IBM Scale Out Network Attached Storage Concepts

IBM® Scale Out Network Attached Storage (IBM SONAS) is a Scale Out NAS offering designed to manage vast repositories of information in enterprise environments requiring very large capacities, high levels of performance, and high availability.

SONAS provides a range of reliable, scalable storage solutions for a variety of storage requirements. These capabilities are achieved by using network access protocols such as NFS, CIFS, HTTP, and FTP.

Utilizing built-in RAID technologies, all data is well protected with options to add additional protection through mirroring, replication, snapshots, and backup. These storage systems are also characterized by simple management interfaces that make installation, administration, and troubleshooting uncomplicated and straightforward.

In this IBM Redbooks® publication, we discuss the marketplace requirements that led to the SONAS stand-alone storage system. We introduce storage architectures and file systems.
We then introduce the reader to SONAS and describe the hardware and software that make up the SONAS appliance.