Open Source Storage Management Software

Announcing Openfiler NAS Management Software

25 October 2003

LONDON, UK — Xinit Systems Limited, a UK based Linux server and storage solutions vendor today announced a storage management platform called Openfiler for building NAS (Network Attached Storage) appliances using industry standard x86 architecture with commodity components. Openfiler is a powerful, intuitive browser-based network storage management utility. Openfiler, combined with the underlying Linux-based operating system, delivers a multi-protocol file-based NAS and aims to provide block-based SAN (Storage Area Networking) capabilities in a single framework. Openfiler is ideal for multi-platform networks where the workstations/servers are running heterogeneous OSes, e.g. Microsoft® Windows® 98/XP/2000, Mac OS 9/X®, UNIX® and Linux®.

It is designed to consolidate and simplify management of storage resources on a network. In its standalone form, Openfiler installed on a standard x86 Intel-based server or workstation turns that system into a full-fledged NAS appliance. All the storage available in the system, along with any additional storage that the administrator might wish to add at a later date, is available to be exported and shared on an IP network via popular file networking protocols such as:

• NFS - Network Filesystem v2 and v3
• SMB/CIFS - Server Message Block/ Common Internet Filesystem
• WebDAV - Web-based Distributed Authoring and Versioning

Other file-networking protocols supported or in active development are AFP, for Mac OS 8.x and OS 9.x clients, and NCP for Novell® environments. At the block-level, the roadmap provides for full support for iSCSI both as a target and initiator. In addition to built-in support for Fibre Channel, this means Openfiler will support more block and file-level storage networking protocols than other standalone NAS/SAN appliance software available.

Openfiler feature summary

The following are just some of the features currently available, or planned for the initial release in Openfiler.

• Powerful virtualization
  • Point-in-time copy support (planned)
  • Multi-disk volume creation (complete)
  • Online volume expansion (planned)
  • Volume usage reporting (complete)
  • iSCSI volume import and export (partially complete)
  • Volume migration & replication (planned)
• User account management
  • Full PAM (Pluggable Authentication Modules) support (complete)
  • NIS, LDAP, Hesiod - User Information configuration (complete)
  • LDAP, Kerberos 5, SMB - Authentication configuration (complete)
  • Local & global (NIS, LDAP, SMB) user & group management support (complete)
• Quotas
  • Local and global group quota management (complete)
  • Local and global user quota management (complete)
  • Per-volume based quota management (complete)
  • Total files and total block quota management (complete)
• Extensive share management features
  • Per-volume based share creation (complete)
  • Multi-level share directory tree (complete)
  • Full ACL support on per-share basis (complete)
  • Host-based ACL support on per-share basis (complete)
  • Per-share services activation (NFS, CIFS, AFP, HTTP, FTP, Netware) (complete)
• Full Industry-standard protocol suite
  • TCP/IP network stack
  • CIFS/SMB Support for Microsoft Windows-based clients (complete)
  • NFSv3 support for all UNIX clients (complete)
  • WebDAV and HTTP 1.1 support (complete)
  • iSCSI initiator (partially complete)
  • iSCSI target (partially complete)
  • NFSv4 support (Extended Modules Kit) (planned)
  • Apple File Protocol (AFP) for legacy Macintosh file sharing with ACL (planned)
  • FTP support (complete)
  • Netware client support (planned)
• Clustering & high availability
  • GFS clustered filesystem support (planned)
  • Appliance failover support (planned)
  • FC HBA multipathing (planned)

The Openfiler Project was initiated by Xinit Systems in the UK. Xinit Systems has developed Openfiler to ship as part of their turnkey SharqStor network storage range of storage solutions. To get an independent assessment of Openfiler please be on the lookout for the SharqStor NAS appliance review in the enterprise section of the upcoming edition of Linux Format magazine. The company has donated the entire Openfiler codebase to the project and provides sponsorship of the project website and Openfiler core developers. The Openfiler project actively seeks hardware and software donations from OEMs and ISVs to improve hardware compatibility and develop interfaces to complementary software. If you are an OEM or ISV wishing to provide sponsorship to the Openfiler project, please e-mail info-AT-openfiler.org.

Openfiler builds upon the excellent capabilities of successful Open Source software projects such as Samba, PostgreSQL, OpenLDAP, LVM and Linux. By releasing the software as Open Source, the Openfiler Project aims to significantly reduce the cost of deploying and managing storage resources on a network by giving administrators an alternative to proprietary NAS solutions. The Openfiler code will be available for download on the 30th of October 2003 at http://www.openfiler.org/. Some Openfiler screenshots are available at http://www.openfiler.org/. For developers of NAS appliances, the Openfiler Project offers a customisation service to integrate and optimise Openfiler for your specific hardware combination. Contact info-AT-openfiler.org with any questions regarding these engineering services.

Thank you.

Contact:

Iain Cheyne
+44 20 7538 8230
iain.cheyne-AT-xinitsystems.com

Xinit Systems Limited
http://www.xinitsystems.com/