Why is SmartConnect such a powerful tool?

SmartConnect, a licensable software module of Isilon's OneFS® operating system software, greatly simplifies client management across the enterprise. Through a single host name, SmartConnect enables client connection load balancing and dynamic NFS failover and failback of client connections across storage nodes to provide optimal utilization of the cluster resources. Without the need to install client side drivers, administrators can easily manage a large and growing number of clients and rest assured that in the event of a system failure, in flight reads and writes will successfully finish without failing.

Traditional storage systems with two-way failover typically sustain at least a 50% degradation in performance when a storage head fails as all clients must fail over to the remaining head. With Isilon, during failover, clients are evenly distributed across all remaining nodes in the cluster ensuring minimal performance impact.

Consider the following advantages:

• Optimized Performance:
  Maximize performance by keeping client connections balanced across the entire storage cluster
• Massive Scalability:
  Seamlessly scale and handle large numbers of clients and nodes in computing intensive environments
• High Availability:
  Dynamic NFS failover and failback makes for the highest available clustered storage solution on the market

Cornerstone of a Robust Data Management Storage Solution
Through a single virtual host name, IT Administrators will use SmartConnect as the cornerstone for providing seamless enterprise-wide client access to an Isilon storage cluster. Clients and storage nodes can be added and the cluster scaled on the fly while a system is in production, making Isilon IQ with SmartConnect the industry's most flexible, powerful and easy-to-manage clustered storage solution.

With its intelligent client connection load balancing and NFS failover support, SmartConnect achieves breakthrough levels of performance and availability, enabling IT Managers to meet the ever-increasing demands being placed on them to ensure always-on, always-available performance from their Isilon clustered storage solutions.