HUSTserver:Implementation for Reliable and High-Performance Network Attached Storage System

Network attached storage (NAS) with the properties of improved scalability, simplified management, low cost and balanced price performance, is desirable for high performance storage systems applied to extensive areas. Unfortunately, it also has some disadvantages such as increased network workload, and inconvenience in disaster recovery. To overcome these disadvantages, we propose a channel bonding technique and provide hot backup functions in the designed NAS system, named HUSTserver. Channel bonding means merging multiple Ethernet channels into integrated one, and that the data packets can be transferred through any available network channels in a parallel mode. The hot backup function provides automatic data mirroring among servers. In this paper, we first describe the whole system prototype from a software and hardware architecture view. Then, multiple Ethernet and hot backup technologies that distinguish HUSTserver from others are discussed in detail. The findings presented demonstrate that network bandwidth can be scaled by the use of multiple commodity networks. Dual parallel channels of commodity 100 Mbps Ethernet are both necessary and sufficient to support the data rates of multiple concurrent file transfers. And the hot backup function introduced in our system provides high data accessibility.

Performance analysis of an iSCSI-based unified storage network

In this paper, we introduced a novel storage architecture 'Unified Storage Network', which merges NAC( Network Attached Channel) and SAN( Storage Area Network) , and provides the file I/O services as NAS devices and provides the block I/O services as SAN. To overcome the drawbacks from FC, we employ iSCSI to implement the USN( Unified Storage Network) . To evaluate whether iSCSI is more suitable for implementing the USN, we analyze iSCSI protocol and compare it with FC protocol from several components of a network protocol which impact the performance of the network. From the analysis and comparison, we can conclude that the iSCSI is more suitable for implementing the storage network than the FC under condition of the wide-area network. At last, we designed two groups of experiments carefully.

Security System in United Storage Network and Its Implementation

With development of networked storage and its applications, united storage network (USN) combined with network attached storage (NAS) and storage area network (SAN) has emerged. It has such advantages as high performance, low cost, good connectivity, etc. However the security issue has been complicated because USN responds to block I/O and file I/O requests simultaneously. In this paper, a security system module is developed to prevent many types of attacks against USN based on NAS head. The module not only uses effective authentication to prevent unauthorized access to the system data, but also checks the data integrity. Experimental results show that the security module can not only resist remote attacks and attacks from those who has physical access to the USN, but can also be seamlessly integrated into underlying file systems, with little influence on their performance.

Research on the Security of the United Storage Network Based on NAS

A multi-user view file system (MUVFS) and a security scheme are developed to improve the security of the united storage network (USN) that integrates a network attached storage (NAS) and a storage area network (SAN). The MUVFS offers a storage volume view for each authorized user who can access only the data in his own storage volume, the security scheme enables all users to encrypt and decrypt the data of their own storage view at client-side, and the USN server needs only to check the users’ identities and the data’s integrity. Experiments were performed to compare the sequential read, write and read/write rates of NFS+MUVFS+secure_module with those of NFS. The results indicate that the security of the USN is improved greatly with little influence on the system performance when the MUVFS and the security scheme are integrated into it.

A New Scheme of Integrating NAS with SAN

This paper reviewed two types of network storage technique: NAS and SAN. After comparing and analyzing, it concluded that the ultimate realization of network storage will be in the eventual convergence of NAS and SAN architectures. Currently, all the integration methods are based on the architecture level. This paper presented a device level integration scheme based on IXP1200 network processor. The device can be used as an NAS file server or an SAN’s storage node. Furthermore, it can be used as a bridge to connect NAS and SAN, and then be shared by their clients.