Exam 5: XtremIO Solutions and Design Specialist Exam for Technology Architects

You meet a customer for the first time. They explain that their current environment for NAS does not meet their needs. You want to make sure that Isilon is a good fit for their needs. What would be a good prequalifying question to ask?

-- Exhibit -- A European Sports TV network is considering Isilon for their Media Edit Storage for their editing workloads. They are also considering Isilon for near-line media archiving. The network receives XDCAM HD footage which is loaded onto their existing Transcoding Storage platform. New footage that needs to be edited will be transferred from their Transcoding Storage platform to the proposed Media Edit Storage platform at the rate of ten simultaneous XDCAM HD files via FTP. Edited files will be transferred back to the Transcoding Storage platform at the rate of ten simultaneous XDCAM HD files via FTP. The network currently has 15 Final Cut Pro edit stations, 15 Avid edit stations. Proxy software will be used to allow Isilon to act as the storage for the Final Cut Pro and Avid media. Three of those edit stations will be performing content compositing as needed. The network expects 70 hours of new content per week, and 50 hours of edited content per week. They intend to keep the new and edited content on the proposed Media Edit Storage as a performance tier for 30 days. They would like to retain all new and edited footage proposed Media Edit Storage as a near-line tier for two years. In addition to the current workloads, the network expects to implement a new Media Asset Management (MAM) solution and has requested the Isilon cluster be capable of supporting 120 MBps read and 120 MBps write to support the MAM requirements. Refer to the exhibit. Based on the described use of the cluster, which node combination is the appropriate choice for the customer's requirements?

A healthcare services provider is implementing an X-Series cluster. Currently they have approximately 200 customers and they are growing at 30% per year. They have 200 TB of storage utilized. Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) regulations require they keep all patient data for seven (7) years. They would like to keep all genomic sequencing data stored with N+3 protection, not to exceed 75% utilization. What is the minimum initial configuration you would recommend?

By default, which method is used by Isilon OneFS for SSDs?

A customer has an Isilon cluster with 6 nodes and a single 4-core CPU per node. The default configuration for SyncIQ workers per CPU core and SyncIQ workers per node per job limits are used. How many SyncIQ workers are available for the Isilon cluster?

A customer created one month of snapshots; one snapshot every 8 hours for 30 days on an Isilon cluster using SnapshotIQ. They are now deleting the snapshots randomly and experiencing overhead to the cluster. How can the snapshots be removed while avoiding the overhead caused by this process?

A customer currently has 10 HPC nodes. They plan to purchase a 5-node Isilon X400 cluster for an HPC application running on Linux. They will persistent mount the Isilon cluster through NFSv3. Which recommended configuration addresses the customer's requirements for high availability and throughput?

If a file is 4 KB in size, how much space is consumed for file data when it is written to the Isilon cluster?

When a Gen 6 Isilon cluster receives a file to be stored, which node(s) performs the FEC calculation?

An Isilon customer implemented a retention period at the directory level. They set individual retention periods on individual files within those directories. Which retention periods will be enforced?

What is the smallest unit of data that Isilon OneFS will write to disk?

Which cache type contains data blocks from previous read and write transactions?

How many layers are in the Isilon clustering architecture?

Where are file system operations initiated on an Isilon node?

A customer has recently deployed an XtremIO 20 TB two X-Brick cluster to run an existing instance of Oracle RAC previously leveraging VNX for back-end storage. The application environment uses a block size of 1 MB. Multiple tables are in use with the PARALLEL_DEGREE_POLICY variable set to AUTO. The customer wants your help with tuning the DB_FILE_MULTIBLOCK_READ_COUNT parameter for best performance with XtremIO. Which values should be recommended for tuning the DB_FILE_MULTIBLOCK_READ_COUNT parameter in the Oracle RAC environment?

A customer has an SMB file directory with 375 TB of data on the primary cluster with a protection level of N+ 3:1. They want to replicate this directory to the secondary cluster. The customer would like information about the possibility of setting protection levels on the target cluster. What information can be provided to the customer about the protection level for the target directory?

Which protocol is integrated with Isilon OneFS to provide on-access file functionality?

A company needs to have their data asynchronously replicated. They also need to maintain a daily copy of the data for a week at the target side to enable fast recovery of files. They decide to purchase two Isilon clusters. They do not want to spend money unnecessarily. Which licenses must they acquire?

A customer is trying to get Isilon SyncIQ to run on the two clusters they just purchased. However, they are experiencing some problems. They have asked you to explain how the SyncIQ licensing works. What information can be provided to the customer?

A company wants to have their new Gen 6 Isilon cluster benchmarked for a UNIX environment. What commonly available open source tool is typically used to test an Isilon cluster's performance for this environment?