Case studies for IPspaces

How SSPs use IPspaces

SSPs typically provide storage services to customers of different companies who have the following specifications:

They use the private address space, such as 10.0.0.0, for their intranet.
They want a dedicated connection from the storage appliance at the SSP premises to their intranet.
They want to ensure that the storage appliance is accessible only to the users they authorize.

Using the IPspace solution available on the filers, the SSP sets up an IPspace per customer, thus creating independent routing domains on a single filer. Additionally, the SSP uses either physical interfaces or VLAN tags to securely forward traffic to appropriate vFilers. This approach

Is cost effective
Scales well
Provides easy maintenance and monitoring

How an enterprise uses IPspaces

In an enterprise, the IT organization might have to maintain separate filers for each organization of the enterprise. As in the SSP approach, dedicating filers on an organizational basis can not only be expensive but also difficult to maintain. Setting up vFilers on a per-organization basis solves the problem. However, distinct IPspaces for these vFilers are usually not required. Because there is usually a level of trust between different organizations of the enterprise, network access to the various vFilers does not need to controlled. Therefore, all vFilers can belong to the default IPspace.

IPspaces can be used in an enterprise setup as well if there is a need to route traffic from different vFilers using different default routes.