How does the Data Storage System differ from the Server?

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• Server Dell PowerEdge R760 - Intel Xeon Silver 4510 2.4-4.1Ghz 12 Cores

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If you are creating a serious IT architecture - in an adult way, then for you servers and SZD are a duet, not an "either/or" choice. They do not compete, but work together, complementing each other.

Basic functions of servers and data storage systems

• Data storage: Servers and SSDs can store large amounts of information: files, databases, web content, and other types.
• Access control: Servers and CDs provide access control to data. They define user access rights and regulate access levels to protect the confidentiality and security of information.
• Data processing: Servers and CPUs perform data processing tasks, including calculations and analytics, updating information, generating reports , and performing other operations.
• Data Distribution: Servers and SDMs are used to distribute data across different devices or system components. This allows for faster data access and more efficient use of hardware resources.
• Data backup and recovery: Servers and DDSs provide the means to back up data and restore it in the event of failures or loss of information. This is an important feature for ensuring data security and preservation.
• Data sharing: Servers and DBAs enable data sharing and modification across multiple users and devices, allowing employees to work more efficiently on the same data without losing consistency.
• Scalability: Servers and SSDs are scalable. This allows you to add/replace new components or devices, improve features and performance without replacing the device.
• Remote monitoring and management: Servers and SSDs provide monitoring and management capabilities for hardware resources. They allow administrators to track resource usage, performance, and system status, and provide tools (such as IPMI) for remote system configuration and management.

Differences between a server and a DDS

Physical architecture:

• A server is a complex general-purpose device; many components can be replaced and/or upgraded: processors (CPUs), memory (RAM), power supplies (PSUs), storage, RAID controllers, and expansion cards.
• The SSD is also built on these components, but with an emphasis on disk controllers and drives, and the CPU or RAM are usually not touched, the default ones are enough, and they are smaller and have lower performance. But the disk subsystem is significantly superior to many general-purpose servers.

Data storage:

• Servers can store information, but they are not specialized in this alone. They are typically used to run operating systems, virtual machines, applications, compute, store databases, etc., as well as for network access to this functionality by users and other devices.
• First of all, SSDs are capacious and fault-tolerant data storage. SSDs usually have more drives and high-performance disk controllers with memory. They are great for working with large amounts of data, have high performance and fault tolerance.

Access control:

• Servers can fully configure and control different levels of data access - depending on security settings and access rights.
• DDSs can also manage access, such as data encryption, access control, and authentication functions. But most often, everything is limited to different levels of data storage.

Data processing:

• Servers are great for data processing and complex (and not so) computing tasks. Many models support multiple CPUs and graphics accelerators (GPUs) in a single compact chassis.
• SSDs do not specialize in computing (although there are models for analytics). The built-in CPU is responsible for managing, transmitting, and distributing data. The main task of the SSD is to ensure efficient storage and access to information. Many models support a huge number of drives.

Data distribution:

• Servers can be configured to distribute data across multiple devices or nodes on a network. Servers can perform data processing operations based on distributed computing, in which data can be split and processed across different servers.
• SSDs can distribute data across their drives or different storage devices to provide high performance and availability, but their primary purpose is to store and access data, not to compute or actively distribute across the infrastructure.

Data backup and recovery:

• Servers can back up data and restore it in the event of a failure or data loss. But storing backups on the server itself is like hanging curtains next to a gas stove. It seems to protect the wall from grease, but if it catches fire, everything will burn. Therefore, a separate server is needed in another location.
• SSDs are better suited for backup and recovery because they provide greater data performance and make the IT system more reliable (a server goes down, but a SSD with a backup in another rack doesn't). At the same time, there is less chance of running out of storage for backup, because a SSD is more capacious, easier to scale, and has higher potential.

Scalability:

• Servers can be perfectly scaled vertically (i.e. within a single node) and horizontally by adding additional servers to distribute the load or increase performance.
• SFDs can also be scaled vertically, but mostly only by the number of drives. For example, a regular server can have 8 SFF drives, and a SHD can have 24 SFF. But the horizontal scaling is excellent, the SHD can support additional disk shelves (cheaper storage systems without an integrated CPU).

Connection and integration:

• Servers typically operate in a network of tens/hundreds/thousands of devices, where they provide services and resources to other users and devices. For fast data exchange over the network, servers have multiple high-speed network interfaces (1 Gbit/s Ethernet ports, for example).
• SSDs are often connected to servers or other devices directly, as if they were internal storage of the server(s) - such functionality is supported either by a RAID controller or a special HBA (Host Bus Adapter). Or they create a separate storage network (yes, also a SSD, more on that below), building this network using fast and reliable interfaces, such as SAS (rarely), Fibre Channel, InfiniBand or Ethernet (10-40-100G).

Data storage system in ensuring high availability

Data redundancy plays an important role in the high availability of IT infrastructure and applications. An important parameter is data redundancy. In essence, it is the duplication of important (or all) information. Such a solution allows you to prevent data loss or system downtime in the event of equipment failures or failures.

There are many ways to achieve high availability and data redundancy, most often they are combined:

• RAID technologies: Data storage almost always uses RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks) technology. Roughly speaking, this is the distribution of information between several disks. If one fails, the missing data is restored on the second one, without stopping work. Performance will drop for a while, but then it will recover - you just need to remember to replace the failed drive. There are many types of RAID (RAID 1, RAID 5, RAID 6, etc.). It is always a balance between reliability, usable space and speed of work. The administrator proceeds from the budget, equipment and tasks that need to be solved.
• Data replication: A DDS can automatically replicate data, i.e. create additional copies of data and place them on separate drives, devices, or remote storage. This provides redundancy and increased data availability, as if one instance of the data fails, it remains available on other devices.
• Clustering: With SZD, you can create clusters where multiple physical nodes are combined into a single storage. Clustering provides high availability because if one node in the cluster fails, the data can be accessed on other nodes. It also allows for load balancing and higher performance.
• Backup and recovery: SDDs support data backup, which allows you to create regular backups and store them on separate devices or in remote locations. In the event of data loss or corruption, they can be restored from backups, ensuring data protection and availability.
• Monitoring and Management: The health of the storage system can be monitored in real time to detect and prevent drive failures, and resources and settings can be managed for continuous operation and high data availability.

Optimize performance through effective server and storage coordination

• Load balancing: For example, distributing data across different disks or storage arrays, as well as load balancing techniques at the application or operating system level to evenly distribute storage requests. Balancing allows you to distribute the load evenly across hardware resources, eliminating bottlenecks and overloads.
• Network configuration: Configuring the network interfaces of the server and the storage is important for optimizing performance. Correctly configuring network parameters: buffer size, data transfer rate and latency. Everything to provide optimal speed and bandwidth of data transfer between the server and the storage.
• Monitoring and Optimization: Continuous monitoring of server and SDA performance allows you to identify bottlenecks and performance issues. Based on this data, you can make optimizations, make configuration changes, and upgrade plans to improve overall system performance. Now and in the future.
• Data caching: Using data caching on the server or in the SSD will speed up access to frequently used data and reduce the load on physical drives. Caching data at the operating system level, in the RAID controller cache, or in network devices can significantly increase performance.
• Protocol selection and configuration: Selecting and configuring communication protocols between the server and the storage device is not the least important. The choice is large: iSCSI, Fibre Channel, SMB and NFS (for NAS or SAN) and many others. Optimal protocol selection and configuration will allow you to get excellent performance and low data transfer latency.

In conclusion.

To achieve maximum performance and reliability of an IT system, servers and SDPs need to be well coordinated and integrated. This includes proper network configuration, selection of the best communication protocols, and load balancing between them.

How can we help?

For more detailed information about the DELL PowerEdge R760 server with DDR5 4800 or the DELL PowerEdge R750 server with DDR4 3200, you can visit our SERVER SOLUTIONS website . To find out the cost of the server, click on the DELL Server Configurator link .