Qlogic SANbox 5202 Supplementary Manual

Beijing
Planetarium
Beijing Planetarium Implements
a SAN to Harness a New Universe
of Data
Organization
Beijing Planetarium
Industry
Video Production
Location
Beijing, China
Applications
Xsan
Solution Set
Planetarium Digital Video Programs Editing System, in
conjunction with a Fibre Channel SA N
Products Used
Redundant RAID storage, Xsan from Apple, dual Mac G5s,
and two (2) QLogic SA Nbox(R) 5202 stackable Fibre Channel
Switches
The SANbox 5000 series switches are the only stackable Fibre Channel switches in
the industry today, providing high bandwidth and unmatched scalability for future
super high bandwidth upgrade requirement. This scalability is achieved with 10Gbps
Inter-switch links (ISLs) that connect switches together at blazing fast speeds, without
sacrificing valuable user ports.
Introduction to China's Beijing Planetarium
The Beijing Planetarium contains three main parts: the old facility of Beijing Planetarium,
the new facility of Beijing Planetarium, and Beijing ancient observatory. With a
construction area of 7,000 square meters, the old facility was first built in 1955 and
opened to public in 1957. It consists of a planetarium, an exhibition hall, a movie lecture
hall, and a public observatory.
The new facility of Beijing Planetarium, which adjoins the existing old facility building,
began to be built in 2001 and was intended to be completed in the fourth quarter of
2004, with a construction area of 20,000 square meters. The new facility is made up
of several exciting parts, including: a digital universe, a theater, 3D theater, 4D theater,
exhibition hall, solar observatory, public observatory, and an astronomy classroom.
Hand in hand with the new facility comes the digital content and High Definition (HD)
video driving its many attractions, resulting in a new universe of data. This data is
generated by the new Planetarium Digital Video Programs Editing System (PDVPES ),
which carries thousands of digital video clips that require being viewed, edited, reviewed
and broadcast anytime, day in and day out.
The business challenges that led to the installation of a SA N to manage this galaxy
of data are outlined below. These challenges quickly became apparent to Beijing
Planetarium during the implementation of the PDVPES solution.
Requirements and challenges of building the new PDVPES
1. Advanced hardware: The PDVPES processes a large amount of HD video, animation
and audio for the 3D and 4D planetary programs to be played everyday. It requires the
best high-performance hardware on the market to ensure optimum efficiency and
productivity for the Beijing Planetarium. To achieve this efficiency and productivity,
it was necessary to deploy servers with 64-bit processors, include the existing
Ethernet network, add a redundant RAID system, and add a Fibre Channel storage
area network including 2Gb and 10Gb ISL link speeds to make the solution viable.
2. Ease of use: The user and management interface in any aspect of the solution must
be easy to learn and easy to use. This would significantly improve the efficiency of
all personnel who would use the system to edit, broadcast, and maintain the digital
videos, as well as manage the infrastructure
The Core of PDVPES
PDVPES consists of seven major sectors. 1. Animation Editing System, 2. Sound and music
Editing System; 3. Rendering Cluster; 4. Post Production System; 5. Video Projection System;
6. Online and offline Storage System; 7. High Speed Communication Network. The core of the
PDVPES is the high-speed communications network running the Fibre Channel SA N provided
by QLogic, as well as Xsan technology from Apple. With dual Apple Xserve G5s as the MDC
server cluster, all the sectors in the PDVPES will be able to share very large amounts of data
from the Storage System at very high rates of speed.
C A S E S T U D Y