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FAULT TOLERANT NAS BLUEPRINT
SYMANTEC FILE STORE WITH VMWARE VERSION
Executive Summary
In today’s globally-connected information village, the volume of unstructured data is exploding.
Unstructured data include user-generated content, collaborative data stores, visually-intense
data objects, home directories, project directories, web sites, and more. File storage is becoming
the ubiquitous “watering hole” in the 21st century. Effectively and efficiently housing the vast and
dramatically growing collection of files, especially unstructured data, is a serious financial,
privacy, security and technological challenge.
Research has shown that more than 90% of data stored in the enterprise is unstructured. The
rapid growth of this data and its unquestioned importance demands deploying unstructured
storage solutions that are highly scalable, very reliable, and offer fast access. The value of
information cannot be underestimated. Keeping all information accessible to the business and
extra-organizational processes is pre-requisite to success. These factors explain why careful
management of unstructured data is vital and worthy of executive attention
 Importance: Unstructured information is essential to creating business value, whether
making critical decisions, deeply connecting with customers, understanding emerging trends,
spotting nascent dangers, visualizing the scope and depth of issues, designing new products,
managing organizations or conducting any other important business activities.
 Growth: The rapid growth of unstructured data requires deploying platform that dynamically
scales so data is available instantly, it is continuously and affordably protected, and is kept
safe from viruses and other contamination.
 Security and Protection: The increased importance of data translates into requirements for
keeping data storage safe from unauthorized access and protected against loss or lack of
accessibility.
This architecture guide provides a roadmap for creating durable system architecture for proper
storage and management of file data. It enables organizations to meet its business goals for years
and decades into the future even in the face of changes in technology, capacity requirements,
products, protocols and business direction. This blueprint defines the typical configuration of
hardware and software, the use cases and operational procedures involved in building and
operating this file storage system architecture.

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INTRODUCTION
This blueprint outlines the general system design for storage of unstructured data in the modern
enterprise based on the integration of multiple technologies from NEC and 3rd parties: NEC servers and
SAN storage, the VMware virtualization platform, and Symantec’s File Store, which is a storage and data
management software product.
The blueprint defines the typical configuration of hardware and software, including use cases and their
required operational procedures.
This blue print focuses on the specific systems architecture, the configuration and the components
required for building a strong, durable, resilient storage management solution. Other solutions and
architectures related to disaster recovery or data protection, application availability, data archiving etc.
are described in separate blue prints. This blue print specifically does not address those solutions or
requirements.
DEFINITION OF TERMS:
The following terms are used in this blue print:
 Production site(s): The fully equipped location(s) where the applications normally run to serve
clients.
 Disaster recovery site(s): Backup site(s) which hosts storage for data protection or servers and
storage for running applications after failures or during maintenance work in the production
site(s).
 Fail-over, fail-back: The process of failing over the service of an application from one system or
site to another, typically between a production site and a DR site, for the purpose of system
maintenance, or in order to continue to serve clients after a site, application or other failure. Fail-
back is specifically the operation of “failing over a service back to the original and preferred
configuration” after a fail-over.
 De-duplication (“dedup”): Several techniques used to reduce the volume of data that is stored or
that is transferred between two points. In storage it typically involves identifying copies of

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documents or disk blocks, storing only one real instance, and have all other “occurrences” be a
reference to the single stored instance.
 Cloud, cloud infrastructure: In these blue prints the focus is on private data centers or
infrastructure hosting service providers, or private or public-private cloud respectively. In this
context companies or service providers use cloud technology to simplify the management of their
data centers, for instance for server and storage provisioning.
 Network File System, NFS: Open standard internet protocol for accessing files in file systems over
network using Internet protocols. NFS v2 became an Internet standard in 1989. The newest
version is v4.
 Common Internet File System, CIFS: Microsoft’s standard protocol for file access.
 File Transfer Protocol, FTP: Standard protocol for copying files between hosts on the Internet.
FILE STORE CONTEXT
Symantec’s File Store is a storage management solution for unstructured data. It provides the following
main capabilities:
 File Store is a storage service that stores data in hierarchical file systems.
 Users and clients access the file systems via exported shares using open standard CIFS, NFS and
FTP protocols.
 The file system integrates with Active Directory to provide access control down to the individual
file and directory level.
In order to provide the necessary performance, scalability and security File Store has the following key
features:
 Scalability: File Store scales up to 2 PB in capacity, and up to 16 clustered nodes for high
performance.
 Integrated solutions: File Store integrates with other Symantec products including backup, anti-
virus and archiving.
 Cost effective: File Store uses commodity servers and storage, provides integrated management,
and increases storage utilization.

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 Cloud foundation: File Store provides a cloud based platform for storage management.
THE VMWARE PLATFORM
The VMware virtualization platform provides the operational framework for integration of servers,
applications and storage, and the corresponding management infrastructure for integrated solution.
VMware’s vStorage API for Array Integration (VAAI) provides the operational framework for storage
array vendors to provide important optimized primitives to aid in the creation of new VMs. By hooking
into the VAAI framework array vendors can speed up these operations by > 10x. By hooking the array into
VAAI, VMware’s management infrastructure can take advantage of highly optimized array based
primitives for LUN provisioning and cloning where they exist.
VMware’s Aware Storage APIs (VASA) enables storage array vendors to present all relevant management
information to the VMware management software in a form that gives VMware through vCenter and
CapacityIQ increased visibility into the physical storage infrastructure. VMware uses this to detect issues
faster, and to better manage the storage infrastructure.

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The integration with CapacityIQ enables vCenter to trend the use of storage and to detect when LUNs
storing file system data needs to be expanded or when they can be shrunk.
VAAI and VASA together create a framework that improves every vendor and customer’s ability to create
solutions that are more tightly integrated, and where policy based management can more correctly and
rapidly report, correct and manage issues that affect the storage side of a customer’s installations.
For a more detailed picture on VAAI, see this page: http://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-14090
CONFIGURATION:
The following figure describes the simplest recommended configuration for data management with
Symantec File Store. In the typical simple configuration there is one production site and one DR/DP site.
In this blue print we focus on storage of unstructured data. We therefore omit the fact that the storage
arrays at the production site also contain LUNs that store data for other applications, this data is not
stored in the file systems managed by File Store.
The important points in this blue print are:
 File store manages one or more file systems containing unstructured data.
 NetBackup is used to protect the data managed by File Store.
 Other services including Anti-Virus, Enterprise Vault may be included to provide additional
services including virus protection, archiving etc. of the data sets.

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The following figure provides a high level view of the architecture:
The production site runs a set of business applications in a number of VMware VMs. In addition, one VM
runs the File Store data management application, one VM runs Anti-Virus, and one VM runs the NetBackup
client through which NetBackup is managed. NetBackup protects the File Store data as well as other
selected business applications’ LUNs by backing these up from the production site to the backup archive
at the DR site. Anti-Virus performs virus scans on the file systems managed by File Store.
For the purpose of this blue print the DR/DP site primarily contains two components. First is the
NetBackup backup archive. It includes sufficient storage capacity for holding the backup images for the
LUNS containing the file systems managed by File Store. The backup archive consists of a server (or a VM)
running the NetBackup server, and large capacity storage for storing the backup images.
The second component at the DR site is the standby servers and storage arrays. This equipment will run
business critical applications that have been failed over from the production site. In particular, when the

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File Store service at the production site is down, the DR instance of File Store runs on the standby servers
and storage systems.
THE ITEMIZED CONFIGURATION
THE PRODUCTION SITE:
The production site consists of servers, storage, networking, the software infrastructure, and the
applications:
 The physical server platform consists of generic NEC Intel based servers or NEC 5800 FT servers.
 The server virtualization platform supports VMs that are running applications or services:
◦ One VM runs the File Store service.
◦ One VM runs the NetBackup client.
◦ (Optional) Other VMs may run other services that are integrated with File Store, for instance
Anti-Virus or Enterprise vault (archiving).
 The production storage platform consists of one of the following:
◦ Internal DAS storage for each server.
◦ Server-external shared storage: NEC D3/D4 storage arrays, or 3rd party storage arrays. (IBM,
HP, etc.)
 Layered/3rd Party Software:
◦ Symantec File Store: ….
◦ Symantec NetBackup client: This application is running in one VM, it protects the business
applications as well as the data managed by File Store.

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◦ Optional integrated services: Anti-Virus, ...
The following diagram outlines the Systems Architecture of the production site:
The NEC FT server provides protection against hardware system and component failures in the server.
The storage arrays and SAN host the LUNs for the VMs, and provide connectivity to the servers.
THE DR/DP SITE
For the purpose of this blue print, File Store and VMware, the primary objective of the DR/DP site is to
protect the data managed by File Store. For protection of the archive the DP/DR site contains the
following:
The NetBackup Backup Archive. The backup archive has the following components:
 An Intel based NEC server running the NetBackup server.

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◦ Alternatively the NetBackup server can run in a VM on the stand-by systems similar to the
NetBackup client above.
 NEC D3/D4 high capacity storage for storing the backup images.
◦ The backup images will be large, but access will be somewhat sequential, storage arrays
configured with high density SATA disks will perform well.
◦ It is recommended that this storage array is separate from the standby server production
storage.
This backup archive contains incremental backup images of all disks (LUNs) supporting the protected
applications on the production site.
In particular the backup archive contains backup images of the file systems managed by File Store.
For File Store Disaster Recovery: The stand-by infrastructure:
 Stand-by servers: NEC generic Intel servers or NEC 5800 FT servers.
 Server virtualization platform: VMware.
 Stand-by storage. DAS or external shared storage as described above.
 Layered 3rd Party Software:
◦ Symantec File Store. This instance runs the File store service when the production instance is
down.
◦ NetBack Client: Protects the DR instance of the DR instance of the File Store data.
◦ Other integrated services: Anti-Virus, ..
 Any other business application that will run at the DR site after a fail-over.

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This stand-by configuration will run the DR instance of the File Store service after a fail-over, and until a
fail-back have been performed. This gives users and applications access to the file systems when the
production instance is down.
For more detail on the recommended data protection or disaster recovery plan, including use cases and
workflows that include fail-over, fail-back and more, please read the corresponding NEC Corporation
DR/DP blue print for Symantec NetBackup and VMware.
USE CASES FOR SYMANTEC FILE STORE
The following use cases assume that File Store and NetBackup been installed successfully at both the
production and DR sites, and that regular backups of the file systems is performed according to a
configured policy, meeting the RPO requirements of the customer.
All client or user interaction with the unstructured data is done through the exported shares for the file
systems.
The use cases focuses on the important operations involved in using the File Store service to its full
potential.
System architectures and use cases and related to archiving data in file systems or for assuring high
application or service availability are described in separate blue prints.
UC-AR-1: CONFIGURING FILE STORE
The first operation after installation is to configure File Store. This is done with File Store’s management
interface. File Store configuration includes:
 Creating new file systems.
 For each file system, assigning LUNs in the connected storage arrays to store the file system’s data.
o This includes creating the LUNs on a storage array.
 Creating and exporting shares from the file systems for access by clients.
 Giving users or user groups’ access to shares or entire file systems.

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UC-AR-2: PROTECTING THE FILE SYSTEMS FROM DATA LOSS
The file systems are protected by NetBackup. NetBackup is configured through the NetBackup client’s GUI.
See the NEC Corporation DR/DP blue print with Symantec NetBackup and VMware.
UC-AR-3: PROTECTING THE FILE SYSTEMS FROM VIRUS CORRUPTION.
One common challenge is to protect file systems against computer viruses. It is recommended to use an
enterprise class virus scanner such as Symantec Anti-Virus to scan the file systems managed by File Store
at regular intervals, and also scan new objects that are being stored in the file systems.
The recommended solution is to install Anti-Virus in a VM on the same VMware platform as is hosting File
store, and to configure Anti-Virus to perform the appropriate scans on File Store’s file systems.
UC-AR-4: RECOVERING LOST FILE SYSTEM DATA FROM THE BACKUP:
The NetBackup client interface enables users or IT staff to recover lost file system objects from the backup
archive location.
UC-AR-5: DR FAIL OVER AND FAIL BACK OF THE FILE SYSTEMS:
After a failure in the production site which takes down the production instance of File Store, if the failure
is long lasting one should fail over File Store to the DR site. While running in the DR site the file systems
should be protected. When the production site is repaired, File Store should be failed back to running in
the production site.
For more information on how to set up and maintain DP or DR protection, for how to fail over to and fail
back applications or services between the production to the DR sites, and how to protect the DR instance
when running, see the DR/DP blue print for NetBackup, VMware, and NEC servers and storage.