Administrator Guide

Callout Description
Redundant, hot-swappable controllers in NAS appliances. The controllers interface over a fabric to the PS
Series SAN storage.
5 NAS containers
Total amount of available storage space allocated for NAS shares
6 Storage space
Space that allocates data as needed through various structures (volumes, snapshots, thin provisioning, replicas,
containers, SMB/NFS, quotas, and local users and groups)
7 NAS reserve
Amount of available storage space allocated to the NAS cluster for storing internal data and user data. This
data includes:
• SMB/NFS protocols – SMB shares provide users a way to share les and data across a Windows network,
while NFS exports provide users a way of sharing les and data across UNIX networks. NFS clients can
only mount exported directories.
• Local users and groups – Individual accounts from which users can access SMB/NFS shares. These
accounts can be grouped so that they share the same access permissions.
• Quotas – Dene how storage space on a NAS container is allocated among users and groups of users.
• Security – Volume-level and group-level access controls for NAS containers.
About NAS Clusters
NAS clusters enable integration of le storage and block storage. A NAS cluster contains hardware with two redundant, hot-
swappable controllers and RAID protection for internal-use disks. The scalable Dell Fluid File System (FluidFS) enables PS Series
storage arrays to store NAS cluster and client data.
A NAS cluster is made up of NAS appliances, congured and networked as described in your NAS appliance hardware
documentation.
NOTE: Only an account with group administrator privileges can view or manage a NAS cluster.
When you congure a NAS cluster, you specify the network conguration for the service and the amount of storage pool space for
the NAS reserve. The NAS reserve is congured with Fluid FS and stores client data, in addition to NAS cluster metadata. The
NAS reserve is divided into NAS containers in which you create SMB shares and NFS exports to make storage space available to
users.
NOTE: Depending on the NAS appliance model, the NAS member might show its controllers organized under the
NAS member as a NAS controller pair.
Both NAS controllers in a NAS controller pair operate simultaneously. Each NAS controller has a high-performance cache that is
mirrored by its peer NAS controller. If one NAS controller in a NAS controller pair fails, the other NAS controller automatically
continues operation with no impact on availability.
Just as you can add arrays to a PS Series group to expand SAN capacity, you can start with one NAS appliance and then add
another NAS appliance to the NAS cluster as a NAS controller pair. Adding a second NAS controller pair increases NAS cluster
performance.
You can create multiple NAS containers in a NAS cluster. NAS containers have robust security mechanisms and support snapshots
and NDMP for data protection. On each NAS container, you can create multiple SMB shares and NFS exports. Clients with the
correct credentials can access the shares and exports.
Clients connect to NAS containers through a single NAS cluster IP address, providing a single-system view of the NAS storage
environment. For availability and performance, client connections are load balanced across the available NAS controllers.
Architecture Fundamentals
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