Fiber Channel will Provide Large-Scale Back-up Service - October 13, 2006

Technical and Network Services Coordinator Ryan Baldwin stands behind the server room rack of fiber channel equipment.

A six Terabyte (TB) data storage volume that can back up all the faculty and staff computers in the College of Education. Servers capable of transferring high-quality video data at 2 gigabits per second. Software that can change the configuration and size of storage volumes to accommodate changing server capacity needs.

Are these capabilities a techie's fevered fantasy? Actually, it's a fiber fantasy that, through the planning and work of the Learning Technology Center's Technical and Network Services (TNS) team, is quickly becoming a reality for the College of Education. A fiber channel system, recently installed in the College's server room, will allow the LTC to provide the next generation of network service, including a large capacity back-up service for faculty and staff, an e-portfolio service for students, and increased server speed and flexibility.

Fiber channel is a data communications method that employs fiber optic cable and special switches to move data up to four times faster than Ethernet cabling. TNS Coordinator Ryan Baldwin began planning a fiber channel system in 2004 as the College acquired more data servers, and when discussion of a faculty back-up system began. He knew that fiber channel would allow for more efficient use of server space by creating a storage area network, and would be the best way to implement a large scale back-up service.

A 32 port 4 gigabit fiber channel switch and two fiber channel Apple Xserve servers were purchased and installed in the College server room over the last two semesters, along with two Apple Xserve RAIDS, hard drive arrays that can each store up to six TB of data. Apple Xsan software sets the Xserve RAIDS into various configurations of volumes, allows all the servers to see all the Xserve RAIDS, and combines their throughput for faster performance. Ryan studied Xsan's use over several months to determine how best to deploy it with the new fiber channel equipment for optimal server room operations.

Ryan plans the Xserve RAID volume configurations.

The new system will allow the LTC to provide a six TB data back-up service for faculty and staff. All those who want the service will have special software installed on their computers that will specify which files to back up. Files to exclude, such as movies or music, are also set. Backups will be performed weekly, and only incremental changes will be copied after the first data backup. This service will be ready to offer as the fall 2006 semester begins. Although the LTC will make every effort to provide reliable back-up services, it should be stressed that there is no complete guarantee for data safety. Technical problems can occur, and older data may eventually be overwritten.

Initial plans for a student electronic portfolio service are also under development, and TNS staff are now working on compiling a directory of all current students who will be eligible to use the service. Students would be allotted a certain amount of server space, probably 1 GB, to store class projects and other large files they have created. The system will be password protected and employ encrypted file sharing.

In the future, additional connections to the fiber channel switches could provide other network improvements. For example, video data could move between the Multimedia Lab and the Media Lab's editing suites at twice the rate currently possible. Thus, the LTC's work to continually improve its technology infrastructure goes hand in hand with its efforts to develop new uses of that infrastructure to improve learning in the College of Education.

—Laurie Caldwell, LTC Communications Coordinator