Choosing SAN questions

[gshaw]

At the moment we're looking at choosing a SAN for our server virtualisation project for next year, so far looked at...

 

- HP Lefthand

- NetApp FAS series

- EMC Clariion \ Celerra

 

And possibly a few others less significant than the big players.

 

Having looked at the NetApp feature set (dedupe, good snapshot management etc) I thought I was leaning towards finding a solution. Thought I'd have a quick look on here for people's views then I read that it's... got... a... mobile Celeron?!?!

 

Which really does raise the question how it can keep up doing all those software features with such a weak CPU. Doesn't inspire confidence tbh and some people seem to have had performance issues from what I've read?

 

Which begs the question what I should be looking at now and what actually would be a reasonable price point. I've been thinking 15-20k is about right for a SAN but beginning to wonder if it's actually too much?

 

Of course we could just go for one of the dumber (and cheaper) arrays but then missing out on snapshotting and other features along those lines does seem a bit short-sighted?

 

The project would involve replacing servers as well... 15 x Opteron 2U Supermicro servers aiming to consolidate to 3 x VMWare hosts. The new servers will be HP DL380s I'd think, 3 of those specced up seems to be around 13k so what wth licensing etc the project is looking around 40k.

 

Does all this sound reasonable or is something looking far too expensive?

[o0damo0o]

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Edited November 18, 2010 by Dos_Box

[o0damo0o]

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Edited November 18, 2010 by Dos_Box

[Chronicles]

Take a look at the Sun/Oracle unified storages systems.

 

More info and a simulator can be found here.

Sun Unified Storage | Flash Optimized Storage | Oracle

[teejay]

Seconded here for the Oracle S7000 series, they do all the things you're after like dedupe, snapshots extremely well. Have a chat with Phil Lawrence, hebdenlad on here, who works for Oracle as a storage specialist or speak to Andy Trevor, linescanner on here, who is from a company which sells the kit. We've had some of the S7000 kit here for well over a year now, much better than any of the other storage solutions in the same bracket that we looked at.

[robknowles]

Hi,

 

For our server virtualisation SAN project last year, we decided to go with the EqualLogic PS4000XV. This was circa £17K with 16 x 450GB HDD. Been a very good SAN and does all the snapshots, volume copies etc you would require. In terms of most SANs I don't think they have massively fast processors, it's not needed and also to keep the heat down I'm guessing. We have an Dell MD3220i (with an additionals shelf) that's about 4 weeks old that runs our shared folder, my documents etc areas. The controllers in these have an 800MHz PowerPC Processor yet they are incredible fast (even with small non-sequential IO that's the majority of the workload), so I wouldn't be woried if they have an Mobile Celeron.

 

Thanks,

 

Rob

[teejay]

If you're going to use de-dupe, that can use quite a bit of processing power unless you use large block sizes, which then makes de-dupe pointless. The Oracle stuff is based on AMD or Intel server processors so they have plenty of grunt.

[Sylv3r]

We are currently looking at the Hitachi SAN's.

[Sylv3r]

We are currently looking at the Hitachi SAN's.

[ful56_uk]

I recommend the Hitachi sans we have two SMS looking at the ams as well

[john]

If you're going to use de-dupe, that can use quite a bit of processing power unless you use large block sizes, which then makes de-dupe pointless. The Oracle stuff is based on AMD or Intel server processors so they have plenty of grunt.

 

The current range, launched about a month or so ago, now uses the latest Intel CPUs, the previous ones did use AMD though

 

I can highly recommend the Sun / Oracle range, a very happy 7110 user here just awaiting delivery of my 7120 to go with it, due late next week fingers crossed!!!! That will bring me some more shinyness to the server room (and a spike in the very reduced electric bill from Virtualisation)

[strawberry]

I would be tempted to not use 3 hosts, I'd use 2 sets of 2 with 2 seperate sans. Lots of processor and ram on the hosts, and 2 Mirrored system disks then find some beefy servers and use something like starwind's Iscsi software. Use a dedicated switch and you'll be fine and dandy. if you use hyper v you can failover in real time between the clustered nodes or move the virtual servers from one cluster to the other use virtual machine manager in a short space of time.

 

If you ensure that key services are available on each cluster you'll be nice and secure.

[teejay]

I would be tempted to not use 3 hosts, I'd use 2 sets of 2 with 2 seperate sans. Lots of processor and ram on the hosts, and 2 Mirrored system disks then find some beefy servers and use something like starwind's Iscsi software. Use a dedicated switch and you'll be fine and dandy. if you use hyper v you can failover in real time between the clustered nodes or move the virtual servers from one cluster to the other use virtual machine manager in a short space of time.

 

If you ensure that key services are available on each cluster you'll be nice and secure.

 

Or get a SAN with dual head clustered failover, which would work must better than 2 seperate SANS.

[Butuz]

Another BIG fan of Sun / Oracle here. Have 2 x 7110's and they are great. At the time I bought them with the Sun Matching Grant program they were 1/8th of the price of dell or 1/4 of the price of hitatchi so it was a no brainer for me. Even if you don't take into consideration the price their arguably better than dell / hitatchi anyway.

 

Unfortunatly not sure if Oracle will be doing matching grant like Sun did. We can live in hope.

 

Butuz

[Duke]

Fifth'd or Sixth'd support for Oracle Sun S7000.

 

I haven't got time to write everything I'd like to say, PM me with a contact number if you'd like to chat.

 

• You get the whole software stack and all updates in the price. NetApp and most of the other big players will gouge you when you want to buy a new software licence (£10k for NFS, not kidding).
  
• The hardware is enterprise-grade (redundant components, clustering support, etc.).
  
• The Fishworks interface is the big one for me - usability on most SANs (NetApp and EMC spring to mind) is something of a nightmare, Fishworks really couldn't be easier.
  
• DTrace = Awesome.
  

 

Happy to talk sometime, spent a lot of time trying to work out what was best for us, already had a NetApp FAS2020, went for a S7410.

 

Chris

[RobFuller]

I'm in Essex using 2x Oracle 7110 units as SANs for Hyper-V Cluster so if you want a closer look PM me.

 

Fifth'd or Sixth'd support for Oracle Sun S7000.

 

I haven't got time to write everything I'd like to say, PM me with a contact number if you'd like to chat.

 

• You get the whole software stack and all updates in the price. NetApp and most of the other big players will gouge you when you want to buy a new software licence (£10k for NFS, not kidding).
  
• The hardware is enterprise-grade (redundant components, clustering support, etc.).
  
• The Fishworks interface is the big one for me - usability on most SANs (NetApp and EMC spring to mind) is something of a nightmare, Fishworks really couldn't be easier.
  
• DTrace = Awesome.
  

 

Happy to talk sometime, spent a lot of time trying to work out what was best for us, already had a NetApp FAS2020, went for a S7410.

 

Chris

[gshaw]

Sun \ Oracle has a lot of fans by the looks of it

 

Is there some kind of odd channel distribution for these as no reseller or storage \ virtualisation company mentions them at all (and I've had aboout 5-6 meetings now with some big players in the market)?

[Poco]

Hi Gshaw,

 

Sun as far as i remember is only allowed to be sold by approved sun resellers from approved distributors. on top there is a severe low margin if i recall correctly so making them a not so popular item to be sold from a reseller point of view. this was some time ago that i looked at it so the info may be outdated now though

[Duke]

Is there some kind of odd channel distribution for these as no reseller or storage \ virtualisation company mentions them at all (and I've had aboout 5-6 meetings now with some big players in the market)?

 

They've only been out for a couple of years in their current format (Sun have done storage for quite a while after they bought out... a company who's name I can't remember years ago) so the S7000 range itself hasn't been around as long as names like NetApp and EMC, even if the components of S7000 have been (Solaris, DTrace, storage servers, the JBODs).

 

I think Poco's right about the approved resellers, although most of the companies I've spoken to have been willing to supply S7000 stuff if I've wanted it. If you're looking for a point of contact, talk to Andy Trevor @ Cutter Project (linescanner on here), or Andy Paton @ WTL (apaton on here).

 

When S7000 started to get popular I think it scared some of the bigger names in this price-range. NetApp just couldn't compete on the licensing front and started to try to scare Sun users with the ZFS/WAFL lawsuit (which is now over).

[nicholab]

I don't have a San but from the stuff I have seen I would go with Sun/Oracle route in schools or go with a whole system VM system based round an Intel modular server.

[teejay]

Yes, most of the big boys will sell you Sun stuff, but they don't get the same 'incentives' as they do from the other SAN manufacturers so prefer to sell you the other stuff. You'll be amazed at how the core brands in the SAN area will fight for your business ;-)

[Poco]

now that is very true. all of the brands will fight for your business aggressively over 10k and sometimes under 10k. more for the fact of having their brand out there so places like this spread their name.

[gshaw]

I think a full-fat SAN with the dual heads \ controllers (whatever your preferred terminology is!) is the safest pair of hands to give to the virtual environment. N+1 hosts gives the room to breathe for failover so probably sticking with that route.

 

I still don't trust Hyper-V, end of the day I don't want Windows running underneath as my hypervisor

 

There definitely seems some aggressive marketing going on out there, some of the events I've been on must've been sponsored by the SAN manufacturers and have to admit it nearly worked until I stick the product names into here \ Google!

[john]

They've only been out for a couple of years in their current format (Sun have done storage for quite a while after they bought out... a company who's name I can't remember years ago) so the S7000 range itself hasn't been around as long as names like NetApp and EMC, even if the components of S7000 have been (Solaris, DTrace, storage servers, the JBODs).

 

I think Poco's right about the approved resellers, although most of the companies I've spoken to have been willing to supply S7000 stuff if I've wanted it. If you're looking for a point of contact, talk to Andy Trevor @ Cutter Project (linescanner on here), or Andy Paton @ WTL (apaton on here).

 

When S7000 started to get popular I think it scared some of the bigger names in this price-range. NetApp just couldn't compete on the licensing front and started to try to scare Sun users with the ZFS/WAFL lawsuit (which is now over).

 

Highly recommend The Cutter Project and Andy for my SAN Needs, they have supplied both my current 7110 and my new 7120 (due any day now!!) Others are willing to supply but the pricing is nowhere near as good as Cutters. I know Andy is away / has been away so if you've dropped him a PM I don't think he's been picking them up being on holiday but I am sure he will catch up ASAP (Kmount I am sure will ensure he knows he's being talked about in good ways!)

[Iain.Faulkner]

We've had the Hitatchi SANS in place now for about 15 months....unfortunately they have not been as reliable as I would have liked. We have 2 SANS in place and both have been replaced and then the replacements have also had to be replaced (faults with drives and power supplies). The user support leaves a lot to be desired as well...take for instance the last two replacements we were sent, both were incorrectly configured with the wrong number of drives, as a result it was impossible to use their data migration tool and we had to wait for another replacement to be sent through to us.