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!