Hello from the middle of Canada

[SLMHC]

I found the forums while looking for info on XenServer and Sun Storage Server 7110 info. Multiple searches kept leading me back here so I thought I'd join up as you seem to have a knowledgeable community going on here.

 

Dave

[Soulfish]

Hi!

 

If you need/want any more info on XenServer or the Sun 7110 let me know. I know both myself and _Ric have setups based around the two, and quite possibly a few others as well

 

John

[SLMHC]

I have read a few of the threads yourself and _Ric have been apart of. Good stuff in there. I do have some questions and second opinions to ask about, but will post them in the correct areas after I go through more of the search results. I've only been using both technologies few a couple of months and still have much to learn.

[cookie_monster]

We're also using Xenserver 5.5 with a 7110 here. We use iSCSI which according to the specs isn't it's strongest area but I've not seen the 7110 break a sweat yet and we're running 8 VM's including 2 busy file servers.

[SLMHC]

My setup:

 

- 2 IBM HS22 Blades running 5.5 - H Chassis has 4 Nortel switches installed, 2 in each subnet (corp & storage)

 

- 1 7110 running RAID 6 using all disks using NFS (as per some threads I read here about the performance being better ).

 

- Each host has 4 VMs currently. A DC, Fog server (Fog storage is on another box), AV, Terminal Server (just starting to get it rolling so low utilization), Desktop Authority, Spiceworks & my recently installed Exchange 2007 (single server setup).

 

- I also use the boxes to install test VMs and tear them down as needed.

 

Issues so far: NIC 3 doesn't seem to be utilized on the 7110 at all. Running ntbackup on the Ex2k7 box seems to swamp out the disks (high OPS). Phone Home isn't working. I can't get AD sync working either.

 

Thoughts so far: I really like both technologies so far. Both have had issues, but, I've gotten through them so far and really what tech doesn't have issues outside of a lab! I was all set on using a StorageFlex box (uses Windows Storage Server) and ESXi as my virtualization base, but am sure glad I was able to extend the project and test a few more options. I looked at Virtual Iron and Citrix Xen and was leaning towards VI before they were purchased and EOF'd. The switch from StorageFlex to Sun was a move I was glad to make. As a Windows shop I thought that using Windows Storage Server would mean easy and clear sailing, but it was anything but. The 7100 series is really nice to work with.

 

Glad to be apart of the community!

[witch]

Not knowing anything about the kit you are talking about...

I'll just say 'hello and welcome to edugeek'!

[SLMHC]

Hehe, thanks!

[tech_guy]

Welcome to Edugeek!

[elsiegee40]

Welcome to edugeek from Kent (that bit bottom right in England )

[mac_shinobi]

Half of it makes sense but either way - welcome and hope you don't get a bumpy ride figuratively speaking

[Soulfish]

Haven't been able to get AD sync working here - although that's likely due to our domain being 2008 R2 and our current 7110 OS version not liking 2008 R2. Haven't had the chance to upgrade to v3 (which I'm told should work), especially since it has a totally different iSCSI stack and I'm going to need some time to fully test.

 

The phone home I know is working fine. The number of faults our 7110 has logged with Sun is funny. Most of them are the power failing to one of the PSUs (new server room with dodgy power!).

[cookie_monster]

especially since it has a totally different iSCSI stack and I'm going to need some time to fully test.

 

Ditto we're using iSCSI for almost everything here and it's not missed a beat so I don't want to upset it.

[cookie_monster]

My setup:

 

- 2 IBM HS22 Blades running 5.5 - H Chassis has 4 Nortel switches installed, 2 in each subnet (corp & storage)

 

- 1 7110 running RAID 6 using all disks using NFS (as per some threads I read here about the performance being better ).

 

- Each host has 4 VMs currently. A DC, Fog server (Fog storage is on another box), AV, Terminal Server (just starting to get it rolling so low utilization), Desktop Authority, Spiceworks & my recently installed Exchange 2007 (single server setup).

 

- I also use the boxes to install test VMs and tear them down as needed.

 

Issues so far: NIC 3 doesn't seem to be utilized on the 7110 at all. Running ntbackup on the Ex2k7 box seems to swamp out the disks (high OPS). Phone Home isn't working. I can't get AD sync working either.

 

Thoughts so far: I really like both technologies so far. Both have had issues, but, I've gotten through them so far and really what tech doesn't have issues outside of a lab! I was all set on using a StorageFlex box (uses Windows Storage Server) and ESXi as my virtualization base, but am sure glad I was able to extend the project and test a few more options. I looked at Virtual Iron and Citrix Xen and was leaning towards VI before they were purchased and EOF'd. The switch from StorageFlex to Sun was a move I was glad to make. As a Windows shop I thought that using Windows Storage Server would mean easy and clear sailing, but it was anything but. The 7100 series is really nice to work with.

 

Glad to be apart of the community!

 

 

We had an issue with phone home not working. It's a while ago now but (I think) it turned out that it hadn't added a default route for the gateway. If you look in Configuration -> Network -> Routing there should be a 'default' route pointing to your gateway. Everything else worked fine except of course when it tried to contact anything on another subnet.

[bossman]

@SLMHC:

 

Hello from me an Webman up North in Macem land, hows the weather in your neck of the woods at the moment?

[cookie_monster]

Where are my manners? Apologies for posting tech stuff in this thread

 

Signed Cookie_Monster hailing from the Peak District

[SLMHC]

We had an issue with phone home not working. It's a while ago now but (I think) it turned out that it hadn't added a default route for the gateway. If you look in Configuration -> Network -> Routing there should be a 'default' route pointing to your gateway. Everything else worked fine except of course when it tried to contact anything on another subnet.

 

That ended up being my issue as well. Not very intuitive if you ask me.

 

I need to sched some downtime to do some updates on the 7110, and my Exchange box seems to be hitting the disks hard, but other than that life's good.

[cookie_monster]

That ended up being my issue as well. Not very intuitive if you ask me.

 

I need to sched some downtime to do some updates on the 7110, and my Exchange box seems to be hitting the disks hard, but other than that life's good.

 

 

 

We've been seeing some pretty high ops on the disk as well. Take a look at this thread a few users have posted screenshots of what their 7110s are upto. I was backing up some VM's today and saw over 4000 ops/sec on the disks

 

http://www.edugeek.net/forums/hardware/49702-sun-7110-disk-network-load.html

[SLMHC]

Hmm my disk activity doesn't look that bad after all. I just notice sluggishness from my Exchange VM that no other VM exhibits. It just might be an Exchange thing that I never noticed on my 2k3 physical box. I'd never run 2k7 on hardware though.

[cookie_monster]

Hmm my disk activity doesn't look that bad after all. I just notice sluggishness from my Exchange VM that no other VM exhibits. It just might be an Exchange thing that I never noticed on my 2k3 physical box. I'd never run 2k7 on hardware though.

 

 

Sometimes my fileservers seem a bit sluggish when busy but nothing that anyones complained about. I've got 3 NICs in an LACP bond using iSCSI and it doesn't seem to struggle.

 

 

Post us a screenshot in the other thread when you think things are slow, go on you know you want to

[SLMHC]

Just did

 

I just got some pricing back on 7310 with SSDs and the price nearly made me jump out of my socks. I'll have to do some serious arse kissing to get one of those puppies.

[vikpaw]

Bit late but