IOMEGA STORCENTER IX12-300R ADVANCED NETWORK CONFIGURATION GUIDE
INTRODUCTION
The Iomega® StorCenter™ ix12-300r network storage array offers versatile storage provisioning, advanced protocol capabilities, expandability, and affordability in an easy-to-use product ideal for small businesses, workgroups, and departments. Based on enterprise-class EMC® storage technology, the StorCenter ix12-300r provides quad gigabit Ethernet connections, direct or network attach, easy file sharing, iSCSI block access, multiple RAID configurations for optimized data protection, and storage pools for application flexibility and expandability to match your budget. Business users will appreciate the robust data protection features, such as UPS support; print serving; folder quotas; rsync device-to-device replication; and user replaceable hot swap fans, power supplies, and drives for business continuity and disaster recovery. The easy-to-use interface, Active Directory support, and remote access provide no-hassle management. The StorCenter ix12-300r supports PC, Mac® , Linux® and UNIX clients and is VMware® certified for NFS and iSCSI and Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 (Hyper-V) certified for iSCSI.
A Virtual LAN (VLAN) is a group of hosts with a common set of requirements that communicate as if they were attached to the same broadcast domain regardless of their physical location. A VLAN has the same attributes as a physical LAN, but does not require the hosts to be located on the same network switch. Like routers in LAN configurations, VLANs are created to provide segmentation services to address issues such as scalability, security, and network management.
NIC bonding (also known as NIC teaming, link aggregation, trunking, among others) is a computer networking technology that uses multiple network cables and ports in parallel to increase the link speed beyond the limits of any one single cable or port, and to increase the network redundancy for higher availability.
Standard Ethernet frames contain 1500 bytes of payload, or Maximum Transmission Unit (MTU). Jumbo Frames can normally carry up to 9000 bytes of MTU, although variations exist. By increasing the frame size, the same amount of data can be transferred in fewer frames, therefore reducing hardware and software processing overhead and improving network efficiency.
This white paper discusses the advanced network capabilities available on the StorCenter ix12-300r, including VLAN, NIC bonding, and Jumbo Frame, and how to configure them to fully take advantage of these enterprise- class technologies. The paper includes detailed instructions and procedures to help users plan and configure the StorCenter ix12-300r network settings and the corresponding network infrastructure.
