I'm not sure I understand how any of that changes things. If you're serving only CIFS, the VM frontend still provides the same services and abstracts the function from the SAN so you're no longer dependent on the underlying provider. I realize that it's a separate piece to manage, but it may also open you up to additional storage options which may or may not save you substantially as far as cost. Obviously you guys have to make the decision on whether that's a viable trade off, I'm just trying to understand where there's a functional difference because of the mixed environment.
-- There are 10 kinds of people in the world... those who understand binary and those who don't. -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Maglinger, Paul Sent: Wednesday, December 7, 2016 5:16 PM To: '[email protected]' <[email protected]> Subject: RE: [NTSysADM] ALL Flash Storage The VM would still have to be serving up file services. We have a mixed environment of Windows/Unix that, among other things, need to read/write/move/rename butt loads of common files. Back when we used a lot of NFS it really got interesting from a permissions standpoint. Now that we have more or less standardized on CIFS it took a lot of complexity out of the equation. Paul -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Kurt Buff Sent: Wednesday, December 07, 2016 3:41 PM To: ntsysadm Subject: Re: [NTSysADM] ALL Flash Storage I've not trusted CIFS on a SAN/NAS since Dell NASes left a really bad taste in my mouth back in early 2001. I'm sure they're better now, but my thought has always been to use a Windows VM as a front end, and not worry about it. What's your reason for using a CIFS provider vs. a VM with iSCSI/FC/FCoE on the backend? Kurt On Wed, Dec 7, 2016 at 1:08 PM, Maglinger, Paul <[email protected]> wrote: > One of our requirements is that it has to be able to support CIFS under heavy > load. We had a HP EVA a while back that used Windows 2003 Storage Server to > provide the CIFS shares. With our workload the CIFS would simply stop > responding and we'd have to reboot the server. Same with 2008. HP couldn't > resolve the issue so our solution was to break up the jobs into smaller > pieces. So whatever solution we come up with has to have a rock solid CIFS > server. BTW - NetApps handled the loads just fine. We'd stay with them if > they didn't triple the cost. > > Paul > > -----Original Message----- > From: [email protected] > [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Kevin Kays > Sent: Wednesday, December 07, 2016 2:44 PM > To: [email protected] > Subject: Re: [NTSysADM] ALL Flash Storage > > We recently moved to Nimble, and our expectations were surpassed. The Nimble > sales team did a good job helping us to properly size the Array, and > suggested that we did not need all flash saving some money. > > I would be a bit hesitant to bite on the SmartStack concept; we have found > that in practice it does not live up to expectations. I understood it to be a > single support point, when in reality we still get bounced around. The > support for the Array its self has met our needs, no complaints. > > Kevin Kays > > On Wed, Dec 7, 2016 at 12:23 PM, Kurt Buff <[email protected]> wrote: >> Nutanix seems pretty outrageously priced for what you get. Ditto EMC. >> But, for larger organizations they might make sense - they just don't >> for us, as a smaller organization with only about 200 staff in our HQ. >> >> Pure is interesting, and we may ask them to participate in our >> process, but we don't have an opinion on them yet. >> >> Nimble is the favored candidate because of our IT Director's previous >> experience with them - I don't have any myself. >> >> Kurt >> >> On Wed, Dec 7, 2016 at 12:11 PM, Maglinger, Paul <[email protected]> wrote: >>> I'm watching this conversation closely. We're looking to replace our >>> NetApp because our renewal maintenance costs basically tripled. We of >>> course had the option to upgrade our heads for around the same cost, but >>> were surprised to find out that we would have to repurchase all of our >>> software if we did so. >>> So Nutanix, Pure, and EMC have been banging on our door and one vendor is >>> suggesting Nimble. >>> >>> >>> -----Original Message----- >>> From: [email protected] >>> [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Kurt Buff >>> Sent: Wednesday, December 07, 2016 12:54 PM >>> To: ntsysadm >>> Subject: Re: [NTSysADM] ALL Flash Storage >>> >>> We also have a VNX 5400 (and a VNXe 3100), and we're going to dump it for >>> Nimble in the middle of the year, once our support runs out. >>> >>> The cost of renewing support will cover a new Nimble, basically, and we >>> expect much improved performance. >>> >>> Kurt >>> >>> On Wed, Dec 7, 2016 at 6:24 AM, David McSpadden <[email protected]> wrote: >>>> What is eveyone’s thoughts on All Flash Storage? >>>> >>>> I am looking to replace the Storage I have attached to my VNX5400 >>>> from EMC with either: >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> EMC Unity >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> PureStorage >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> Nimble >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> I haven’t gotten all the proposals in yet but was wondering what >>>> everyone else thought about them? >>>> >>>> This e-mail and any files transmitted with it are property of >>>> Indiana Members Credit Union, are confidential, and are intended >>>> solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom this e-mail is >>>> addressed. >>>> If you are not one of the named recipient(s) or otherwise have >>>> reason to believe that you have received this message in error, >>>> please notify the sender and delete this message immediately from >>>> your computer. Any other use, retention, dissemination, forwarding, >>>> printing, or copying of this email is strictly prohibited. >>>> >>>> >>>> Please consider the environment before printing this email. >>> >>> >> >> > >
