Redundant Nearline K2 SAN description

The purpose of a Nearline SAN is to provide a large pool of storage to which files can be saved. The Nearline system is considered an “offline” system, which means the system stores files only, such GXF files or MXF files, with no ability to record or play those files directly on the system. This is because the Nearline system has no media database to support “movies” or “clips”, such as there is on an “online” K2 SAN. However, the files on a Nearline system can be readily available to an online K2 system via FTP transfer.

The redundant Nearline SAN has two Ethernet switches, connected by Inter-Switch Links (ISLs) to support a redundant Ethernet fabric.

The SAN also has two 10 Gig NH K2 Media Servers. The NH server for a Nearline system has two ports for Fibre Channel connections. NH servers do not have media (iSCSI) ports.

A NH server on a Nearline system is configured with roles of FTP server and Media file system server. On a redundant system these roles are identical on both servers and provide redundancy as follows:

• FTP server — Both servers are active in this role simultaneously. To provide FTP redundancy in the event of a server failure, your facility’s FTP system must be able to access alternate FTP servers.
• Media file system server — Only one server is active at any one time in this role, and the media file system provides redundancy. If a fault occurs on the active server, one of the other servers automatically takes over as the active media file system server.

In the Nearline system no K2 Media Servers take the role of iSCSI bridge or media database server.

No K2 clients or any other generic client are part of the Nearline system.

7.2K SAS drives provide the media file storage on a Nearline system. While these drives do not provide the high bandwidth of the drives required by an online K2 SAN, they offer larger capacity and lower cost. This makes these drives ideal for the Nearline SAN.

The primary RAID chassis has two controllers. The primary RAID chassis is connected via Fibre Channel to the NH server. These Fibre Channel connections access the disks simultaneously for redundancy and increased bandwidth. Each controller in the RAID chassis must also be connected to the GigE control network.

There must be one primary RAID chassis and there may be optional Expansion chassis. Primary chassis and Expansion chassis contain twelve 3.5 inch drives. All disks in both primary and optional Expansion chassis are bound as RAID 6.

The K2Config control point PC is connected to the GigE control network. The K2Config application runs on this PC for configuring the SAN. The SiteConfig application also runs on this PC.