Novell Doc: OES 2 SP3: Storage and File Services Overview

1.5 Scalability

Your storage solution must be able to grow with your business.

Storage Requirement	Novell OES Solution
Rapid access to data: The ability to rapidly mount and access data regardless of file, directory, or volume size.	NSS allows you to aggregate and manage large amounts of storage without any degradation in performance. NSS can recognize and store massive files (up to 8 terabytes) and large numbers of them (up to 8 trillion). Up to one million files can be open concurrently (server RAM permitting). You can mount up to 255 NSS volumes concurrently on a given server, plus the system volume. Volumes can be mounted with a minimum amount of RAM. It takes only seconds to mount a volume of any size. For information, see the OES 2 SP3: NSS File System Administration Guide for Linux.
Scalable storage structures: The ability to expand storage solutions with minimal service interruptions.	You can create and expand NSS pools and volumes while the servers are up and running and the volumes are mounted and online. NSS supports up to 8 terabytes per volume. You can add devices to a SAN while the SAN and servers are up and running and the volumes are mounted and online. For clusters, you can add servers incrementally to increase processing power or expand resources without system interruption. For information, see the OES 2 SP3: Novell Cluster Services 1.8.8 Administration Guide for Linux.
Modifiable storage structures: The ability to easily modify storage solutions to reorganize data and to optimize and expand capacity.	NSS Distributed File Services supports moving and splitting volumes to reorganize data and to optimize and expand capacity. For information, see the OES 2 SP3: Novell Distributed File Services Administration Guide for Linux.

Storage Requirement

Novell OES Solution

Rapid access to data: The ability to rapidly mount and access data regardless of file, directory, or volume size.

NSS allows you to aggregate and manage large amounts of storage without any degradation in performance. NSS can recognize and store massive files (up to 8 terabytes) and large numbers of them (up to 8 trillion). Up to one million files can be open concurrently (server RAM permitting).

You can mount up to 255 NSS volumes concurrently on a given server, plus the system volume.

Volumes can be mounted with a minimum amount of RAM. It takes only seconds to mount a volume of any size.

For information, see the OES 2 SP3: NSS File System Administration Guide for Linux.

Scalable storage structures: The ability to expand storage solutions with minimal service interruptions.

You can create and expand NSS pools and volumes while the servers are up and running and the volumes are mounted and online. NSS supports up to 8 terabytes per volume.

You can add devices to a SAN while the SAN and servers are up and running and the volumes are mounted and online.

For clusters, you can add servers incrementally to increase processing power or expand resources without system interruption.

For information, see the OES 2 SP3: Novell Cluster Services 1.8.8 Administration Guide for Linux.

Modifiable storage structures: The ability to easily modify storage solutions to reorganize data and to optimize and expand capacity.

NSS Distributed File Services supports moving and splitting volumes to reorganize data and to optimize and expand capacity.

For information, see the OES 2 SP3: Novell Distributed File Services Administration Guide for Linux.