What does a stove-pipe storage solution entail and what is a services-based approach?
We can start with the biggest niche solution, which is the Monolithic Storage Array, built by only a handful of storage vendors, but runs most of our mission critical storage applications. This type of storage has the highest availability because it can have multiple storage processors access one common cache image of the storage. The loss of one or two storage processors will not cause the loss of data or access to the data, since the remaining storage processors can still access the data image in a shared “global cache” (if it is properly configured for alternate pathing). These systems also have a robust menu of Business Continuance solutions, have the highest connectivity and cumulative I/O rates, and are the only systems that support mainframes. The next niche solution is the two processor modular storage array. It is generally referred to as modular since the controllers come in a drawer, and are configured with other drawers which contain disk drives. The main characteristic of
