iSCSI SAN system recommendations

[RobFuller]

Mine is going to be incorporated into a mixed 2003/2008, the SUN looks very easy to setup and manage. Though I won’t know this for a fact until it arrives. But overall shouldn’t be too hard that’s the appeal of iSCSI over fibre.

 

Once I have things setup I can give you some more feed back!!

[linescanner]

The Sun 7110 seems to be getting the thumbs up from everybody.

 

I know we are running out of filestore and I'll have to do something about it. However I am a total novice in this area, how difficult would it be to incorporate the 7110 into a windows 2003 server environment.

 

It is so easy you could give it to your Mum, and she would have it in production in about 20 mins.

 

Drop me a PM and we can talk about the units.

 

They are on Edu special until 31st March.

[Ric_]

it is also worth noting that you can demo the management interface of the Sun kit on the Sun website

[moggy]

Thanks guys, I've got to wait for an idea of next years budget before it's worth me going any further. Anyway it's good to know it's not rocket science.

[SkreeM1980]

I've been looking quite a lot at iSCSI Sans recently, and due to what i've inherited here with build your own storage arrays which perform badly and can't get any support I haven't considered build your own.

 

I'm getting towards placing an order for the Sun 7210 11.4Tb model, the great thing is that the software platform is the same across all the 7000 series so the 7110 will be just as easy to configure. there is a VMWare download of a demo on the sun it uses 50mb VMDK files to simulate the storage array but you can get the hang of the config and the settings, I also managed to map a volume and copy data etc no problems.

 

The other really good offering i found was the Dell Equalogix but i can get much more capacity on Sun for around the same price. Thin provisioning and no feature licensing are 2 of my other draws to these models. snapshot etc are all included too!

 

Skr

[john]

Okai, probably very stupid question time here, but do you need a complete Sun system for the Sun SANs to work or could i use one with a standard vanilla Server 2003 / 2008 network with nothing Sun on them.

[linescanner]

They are an Open storage platform. You can chuck them into anything. No other Sun kit required.

 

They will fit in a standard Windows network.

[john]

Excellent answer, now just need to find money Do you think the Government would give us large pots of money for no return like they are doing for the banks

[linescanner]

Guys,

 

saw this about Amber Rd

 

"I have been covering storage from 10 years and this is the first time that I have become excited about what Sun is doing in storage. Amber Road is the first disruptive technology that I've seen in storage space in 10 years. This is a NAS product that is much better than anything Net App and EMC offer and is a huge opportunity for Sun..." Roger Cox, Gartner Research VP and Distinguished Analyst:

[null]

The 7110 is on special to edu at the moment at £,4500 + VAT. I think it runs to end of March.

 

The other good bit is that you will be able to bolt a J4200 JBOD unit underneath as you need to expand the capacity.

 

If you need anymore info drop me a PM.

 

 

Hi Linescanner - are you sure about that last part? My Sun rep is saying we can't use a J4200 off of a 7110. Would sure love it if we could!

[linescanner]

Hi Linescanner - are you sure about that last part? My Sun rep is saying we can't use a J4200 off of a 7110. Would sure love it if we could!

 

Yeah, I am. It is not currently but will be in the next software release due shortly. As I understand it will be up to 3 JBODs (not fully sure on this)