Folks, We have a data warehousing project that we support, where the customer tends to have their systems specified and build by outside consultants, and then when they're done it gets thrown over the wall to us. The current version of this system that we support is, ... well, painful to manage. Their Sun consultant chose to implement everything with "pure" Sun equipment, and it's just not working so well. In short, this thing is one hell of an ugly turkey.
Of course, they are now looking at the next-generation version of this system, and they've already contacted an outside consultant to come up with the specs for the system they propose to build. We'd like to try to make sure that that we don't wind up with a situation where they build an even bigger and worse-looking turkey that they throw across the fence at us. To wit, the consultant has proposed the following storage system: Sun StorEdge 6140 SAN RoHS-5, Sun StorageTek 6140 array with 4GB cache and 8 host ports Rack-Ready Controller Tray 2336GB, 16 * 146 GB 15K rpm 4Gb FCAL drives 2 * 2GB-cache memory FC-RAID controller cards 2 * redundant AC power supplies + fans 2 * FC ports for expansion trays 8 * host ports with shortwave SFPs 2 * 5M fibre optic cables 2 * 6M ethernet cables and management software 3 yr on-site warranty included (standard configuration) RoHS-5 Sun StorageTek CSM200, Rack Ready Expansion Tray 2336GB, 16 * 146GB 15K rpm 5Gb FCAL drives 2 * I/O Modules 2 * redundant AC power + fans 2 * FC ports for expansion 4 * shortwave SFPs with 2 * LC-LC FC cables Brocade SW200E (16 port capable) 4Gb Fibre Channel switch with 8 ports enabled. Full fabric capability enabled. Eight 4 Gb shortwave SFPs Our experience so far with Sun storage devices has not been good. We have a lot of NetApp storage, and through our shared responsibilities for our large virtual machine servers, we're gaining more and more experience with EMC SAN equipment. But, we don't know squat about these StorageTek 6140 RAID arrays, and we'd like to hear from folks who can talk to us about their experiences with them. Now, we don't have any Thumpers in our environment, nor do we have any of the new Amber Road equipment -- nor do we currently have any plans for either. The Sun storage devices we've had experience with are considerably older, so maybe that experience might not be applicable to this newer equipment. Of course, many things are dependent on price. What is a good system at one price may be a crappy system at another price. We know what kind of deals we get on Dell/EMC gear (being the Alma Mater of the CEO of Dell is apparently a very big deal for them), and NetApp knows that they have to provide comparable price/performance or they're going to get booted out the door. So, we get really, really good deals from both. What we don't know about this system is how much it's going to cost. I have looked at their retail prices, and I am not at all impressed (nearly $60k for 16TB raw). I'm confident that any customer could get equal or better retail pricing from Dell/EMC or NetApp, and I know we get much, much better than retail. Although we're a pretty big Sun customer, I don't think we'd be able to get the kind of price discounts from them that we can get from Dell/EMC or NetApp, so even if they start out with a slight retail price advantage, I think that would evaporate or even be reversed in our environment. So, if anyone who has experience with these devices could also talk to us about their pricing experience, especially relative to your experiences with Dell/EMC and/or NetApp, that would be great. Thanks! -- Brad Knowles <[email protected]> LinkedIn Profile: <http://tinyurl.com/y8kpxu> _______________________________________________ Tech mailing list [email protected] http://lopsa.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tech This list provided by the League of Professional System Administrators http://lopsa.org/
