Panasas ActiveGuard High Availability software is a standard feature on the ActiveStor 6000 Storage Cluster. It provides two key high availability technologies, DirectorBlade failover and storage network failover.

In the event a DirectorBlade module fails, all system and volume services are automatically transferred to a backup DirectorBlade module. All DirectorBlade modules work in an Active/Active configuration, meaning that there are no "spares" required and all DirectorBlade modules are always fully engaged in managing the storage cluster activities. There is no loss of service and the system continues to operate without interruption. All applications using the DirectFLOW data path will be able to seamlessly continue data processing and access to all volumes from NFS and CIFS will also be maintained.

The Panasas ActiveStor systems are based on Gigabit Ethernet and iSCSI. There are two complete data paths for all of the blades built into every storage shelf. When the ActiveGuard option is employed, in the event of a storage network failure the network can seamlessly failover to an alternate path, ensuring seamless continuous access from all applications. The ActiveStor 6000 comes with two Gigabit Ethernet switches on each shelf to support this full datapath redundancy. ActiveGuard is an optional feature on the ActiveStor 4000 and includes the necessary second Ethernet switch.

These two key capabilities, combined with the standard object-based RAID capabilities of the ActiveScale operating environment, enhance the already highly redundant Panasas storage solution to provide the highest operating availability to customers running their critical applications.