Implicit in your statement, but well worth saying directly, is that once you play with shared storage for yourself, you know what specific things you want/need from vendors based on your actual environment, and not just based on marketing specs.
*ASB *(My XeeSM Profile) <http://XeeSM.com/AndrewBaker> *Exploiting Technology for Business Advantage...* * * On Fri, Nov 19, 2010 at 12:06 PM, Jonathan Link <[email protected]>wrote: > My standard questions. Why do you need shared storage? What problem is it > solving that you're having or anticipating having? For us, the drive was > virtualizing our server environment and the ability to quickly standup a vm > on any of our hosts should one become inoperative. That was the major push. > Other thing is you would do well to download OpenFiler throw it on a box > with a couple TB of disk space and play around. Use it for storage that is > nice to have but not a deal breaker if it is offline. Get your feet wet and > using shared storage opens up the world of possibilities, unlike reading > about it. > > > > On Fri, Nov 19, 2010 at 11:06 AM, <[email protected]> wrote: > >> Thanks Sean and everyone else, I had an offsite meeting I had to go to >> right after posting my question so sorry for the delay in getting back to >> you. >> >> >> >> The depth of questions you guys are offering shows there’s a bunch I don’t >> yet understand so my answers may not be as coherent as you deserve. >> >> >> >> I’ve looked at Equalogic, Netapp, Lefthand and EMC. From the IT folks in >> our AEC Engineering industry who shared their setups, all had good >> experience with these vendors. Different people just had different >> preferences to different capabilities so that’s why I thought I should run >> it by this group. >> >> >> >> They all seemed to be able to perform the necessary shared storage >> functionality just in different ways. >> >> Most vendors like the Equalogic, required you to buy fully populated >> shelves even though you may not need that much space which added cost. The >> flexibility of the snapshots with EMC “seemed”, to my inexperienced eyes, to >> be more robust that others in that you could, among other things, restore a >> snapshot without losing all the other snapshots, mount snapshots as drives, >> etc. How much value this truly has over time I don’t know but it seemed >> more flexible. I also like the ability for the system to automatically move >> data to slower or faster drives as needed. >> >> >> >> We have a lot of runaway users so we rely on quotas to keep users from >> adding 10 GB a day of crap and quotas have worked out well in this regard. >> As such, it’s my understanding that I need to go with the NAS functionality >> to support Windows quotas and AD permissions. I’m told that the NAS >> functionality of the array provides the ability to present CIFS shares (and >> NFS) to our users. >> >> >> >> Obviously, having never had a SAN, there’s a bunch I don’t understand or >> even know to ask but every vendor seems able to do the job. Technically, >> they all seem to meet our needs and I can point to several companies in my >> industry who uses each of these vendors so choosing the “best” one is >> daunting! I definitely like the US tech support, the 4 hours onsite support >> etc, future expandability, etc. >> >> >> >> We have about 24 TB of data but a lot of it is online archive data that we >> must keep online. >> >> >> >> Jim >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> *From:* Sean Martin [mailto:[email protected]] >> *Sent:* Thursday, November 18, 2010 3:58 PM >> >> *To:* NT System Admin Issues >> *Subject:* Re: First Steps into the SAN Arena >> >> >> >> If you're looking at the NS line I would definitely talk to Dell about >> Equalogics. >> >> >> Are you planning on utilizing the CIFS or NFS features? If not, look at >> the CX4 line as they support iSCSI and Fiber Channel. I agree with Anders >> that the Celerra interface is not the most intuitive and is overly complex. >> However, I believe they're moving from Navisphere and Celerra to Unisphere >> which combines both interfaces into one that can manage all of the >> Clariions. There's apparently a lot of integration with Unisphere and >> VSphere. Haven't had a chance to play with it yet. I was in the planning >> stages of upgrading our CX4-960 to FLARE 30 (required to upgrade to >> Unisphere) but apparently there's a couple of critical issues so EMC is >> recommending we hold off until the hotfixes are released sometime in >> December. >> >> >> >> - Sean >> >> On Thu, Nov 18, 2010 at 2:21 PM, Anders Blomgren <[email protected]> >> wrote: >> >> That behind that admitedly much improved gui the celerra is a complex >> beast. >> >> >> >> That quite a few more complex system changes require an EMC Technitian. >> >> >> >> That being said, I do like our Celerra. And probably wont get another one >> when our current one needs replacing. The celerra is clariion storage and a >> file serving box which is unnecessarily complex for our needs. I'll probably >> increase the storage for our vsphere cluster and stand up a windows vm. >> >> >> >> So it all depends on your actual needs, i.e. number of vsphere hosts and >> nas clients. >> >> >> >> Probably more than you asked for but i get the feeling that EMC is >> targeting smb's with a product that they don't always have the resources to >> manage. >> >> >> >> -Anders >> >> >> Sent from my iPhone >> >> >> On 18 nov 2010, at 23:45, "[email protected]" < >> [email protected]> wrote: >> >> Hello, >> >> >> >> I know there are many vendors and ways to skin the SAN gopher but I’m >> leaning towards this basic system as it meets our specs: >> >> >> >> EMC NS-120 10GB/s Celerra System >> >> Dual Data Movers >> >> Dual SPS >> >> NFS >> >> CIFS >> >> >> >> Seems they’re offering a pretty good price. >> >> >> >> I’m looking to virtualize with VMWare VSphere and think this SAN backend >> will meet our needs. >> >> >> >> My question is, does anyone have any experience with EMC Celerra systems >> or EMC in general? >> Would I be making a big mistake going with EMC or the Celerra from a >> support or stability perspective? >> >> >> >> Being new to SAN’s I don’t have a lot of experience so are there any >> gotcha’s I should be looking for? Any pieces of info EMC sales guys >> frequent forget to offer up? >> >> >> >> Please feel free to render any advice one way or the other. >> >> >> >> Thanks >> >> >> >> Jim >> >> >> >> ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ >> ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ >> >> --- >> To manage subscriptions click here: >> http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ >> or send an email to [email protected] >> with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin >> >> ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ >> ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ >> >> --- >> To manage subscriptions click here: >> http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ >> or send an email to [email protected] >> with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin >> >> >> >> ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ >> ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ >> >> --- >> To manage subscriptions click here: >> http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ >> or send an email to [email protected] >> with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin >> >> ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ >> ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ >> >> --- >> To manage subscriptions click here: >> http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ >> or send an email to [email protected] >> with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin >> > > ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ > ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ > > --- > To manage subscriptions click here: > http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ > or send an email to [email protected] > with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin > ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to [email protected] with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin
