GRASS VALLEY K2 - Redundant Nearline K2 SAN Description

The basic Nearline SAN has one Ethernet switch.
The SAN also has one 10 Gig NH K2 Media Server. The NH server for a Nearline system has two
ports for Fibre Channel connections. NH servers do not have media (iSCSI) ports.
A NH server on a Nearline system is configured with roles of FTP server and Media file system
server.
In the Nearline system no K2 Media Servers take the role of iSCSI bridge or media database server.
No K2 clients or any other generic client are part of the Nearline system.
7.2K SAS drives provide the media file storage on a Nearline system. While these drives do not
provide the high bandwidth of the drives required by an online K2 SAN, they offer larger capacity
and lower cost. This makes these drives ideal for the Nearline SAN.
The primary RAID chassis has one controller. The primary RAID chassis is connected via Fibre
Channel to the NH server. The controller in the RAID chassis is also connected to the GigE control
network, which is required for SNMP (NetCentral) monitoring.
There must be one primary RAID chassis and may be up to eleven optional Expansion chassis.
Primary chassis and Expansion chassis contain twelve drives. All disks in both primary and optional
Expansion chassis are bound as RAID 6.
The K2Config control point PC is connected to the GigE control network. The K2Config application
runs on this PC for configuring the SAN. The SiteConfig application also runs on this PC.
Related Topics
Description of K2 SAN Devices on page 257
Working with Ethernet switches on page 333
Redundant Nearline K2 SAN description
ISLs
Control Control
RAID Chassis
RAID Expansion Chassis
NH K2 Media
Servers
Ethernet
Switches
Fibre Channel
connections
Control
FTP
Control
FTP
Control point PC
Control
FTP to/from online system
ISLs
A
A
B
B
The purpose of a Nearline SAN is to provide a large pool of storage to which files can be saved.
The Nearline system is considered an “offline” system, which means the system stores files only,
such GXF files or MXF files, with no ability to record or play those files directly on the system.
36 K2 SAN Installation and Service Manual 02 February 2012
Product description