Product Features

Unified Storage

• SAN and NAS unified storage technologies

  Unifies SAN and NAS technologies to store both structured and unstructured data.

• A wide range of mainstream storage protocols

  Supports mainstream storage protocols such as iSCSI, Fibre Channel, NFS, CIFS, HTTP, and FTP.

• Support for hosts to access any LUN or file system using the front-end ports of any controller.

High Performance

The storage system offers a three-level performance acceleration technology, and delivers hierarchical performance for different applications. The three levels are:

1. State-of-the-art hardware

   The storage system is equipped with 64-bit multi-core processors, high-speed and large-capacity caches, and various high-speed interface modules. The superior hardware allows it to offer better storage performance than tradition storage systems.

2. SmartTier

   The SmartTier technology identifies hotspot data and periodically promotes them to high-performance storage medium for a performance boost. In addition, SmartTier supports SSD data caching, accelerating access to hotspot data.

3. Solid state drives (SSDs)

   The storage system adopts the operating system specially designed for all-flash arrays to fully utilize SSDs and provide peak performance for the most-demanding applications.

Flexible Scalability

The storage system has an outstanding scalability. It supports a wide range of the following disks and host interface modules in a high density:

• Disks:

  SAS disks, NL-SAS disks, and SSDs.

• Interface modules: For details, see Interface Module.

The storage system also supports the Scale-out technology to improve storage system performance as the number of controllers increases.

Proven Reliability

The storage system uses advanced technologies to offer protection measures, minimizing risks of failures and data loss.

• Protection against component failures

  The storage system components are in 1+1 redundancy and work in active-active mode. Normally, every two components are working simultaneously and share loads. If one component fails or goes offline, the other one takes over all loads and speeds up to compensate. The whole process is transparent to applications.

• RAID 2.0+ underlying virtualization

  The storage system employs innovative RAID 2.0+ underlying virtualization technology for automatic disk load balancing. If a disk encounters a fault, all the other disks in the same disk domain help construct the faulty disk's service data, achieving a 20-fold faster reconstruction speed than traditional RAID technology. In addition, RAID 2.0+ significantly reduces the possibility of multi-disk failure.

• Data protection in the event of a controller failure
  • Built-in backup battery units (BBUs) supply power to controllers in the event of unexpected power failures. BBUs enable cache data to be written to built-in disks of controllers to avoid data loss.
  • When a piece of software is faulty, the storage system will attempt to reboot. During the reboot, data is stored in the cache. If the reboot fails, data in the cache will be written into the built-in disks of controllers to avoid data loss.
  • If hardware of a controller is faulty, the storage system will use the memory mirroring technology to enable the other normal controller to take over the services to ensure data consistency.
• Bad sector repair

  In a storage system, the frequently occurred faults are bad sectors of disks. The storage system adopts the bad sector repair technology to proactively detect and repair bad sectors, reduce the disk failure rate by 50%, and prolong the service life of disks.

• Disk pre-copy

  The disk pre-copy technology enables the storage system to routinely check the hardware status. Once it detects that a disk has fault risks, it will enable data migration from the disk to another normal disk to prevent data loss.

• IP address failover

  The storage system adopts IP address failover technology. If a physical host port that implements the NAS protocol is damaged, the IP address assigned to that port automatically fails over to another functional port. Based on the correct networking, services are seamlessly failed over, preventing damage to a port from affecting services.

• Online disk diagnosis

  The online disk diagnosis feature is used to handle disk faults. If a disk fault occurs, the storage system takes the disk offline. Then, the online diagnosis module reads the S.M.A.R.T information about the disk and takes analysis, testing, and recovery measures. After the disk is recovered, the online diagnosis module enables the disk to rejoin the RAID, prolonging the lifecycle of the disk.

• Data coffer disk

  Data coffer disks consist of the first four disks of a storage system's controller enclosure and one disk built in each controller. They store three types of data: cache data requiring power failure protection, OceanStor OS system data, and system configuration information and logs.

High Availability

In routine maintenance:

The storage system uses Turbo Module, online capacity expansion, and disk roaming technologies to provide high availability for applications and non-disruptive system running during maintenance.

• Turbo Module enables controllers, fans, power modules, interface modules, BBUs, and disks to be hot-swappable, allowing online operations.
• Dynamic capacity expansion enables users to add disks to a disk domain in an online and easy manner.
• Disk roaming enables a storage system to automatically identify relocated disks and resume their services.

In data protection:

The storage system provides the following advanced data protection technologies and protocols to protect data integrity and continuous system running even when catastrophic disasters happen:

• HyperSnap generates multiple point-in-time images for the source logical unit number (LUN) or source file system data. The snapshot images can be used to recover data quickly when needed.
• HyperCopy backs up data among heterogeneous storage systems for data protection.
• HyperReplication backs up local data onto a remote storage system for disaster recovery.
• HyperClone preserves a real-time physical copy of a source LUN for the high availability of local data.
• HyperMirror backs up data in real time. If the source data becomes unavailable, applications can automatically use the data copy, ensuring data security and application continuity.
• HyperMetro synchronizes and replicates data between storage arrays, monitors service operating status, and performs failovers. In addition, it can switch over services and implement service load sharing when storage arrays are running.

The Network Data Management Protocol (NDMP) is also used for data backup and recovery.

In resource management:

The storage system employs the following resource application technologies for flexible resource management to protect customers' storage investments:

• SmartVirtualization enables a local storage system to centrally manage storage resources of heterogeneous storage systems, simplifying storage system management and reducing maintenance costs.
• SmartMigration migrates LUNs in or between storage systems, adjusting and allocating resources along with business development.
• SmartMulti-Tenant enables a storage system to provide different tenants with shared storage resources and to separate tenant access and management.

High System Security

Storage network security:

• Security of management channels

  The management operations from physical ports are controlled by the access authentication mechanism of the storage system, and only authorized users are allowed to manage the storage system.

• Anti-attack protection for protocols and ports

  The storage system provides only necessary ports to the external for system operations and maintenance. All the ports used are listed in the Communication Matrix. Dynamic listening ports are functioning in the proper scope, and no undisclosed interface exists.

• Service ports are isolated from management ports

  The Access Control List (ACL) mechanism is adopted to isolate Ethernet ports from internal heartbeat network ports, management network ports, and maintenance network ports.

Storage service security:

• Security of the operating system

  The storage system uses a dedicated operating system. Security of the operating system has been hardened before the storage system is delivered. The storage systems update security patches for their operating systems and open-source software based on site requirements, safeguarding users' data.

• Data storage encryption
  • The storage system supports intelligent data encryption. When the built-in encryption engine is enabled and an internal or external key manager is configured, data-at-rest encryption can be implemented. The data encryption feature encrypts user data on a storage system using the AES-256-XTS encryption algorithm, ensuring user data confidentiality, integrity, and availability.
  • The storage system supports self-encrypting drives (SEDs). The hardware circuits and internal data encrypt key of SEDs are used for data writing encryption and data reading decryption. To ensure the security of the data encrypt key, the storage system and the third-party key management server jointly provide a highly secure, reliable, and available key management solution.

    SEDs are only sold outside Chinese mainland.

• Data destruction

  When deleting unwanted data, the system erases the specified LUN to make the deleted data unable to be restored, preventing critical data leaks.

• File antivirus

  When the storage system runs a file system and shares the file system with clients through CIFS, third-party antivirus software can be used to trigger virus scanning and delete virus-infected files, improving storage system security.

Storage management security:

• Security of management and maintenance

  The operations of users can be allowed and denied. All management operations are logged by the system.

• Data integrity protection and tamper resistance

  The Write Once Read Many (WORM) feature allows users to set critical data to the read-only state, preventing unauthorized data change and deletion during a specified period of time.

In addition, trusted verification is enabled during the storage system startup to measure and verify BIOS > Grub > Euler Linux Kernel > Euler Linux > Storage application software level by level to prove integrity of loaded software at each level and to prevent software tampering. The storage system's power-on process will be verified to ensure that the system is not tampered with.

Virtualization, Intelligence, and Efficiency

The storage system absorbs the concept of "Virtualization, Intelligence, and Efficiency", which fits the up-to-date storage design idea and wins a leading position for the storage system. Compared with traditional storage systems, the series introduces the following technologies to provide higher storage space usage, faster data reconstruction, smarter performance allocation, and finer service quality control:

• RAID 2.0+ underlying virtualization

  Divides disk storage space into small-sized data blocks and uses the blocks to create RAID groups for fine-grained resource management. The technology realizes automatic load balancing, higher storage performance, better storage space utilization, faster disk reconstruction, and finer storage space management. RAID 2.0+ serves as a basis for a number of other advanced storage technologies.

• SmartTier (intelligent storage tiering)

  Enables a storage system to automatically analyze data access frequency per unit time and relocate data to disks of different performance levels based on the analysis result. High-performance disks store hot data, performance disks store warm data, and large-capacity disks store cold data. As a result, SmartTier optimizes overall performance and reduces costs per IOPS.

• SmartQoS (intelligent service quality control)

  Enables a storage system to categorize service data based on data characteristics (each category represents a type of application) and set a priority and performance objective for each category. In this way, resources are assigned to services based on priorities, ensuring the performance of mission-critical services that have the top priority.

• SmartThin (Thin provisioning)

  Allows on-demand allocation of storage space rather than the traditional method of pre-allocating all storage space at the initial stage. It is more efficient because the amount of resources used is close to the amount of resources allocated. In this way, the initial purchase cost and total cost of ownership are reduced.

• SmartCache (intelligent storage cache)

  Uses SSDs as cache resources to significantly promote system read performance when random, small I/Os with hot data require more read operations than write operations.

• Quick document incremental backup with Tivoli Storage Manager (TSM)

  When the storage system interworks with the TSM backup software to perform incremental file backup, the Snapdiff feature uses the snapshot mechanism to quickly obtain differential file information and identify changed files. Without the need for full scanning, only changed files are backed, greatly shortening backup time. The backup performance is not affected by the number of files, which greatly improves the backup efficiency.

Cost-Effectiveness and Ease-of-Use

The storage system delivers cost-effective performance through delicate fan speed control and deduplication and compression. It also provides a series of management and maintenance tools for easy use and maintenance.

• Cost-effectiveness
  • Delicate fan speed control

    Dynamically adjusts the fan speed based on the storage system's temperature. It lowers the noise and power consumption and cuts the operation cost.

  • Deduplication and compression

    Checks and processes duplicate data in disks based on deduplication, and minimizes space occupied by data based on compression to improve disk utilization.

• Ease-of-use
  • DeviceManager

    An HTML5-based tool providing the graphical user interface (GUI) allows you to easily manage storage systems through wizard-instructed operations.

  • Integrated management

    Implements convenient device management by integrating a management plug-in into mainstream management software such as VMware vCenter plug-in, Hyper-V System Center, vSphere API for Storage Awareness (VASA), vSphere Storage APIs for Array Integration (VAAI), and Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) Provider.

  • Tablet management

    Supports flexible storage system management on a tablet.

  • Various alarm notification methods

    Provides alarm notification by sound, indicator, short message service (SMS), and email.

  • Tool for an upgrade at your fingertips

    Provides online upgrade for controllers. The operation is easy without interrupting services.

Intelligent O&M

The eService intelligent cloud management system (eService for short) improves customers' O&M capabilities and takes planned maintenance actions to prevent potential risks.

Being authorized by customers, eService monitors device alarms in 24/7 mode. Whenever an alarm is detected, eService automatically notifies Huawei technical support center and creates service requests (SRs). Huawei service engineers will help customers solve problems in a timely manner.

• eService provides a self-service O&M system for customers, aiming for precise and customized information services.
• Based on HUAWEI CLOUD, the eService cloud system drives IT O&M activities via big data analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to identify faults in advance, reduce O&M difficulties, and improve O&M efficiency.

• Data is encrypted during the data transmission, ensuring secure data transmission. eService can access the customer's system only after being authorized by the customer.

• eService provides 24/7 secure, reliable, and proactive O&M services. SRs can be automatically created.

• Customers can use any PC to access eService at any time and any place to view device information.

eService enables the client system to work with the cloud system.

• eService client system:

Deployed on the customer side, the eService client system collects customer device alarms and sends them to the eService cloud system in a timely manner to implement remote maintenance functions, such as remote inspection and remote log collection.

• eService cloud system:

Deployed in Huawei technical support center, the eService cloud system receives device alarms from the client system in 24/7 mode, automatically notifies Huawei technical support personnel to handle the alarms in a timely manner, and supports automatic inspection and log collection for devices on the customer side.

For details, see the eService Intelligent Cloud Management System User Guide or log in to http://support.eservice.huawei.com to access and use eService.