White Paper: Data Protection In Novell Netware

Date of publishing: 19th.October, 2004

Authored By: Product Engineering Group
Version: 1.0

Novell Netware as an OS needs a basic bootable OS to work. So any Netware

loaded hard disk contains two partitions at minimum, one is non-netware partition
(for boot) and another is Netware partition.

Data protection in Novell Netware refers to protection of data, which is there in

NetWare partition.

In overall, in Novell’s own terminology, data protection is referred as SFT

(System Fault Tolerance).
There are three different levels of SFT as briefed below. A higher level of SFT
ensures decreasing possibility of data loss.

SFT-I : Disk Mirroring

SFT-II : Disk Duplexing (or, Controller Mirroring)
SFT-III : System Mirroring

Here below is an in-depth detail of these different levels and SFT in totality.

SFT

System fault Tolerance (SFT) refers data duplication on multiple storage devices
and thus keeps a level of redundancy. In case one device fails, data is available
from other devices.

SFT-I : Disk Mirroring

Disk Mirroring refers duplication of data from the NetWare partition on one hard
disk to the NetWare partition on another hard disk.

When you mirror disks, two or more hard disks on the same channel are paired.
Blocks of data written to the original (primary) disk are also written to the
duplicate (secondary) disk.

The disks operate in tandem, constantly storing and updating the same files. If
one of the disks fails, the other disk can continue to operate without data loss or
interruption

If one disk fails, the operating system sends a warning message to indicate the
failure so that the mirroring protection can be restored as soon as possible.
Because disk mirroring duplicates disks on the same channel, it does not protect
against failures that may occur along the channel between the disks and the file
server. A problem in the channel may cause a failure in both disks and thus data
loss.

Channel Channels

Mirrored Mirrored
Disks Disks

Controller Controllers

SFT-I : Mirroring SFT-I I : Duplexing

SFT-II : Disk Duplexing

Disk duplexing consists of copying data onto two hard disks, each on a separate
disk channel. Each Disk channel is connected to individual disk controller and
interface cable.

This protects data against the failure of a hard disk or failure of the hard disk
channel. The hard disk channel includes the disk controller and interface cable.

If any component on one channel fails (Disk, Cable or Controller), the other disk
can continue to operate without data loss or interruption, because it is on a
different channel (different Disk, different Cable, different Controller).

Disk duplexing allows the same data to be written to all disks simultaneously.
Since the disks are on different channels, data transfer is faster than with disk
mirroring, where data is written to the disks sequentially over the same channel.
Disk duplexing also allows split seeks: read requests are sent to whichever disk
can respond first. Multiple read requests are also split between the duplexed
disks for simultaneous processing.
Duplexing alone doesn't guarantee data protection. If both disk channels fail at
the same time, or if the computer itself fails, you still lose your data.

SFT-III : System Mirroring

The problem with disk Duplexing is if the server itself fails, the data is not
available. System Mirroring ensures data availability in such scenario.

In fact in SFT-III a complete system including it’s HDD, controller, communication

and even memory writes and reads also are mirrored. This is very high level of
redundancy, which ensures data availability in case of disk failure, cable failure,
controller failure, memory failure or even the total system failure.

The implementation calls for two absolutely identical systems from Disk,
controller, and system perspectives. As well this calls for special MSL cards
(Mirror server Link) to ensure online synchronization of two systems.

Mirrored Systems

Mirrored Disks

Controllers

MSL Cards

SFT-I I I : System Mirroring

Mirroring and Duplexing are supported in Netware 4.11 till Netware 6.5
SFT-III is supported in Netware 4.2 only.

So, as on date, Mirroring and Duplexing are supported by Novell; but not SFT-III.
Instead Novell supports clustering, which is more of a complete solution like
MSCS rather than system specific application independent implementation on
OS layer.

References:

http://www.novell.com/documentation/nw6p/index.html?page=/documentation/nw
6p/sdiskenu/data/hefkruob.html

http://www.novell.com/documentation/nw312/docui/index.html#../cncptenu/data/f
m56742.html

http://searchstorage.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid5_gci796504,00.html