Redundant K2 SAN description

The redundant K2 SAN can be an online SAN or a production SAN. The SAN has two Ethernet switches connected by Inter-Switch Links (ISLs) to support a redundant Ethernet fabric. The SAN also has redundant K2 Media Servers. The servers are configured to have identical roles. This provides redundancy for database, file system, iSCSI bridge, and FTP roles. One K2 RAID supports redundant Fibre Channel connections. Expansion chassis are optional for increased storage capacity.

K2 clients have a pair of redundant (teamed) Gigabit Ethernet ports for control and two Gigabit Ethernet ports (A and B) for media (iSCSI). Each port of the control team is connected to a different switch. The A media port goes to the A switch and the B media port goes to the B switch. The switches are configured with V-LANs to keep the control/FTP and media (iSCSI) traffic separate.

Each K2 Media Server has one 10 Gig connection for media (iSCSI), one GigE connection for control, one GigE connection for FTP, and one Fibre Channel connection to the RAID storage. All GigE connections and the 10 Gig connection on a server go to the same GigE switch. The server hosts a 10 Gig iSCSI interface card for the 10 Gig media connections and a Fibre Channel card for the RAID storage connection. The iSCSI interface card provides a bridge between iSCSI and Fibre Channel SCSI. The server also hosts software components that allow it to function in its roles, including media file system manager, media database server, and FTP server. Redundant K2 Media Servers are connected by a serial cable which supports the heartbeat signal required for automatic system recovery (failover) features.

The redundant K2 RAID chassis has redundant RAID controllers to support the Fibre Channel connections from the K2 Media Servers. The redundant K2 RAID chassis is also connected to the GigE control network. It also must be connected to the GigE control network.

On the redundant K2 RAID chassis there is one RAID 1 RANK (also know as LUN) for media file system metadata file and journal file that comes with one hot spare drive. The first set of drives consists of 3 blank slots. The remainder of the RAID storage is RAID 5 or RAID 6 for media. An online SAN has 2.5 inch 10K drives, with 24 drives per chassis. A production SAN has 3.5 inch 7.2K drives with 12 drives per chassis.

Optional 10 Gig NH K2 Media Servers are available to provide additional FTP bandwidth. If the optional NH server is used, all FTP traffic goes to this server, so neither K2 Media Server is cabled or configured for FTP.

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.

FTP/streaming traffic accesses the K2 SAN via the FTP GigE port on K2 Media Servers. FTP/streaming traffic does not go to K2 clients.