KERNSAFE - iSCSI SAN Software and Storage Virtualization

KernSafe adds support for Network Diskless Boot in iStorage Server 2.30

February 22, 2011 - KernSafe Technologies Inc., A world leader in security storage and iSCSI solutions, announced today a release of iStorage Server version 2.30 with support for network diskless boot feature.

Network diskless boot is a process that runs the operating system on the remote server that is running iStorage server instead of running it locally. You can also use a local hard drive for SWAP files or crash dumps. That can provide enormous benefit for virtualization computing servers environments in relation to RAID arrays. To boot a machine without any hard drive you will need to have a HBA adapter installed. HBA (Host Bus Adapter) connects a host system (the computer) to other network and storage devices.

A diskless boot can be supported by a workstation or a personal computer without any disk drives, which employs network booting to load its operating system from a server. Advantages of diskless nodes can include lower production cost, lower running costs, quieter operation, and manageability advantages (for example, centrally-managed software installation).

Diskless nodes process data, thus using their own CPU and RAM to run software, but do not store data persistently—that task is handed off to a server.

You can also use diskless nodes to connect to central disk storage which will make much more efficient use of hard drive. This can cut storage costs, freeing up capital to invest in more reliable, modern storage technologies, such as RAID arrays which support redundant operation, and storage area networks which allow hot-adding of storage without any interruption. Further, it means that losses of disk drives to mechanical or electrical failure—which are statistically highly probable events over a timeframe of years, with a large number of disks involved—are often both less likely to happen (because there are typically less disk drives that can fail) and less likely to cause interruption (because they would likely be part of RAID arrays).

Main Benefits of network diskless boot:

• Easier upgrade and update for operating system
• Reducing risk and complexity
• Incising reliability of system
• Reducing power and cooling consumption
• More convenient data management
• Reducing noise

iStorage Server is a hardware-independent, and do not require an additional hardware. Quickly create an IP SAN in minutes using hardware you already have. iStorage Server takes space on a windows file system and turns it into an iSCSI target. You can now let any computer on an Ethernet network use this iSCSI storage with benefits of cost-effective and scalable.

KernSafe has devoted to research storage solution for more than eight  years, and which always trying their best to make and meet a variety of user needs, from now on, iStorage Server has been released more than 2 years, and been sold more than 2000 copies of commercial versions. iStorage Server now supports natively x86 and x64, as well as Itanium machines.

Typical applications & clients:

• Files, disks and CD-ROMs (images) centrally management and sharing to other Windows, Linux, Solaris, Netware and MACOS computers.
• VMWare ESX Server
• Citrix XenServer
• Microsoft Hyper-v.
• Windows 2003, Windows 2008 Clustering and more.

iStorage Server Key Features:

• Provides extremely fast ISCSI RAM disk drives for temporary data storing on network.
• Provides security disks for each client, Option, each client use own disk which use it’s CHAP password encrypted.
• Provides a built-in iSCSI CD/DVD-ROM emulator which exports existing DVD-ROM ISO images to mounted iSCSI DVD-ROM drives on the clients.
• Provides a built-in iSCSI virtual disk emulator. It exports existing disk images to mounted iSCSI disk drives on the clients.
• Provides a network-bridged method. It exports an existing partition, disk, CD/DVD-ROM to clients as a virtual iSCSI drive.
• Provides a RAID-1 (Mirror) device, it allows you create two image files for mirror backup, image file can be local file or remote iSCSI device.
• Provides Generic SCSI device, it allows you map generic SCSI devices to your initiator, such as USB Storage, Tape and Optical Scanner.
• Provides read and write caching, which use memory on server as cache to improve data transfers speed and response time.
• Provides CHAP user authentication mechanism.
• Provides client's IP address authentication mechanism with additional security.
• Active Directory-integrated local and remote management console.
• Provides iSCSI Target portal address management, which allows you to make iStorage Server to be able to work behind the firewall.
• No restrictions on disk capacity, total number of hard disk installed, number of CPUs or CPU cores, and Ethernet ports or the amount of RAM.
• Supports CDP/Snapshots, is compatible with Microsoft VSS (Volume Shadow Copy Services) snapshot, volume cloning and incremental backups with unlimited number of rollback points.
• Supports High-Availability implementation of technology.
• Supports network diskless boot.
• Supports multiple connections per iSCSI session, which allows you to create Round Robin, Weighted Paths and so on.
• Native supports for x86, x64 and Itanium machines.
• Supports Thin provisioning.
• Supports 64-bit LBA, providing more than 2TB of disk space.
• Supports sparse image file on NTFS file system. It allows the size of disk image file only depend on its content used.
• Supports any features on file system, such as in NTFS, a image file can be encrypted, compressed, or shared with other computers.
• Supports a variety of popular CD/DVD image formats, such as: .iso, .bin, .mdf, .cdi, .b5i, .nrg, .ccd, .sub, .img, .raw.
• Supports a variety of partition table format, such as the MBR, GPT.
• Fully Supports SCSI-2 Reserve / Release.
• Fully Supports SCSI-3 Persistent Reserve.
• Fully conforms to the latest iSCSI Standard 1.0 (former Draft 20).