage platform provided by NetApp to the business system of the enterprise is excellent in performance; it may realize the access of many host platforms, operating systems, Cluster software and database software that it makes a solid foundation for the system and business expansion in the future.

NetApp uniform storage meets the demand of the different types of applications of the enterprise for the storage architecture that it saves the hardware investment and maintenance cost; the high stability of the NetApp storage device guarantees the safe and reliable operation of the enterprise system; outstanding processing capability of NetApp storage assist the business system in elevating the speed; while the convenient administration of NetApp storage reduces the employee training and maintenance cost as well as the initial investment of the enterprise.

Stable and effective IT information system provides the rapid growth of the enterprise with a strong guarantee. As an important part of the IT information system of the enterprise, NetApp data storage system plays an important role. As scale and complexity of the IT continuously increase, the uniform fundamental storage architecture designed by NetApp for the enterprise not only fulfills the existing business demand of the enterprise but also makes a solid foundation for the future expansion of the enterprise.

Case Study：
Blade Server, Storage, Network and Virtualization Construction of Large Manufacturing Enterprise