Sun Storage 7110

[Hebdenlad]

The new simulator for both VMWare and VirtualBox (Q2.2009) has turned up on the Sun Download Area here.

Kim,

 

Many thanks for the posting. Beat me to it!!

 

Cheers,

 

Phil

[Butuz]

Ooh have not used the Sim yet. Downloading now!

 

Butuz

[Hebdenlad]

Ooh have not used the Sim yet. Downloading now!

 

Butuz

Butuz,

 

How did you go on with the simulator?

 

Regards,

 

Phil

[Hebdenlad]

Hi there All,

 

I'm seeing an ever increasing number of requests to find out what the S7000 series will do next and wanted to make you aware as much as I can without breaking any corporate rules and regulations (i.e. keep my job!).

 

We have an extremely strong roadmap for the S7000 (in fact it's one of the strongest I've seen from any vendor in the past 15 years) and you will be shocked/amazed/gratified (or all three) when you see what's going to happen.

 

Now, to share this with you I need to sit down and run through the roadmap under (strict) NDA - this information is absolutely the crown jewels - and I am more than happy to travel to wherever you are and do just that.

 

Doing it this way for now will also give you an opportunity to ask me all those awkward niggly questions and get me to help you set up your boxes if you haven't done so already.

 

so, as it stands please come back to me with any questions. Stuff that is public domain I am more than happy to share on here for all to see. the NDA stuff has to be done sat in front (or to the side - makes no difference) of you.

 

Look forward to hearing from you soon.

 

Warmest regards,

 

Phil

[Butuz]

Butuz,

 

How did you go on with the simulator?

 

Regards,

 

Phil

 

Hi I've downloaded it but have not got it running yet. There's a lot going on here at the mo!

 

Gonna slap it on an ESXi server today (or install VMWapre Player on my workstation!).

 

Will let you know!

 

Butuz

[sjl]

We are in the process of purchasing a 7110 and two x4140’s from cutter to replace our admin servers using ESXi. We were planning to use iSCSI but after talking to Andy from Cutter we will test NFS and compare with iSCSI. Also going to test fully virtualising SIMS - see how that runs.

 

I am still undecided on the setup of the LUNs on the SAN though. I don’t know if to allocate the whole lot to one LUN and let ESXi use the whole lot for storing the images on VMFS, then use one of the VMs to present storage to the admin clients

 

The other option we’re thinking is to have a LUN for the VM images and create a storage LUN and use the iSCSI software initiator within Windows Server to connect to that storage.

 

Also we could create a LUN per Server but we are not planning on running too many VMs so I don’t think we need to do that.

 

Just wondering what the rest of you are planning to do with regard to the LUNs on the 7110 series - Had a play with the simulator though that is really useful.

 

We’re still undecided on a few other things too - like the SAN switches to use and i’m in the middle of writing a new disaster recovery plan for this new setup so I’m a bit undecided on the numerous ways of protecting this setup.

 

We already have Symantec Backup exec 11d with the various agents so we are going to buy a cheap server with quite a bit of storage and attach a rack-mount LTO4 tape drive and do some Disk to Disk backups for static, non essential items and Backup to Tape important stuff like SIM DB, shared drives and User data then that can go off-site every night. The data on the disks will be backed up to removable storage every term and taken off site. We are also planning to backing up the VM images to disk for fast recovery of servers.

 

I would be interested to know how everyone else was planning on going about it.

[Hebdenlad]

Hi all,

 

I had an email from one of you about matching grant and for some reason it's been deleted (I'm sure it's not my fat fingers either).

 

so, in the interests of my sanity can the person please resend. I have an answer for you.

 

Cheers,

 

Phil

[cookie_monster]

@ sjl, we're in the same position as you at the moment. We discussed the LUN issue with a supplier and they recomended a LUN for VM's and then one for your data, then use the iSCSI windows program to connect to the storage. I'm still undecided but will have some time to test with the hardware soon. Let us know what you decide.

 

As for backup I think we're going to go with some sort of disk2disk to tape solution. The superloader 3 will probably feature.

 

Quantum SuperLoader 3 LTO-3 8 slot Autoloader - Misco.co.uk

[teejay]

@cookiemonster

Be careful with the backup solution, really these boxes want backing up via NDMP, so you really need one that connects directly to one of the storage boxes. Not all backup software will backup windows shares on storage servers via the network.

Think you can get a good deal on a Sun autoloader when buying with the 7110's, speak to Andy.

Edited May 12, 2009 by teejay

[cookie_monster]

I was told that we can use Backup Exec 12 to backup the VMs via remote agents. Is that not the case?

[DMcCoy]

I was told that we can use Backup Exec 12 to backup the VMs via remote agents. Is that not the case?

 

You can backup the VMs from an agent in the guest, it's what I've done for over 3 years now without any issues. I will be taking copies of the disk images every term or so to aid disaster recovery.

[cookie_monster]

Ok so I can backup our data via remote agent and then copy the virtual hard disk files periodically for DR purposes?

 

Or is it possible to backup the OS as well via agent then restore that into a virtual hard disk?

[teejay]

Yes you can backup within the VM's using the Windows agents.

The problem arises if you have CIFS shares directly on the storage server, which makes more sense than try to create a virtualised file server as you'll get far better performance.

[cookie_monster]

I need to look into CIFS shares hosted on a SAN some more, if you share your data this way can you still apply granular permissions to the data and use windows security groups? Edited May 12, 2009 by cookie_monster

[teejay]

I need to look into CIFS shares some more, if you share your data this way can you still apply granular permissions to the data and use windows security groups?

 

Yes you can. On one 7110, we currently have nearly 1200 users documents and profiles, the main share and the resources share. Hardly breaks into a sweat! See http://www.edugeek.net/forums/hardware/35042-sun-7410-unified-storage-san-userspaces-question.html for info on setting up user document areas. This is the beauty of the Sun boxes as they are unified storage, so they can operate as both SAN and NAS.

Edited May 12, 2009 by teejay

[sjl]

Hi Teejay

 

Yes you can backup within the VM's using the Windows agents.

The problem arises if you have CIFS shares directly on the storage server, which makes more sense than try to create a virtualised file server as you'll get far better performance.

 

I’m trying to visualise this here – probably make more sense when I get the hardware and test it. Are you saying allow users to directly access the SAN from the network?

I was planning on putting the SAN on its own private network so i would have to use a VM as a File server to present the storage (on the SAN) to the users wouldn’t I?

 

Cheers

 

Ste

[sjl]

@ sjl, we're in the same position as you at the moment. We discussed the LUN issue with a supplier and they recomended a LUN for VM's and then one for your data, then use the iSCSI windows program to connect to the storage. I'm still undecided but will have some time to test with the hardware soon. Let us know what you decide.

 

As for backup I think we're going to go with some sort of disk2disk to tape solution. The superloader 3 will probably feature.

 

Quantum SuperLoader 3 LTO-3 8 slot Autoloader - Misco.co.uk

Hi Cookie Monster,

 

Good to know someone else is in the same boat – I’ll let you know when i get the kit – there is so many decisions – iSCSI, Fibre, NFS, How many LUNS, What switch to use, what Hypervisor to use etc . .

 

It would be good to know what you go with too or any findings you have.

 

I was going to go for a tape library from SUN but the Finance guy here is very protective over getting the SIMS data home with him. We have a tape library for the Curriculum network and i hate messing about getting the tapes out on a Friday.

The admin network backups are only up to ~127GB on the current tapes so i am just going for a single rack mount LTO4 HP tape drive – its 800GB worth so we should be good for its lifetime. I have also got quotes for a cheap HP server with storage so i can do some D2D backups – gives us some more flexibility.

 

Cheers,

 

Steve

[torledo]

Hi Teejay

 

 

 

I’m trying to visualise this here – probably make more sense when I get the hardware and test it. Are you saying allow users to directly access the SAN from the network?

I was planning on putting the SAN on its own private network so i would have to use a VM as a File server to present the storage (on the SAN) to the users wouldn’t I?

 

Cheers

 

Ste

 

no, i think what teejay means is carving up a multiprotocol array like the 7110 into functioning as backend iscsi storage for virtualized servers AND serving cifs shares directly as a nas filer....therefore the array is doing block and file, alternative to the latter is using a windows server for cifs sharing operating as a 'nas head' and it's this head which as you say would present the block storage to users.

 

what your doing is using the san storage array purely as a block storage device rather than a file storage device or mixture of the two.

[cookie_monster]

@ torledo, so if sjl had the SAN on a private network only accessible to the servers this wouldn't be possible, correct?

[sjl]

Hi Torledo,

 

no, i think what teejay means is carving up a multiprotocol array like the 7110 into functioning as backend iscsi storage for virtualized servers AND serving cifs shares directly as a nas filer....therefore the array is doing block and file, alternative to the latter is using a windows server for cifs sharing operating as a 'nas head' and it's this head which as you say would present the block storage to users.

 

what your doing is using the san storage array purely as a block storage device rather than a file storage device or mixture of the two.

 

D’oh thats given me another alternative now.

 

So Two LUNs – one for VMWARE images on a VMFS formatted FS, the second LUN used to act as a NAS for the actual network.

 

Team two of the 7110’s NICs to the private SAN (VMWARE) network and team the other two to the actual network – is that what you are saying?

 

I can see how that would improve performance with users able to access shares directly instead of using a bridge head server.

 

Cheers,

 

Ste

[Ric_]

The whole 'unified storage' is also described by Sun as 'virtualised storage'. The way you need to consider it is by taking an 'abstract' view of the box. Don't consider it as a box that does this or that.

 

The 7000-series can do anything you want... you pick the best scenario for you. If you want a bit of iSCSI, a bit of CIFS and a bit of NFS it will do it without problem.

 

There's no point presenting an iSCSI LUN to a virtual windows host as a fileshare. If your Windows host goes down and your storage is still available you can't access your files so you may as well miss out a point of failure and increase the performance.

 

I also have a Sun SL24 tape library and can give testament to how good it is. It's BIG but the performance is amazing - I'm currently backing up data using EMC Retrospect via the Retrospect Client while I figure out a 'better' way to backup. IIRC I backup about 0.5TB in 7 hours with verification.... I spoke to someone today who mentioned that backing up to Terrastations takes 2 days for just over 1TB!

[Hebdenlad]

Morning all,

 

Please see below for an update to the S7000 appliance. As you all know updating your boxes is dead easy but if anyone has any concerns or isn't quite sure then please feel free to contact me.

 

 

A new 2009.Q2 minor release has been posted to the Sun Download Center.

Users of CIFS, clusters, and RAID-Z storage pools are strongly encouraged to upgrade. As always, you can find the list of Sun Storage 7000 software releases at:

 

Sun Storage 7000 Series Software Updates - Fishworks - wikis.sun.com

 

The release notes for this particular release can be found at:

 

ak-2009.04.10.1.0 Release Notes - Fishworks - wikis.sun.com

 

 

Cheers,

 

Phil

[Hebdenlad]

@cookiemonster

Be careful with the backup solution, really these boxes want backing up via NDMP, so you really need one that connects directly to one of the storage boxes. Not all backup software will backup windows shares on storage servers via the network.

Think you can get a good deal on a Sun autoloader when buying with the 7110's, speak to Andy.

NDMP is definitely the best way to backup these boxes - simply plug in a SCSI or FC card depending on your backup environment (FC cards are more expensive than SCSI but give you greater throughput) and plug into the tape drive /library.

 

Talk to Andy on the tape drives / libraries and I'm confident he will churn out a competitive quote.

 

We have either the standalone LTO drives or the SL24 / 48 (max 2 drives, 24 slots on Sl24 and 4 drives, 48 slots in the SL48). don't forget to order the media and for the libraries you'll need to think about barcodes and numbering. Most of the popular backup applications (Symantec, Legato, Tivoli, plus others) are supported.

 

Cheers,

 

Phil

[Duke]

cookie_monster and sjl - Give the Sun S7000 Simulator virtual machine a go if you've never played with a unified storage system before, it makes it much easier to get to grips with exactly how it will work. As others have said, when you have a multi-protocol box like this it makes much more sense to have your CIFS users talking directly to it rather than through a Windows server for performance and reliability reasons. The box will definitely give you the granularity of permissions that you'd get on a Windows machine, see my thread on the 7410 for how quickly I managed to get it configured with a bit of help from some guys on here.

 

As it provides file- and block-level storage it should handle all your needs, and all you need to do is set up a 'share' (I'm going with Sun's naming schemes here) as either a LUN (for block level iSCSI) or a Filesystem (for CIFS access).

 

The Sun virtual machine is obviously nowhere near as fast as a physical box for disk access, but for testing it works just like the real thing. I've used it as a proof of concept to test CIFS access for domain users and to provide iSCSI storage to Xen for virtual machines - worked great.

 

Cheers,

Chris

[DMcCoy]

cookie_monster and sjl - Give the Sun S7000 Simulator virtual machine a go if you've never played with a unified storage system before, it makes it much easier to get to grips with exactly how it will work. As others have said, when you have a multi-protocol box like this it makes much more sense to have your CIFS users talking directly to it rather than through a Windows server for performance and reliability reasons. The box will definitely give you the granularity of permissions that you'd get on a Windows machine, see my thread on the 7410 for how quickly I managed to get it configured with a bit of help from some guys on here.

 

As it provides file- and block-level storage it should handle all your needs, and all you need to do is set up a 'share' (I'm going with Sun's naming schemes here) as either a LUN (for block level iSCSI) or a Filesystem (for CIFS access).

 

The Sun virtual machine is obviously nowhere near as fast as a physical box for disk access, but for testing it works just like the real thing. I've used it as a proof of concept to test CIFS access for domain users and to provide iSCSI storage to Xen for virtual machines - worked great.

 

Cheers,

Chris

 

That depends, you may still want it on a private storage network, perhaps even using a VM to present the files on SAN storage to the clients. The are still some advantages of not using it as a NAS, such as jumbo frames between VM host and storage.