Ok I am looking to go virtual this summer. Looking at a netapp fas2020 dell md300i and a hp msa. Does anybody have any recommendations. I am thinking veeam for back to our dr site and testing upgrades and backups.
Any advise guys?
Thanks
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Ok I am looking to go virtual this summer. Looking at a netapp fas2020 dell md300i and a hp msa. Does anybody have any recommendations. I am thinking veeam for back to our dr site and testing upgrades and backups.
Any advise guys?
Thanks
I currently use an HP MSA2012FC with additional enclosure - can't fault it. although don't use it with VMware so can't comment on that.
look at pillar data systems we just bought 200 TB off them!
Pillar Data Systems – The future of IT storage. Next generation SAN, NAS, Unified Storage Systems.
I would look at the EMC VNXe series kit. Have sold s few and all seem happy with them.
Have a P4300G2, using it to host for Hyper-V, 14 Virtuals running on 3 Physicals. (+ a DC outside of the cluster due to Hyper-V)
Works a treat.
Simon
Which Storage vendor to advise/recommended ? Difficult question answer without some more details, but all these are excellent storage devices, capabilities and features and cost vary dramatically.
My gut feeling would be to look at an iSCSI solution.
iSCSI (with FC options depending on model)
iSCSI Only (Feature Rich)
- HP MSA (OEM DotHill)
- DotHill 3320
- Dell MD3000i (OEM LSI)
- EMX CLARiiON AX4
- NexSAN
Unified Storage (Multi Protocol iSCSI/NFS/FC/CIFS + Feature Rich)
- Dell Equallogic
- HP P4000 (Lefthand)
For VMware backup Veeam is ideal, but remember you need more disk as a backup target.
- EMC VNX
- NetApp FAS2020A
- Oracle ZFS Appliance (maybe not the flavor of the month for some Edugeeker's)
Andy
I set up the virtual solution in July/August of 2010. We purchase a P4300G2 and replaced our core swtch at the same time (HP ProCurve E5412zl).
We have 2 iSCSI NIC's per blade, the P4300 is a Dual-node, Dual-controller unit that runs Active-Active controllers on both nodes.
Set up MPI/O on the blades so both NIC's are aware of both SAN nodes, switch/NICS have both flow control and 9k jumbo packets enabled (supports both running together, however flow control is the most important if you have to choose one ot the other).
We back up with Microsoft Data Protection Manager as its an all-MS solution.
Simon
I'd say stay away from the FAS2020, I've got one and regret it. It's overpriced and underpowered, and you'll quickly find it bottlenecking on anything other than basic loads.
I've got an Oracle S7000 box that's been excellent, failing that I'd probably look at EMC or HP.
Chris
Duke's right (as always) the FAS2020 is limited in performance and software features and will not go to OnTap8, also for the money (approx £12k for 12 x 450Gb SAS) there could be a better solution from another vendor. But if it does fit your requirement then maybe its good enough.
Andy
I've got Oracle boxes that ain't worth the money I paid for them TBH and I am fairly sure @Ric_ agrees with me on that one :( I'd look at the EMC stuff that Andy from Cutter mentions, I should have spent more and got an EMC or NetApp box tbh. I still have no faith in the Oracle range of products and wouldn't buy them again. Oh and support costs for Oracle are horrid, I've put away 10% of the years budget to cover them and it may just about cover it!
I've had EMC kit for years... probably longer than I should have. It may only be AX100 kit and it has a limited feature set but I've had no problems with it. From my experience, given the choice of EMC or Oracle, I would lean towards EMC at the moment.
Funny, it's usually me saying that about you. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by apaton
The FAS2020 does what it does - if you need low performance storage without the latest feature sets, but you do want 'enterprise' (albeit slow) level hardware and unified storage then it's not bad if you can fit it in your budget. Personally I don't believe it's good value for money though and I wouldn't buy NetApp again in anything under the £100k price range. Above £100k you start to get their 'real' products which do have their place.
I'm going to play devil's advocate on the Oracle S7000 stuff and say that while it hasn't been flawless (nothing is), it's done pretty much everything we've asked of it, the hardware is excellent on the higher models in the range, and for the price it offered by far the best set of enterprise features and innovation. I've still yet to see a product management interface that beats the Fishworks OS.
Chris
@john: @Ric:
Always a good home for your Oracle kit here..................free gratis mind you ;)
Ensure anything you chose is on the Hardware Compatibility List, for iSCSI you are hard pressed to find a better value proposition than the Iomega IX12-300r (yes we balked at the Iomega as a brand for this, but when you lift the hood you realise it's EMC behind the front end and configured correctly the performance is great). For SAS there are a number of ways to go, we only supply Tier 1 brands, so the likes of NexSan fall by the wayside, but the HP X1600 and X1800 are quality bits of kit, easily configurable and don't need to cost the earth.
Most people think storage needs to be expensive to be good, in the past few years, as iSCSI has grown in use and application there are a LOT of devices now available that provide suprising performance, the baby brother of the IX12 for instance will run 4-5 Windows 2008R2 machines using iSCSI without too much drama - amazing really as it costs around £200! Don't get me wrong, it's not right for production use, but amazing considering what you can do with it if you understand how to tune it for performance.