20tb of SAN Storage?
Discussion
As subject basically. I'm looking to replace our ESX cluster around christmas time, which isn't as far away as it sounds when you need to talk to vendors.
We'll be using ESX and I envisage the storage will be carved up as either VMFS or presented directly to VM's so that I can use the SAN vendors VSS tools for snapshots of things like SQL and Exchange.
At some point, perhaps initially or perhaps not, I'd also like another unit(s) at the other end of our site and to do SAN level replication of all or some volumes.
Right now I'm liking the looks of Equallogic and Lefthand/HP P4000 as the "all licenses included" model is appealing.
Given we're running our core business systems on this solution I'm also keen to try and deal with a single vendor for technical support, and I don't want the SAN vendor blaming the NIC/HBA vendor and them blaming the server vendor and so on - one vendor appeals.
I'd be interested in any views.
We'll be using ESX and I envisage the storage will be carved up as either VMFS or presented directly to VM's so that I can use the SAN vendors VSS tools for snapshots of things like SQL and Exchange.
At some point, perhaps initially or perhaps not, I'd also like another unit(s) at the other end of our site and to do SAN level replication of all or some volumes.
Right now I'm liking the looks of Equallogic and Lefthand/HP P4000 as the "all licenses included" model is appealing.
Given we're running our core business systems on this solution I'm also keen to try and deal with a single vendor for technical support, and I don't want the SAN vendor blaming the NIC/HBA vendor and them blaming the server vendor and so on - one vendor appeals.
I'd be interested in any views.
Thanks for the reply. I've not looked at the EVA's in too much depth but I'm under the impression that everything they do is licensed? For example I had a quick look and it seems if you want to replicate between arrays it's a £5k license option?
I'm not suggesting that means it's out of budget, but part of me is nervous about buying into any system where you might want to do something down the line but find the license is prohibitively expensive or you haven't budgeted for it so can't do it etc.
I'm not suggesting that means it's out of budget, but part of me is nervous about buying into any system where you might want to do something down the line but find the license is prohibitively expensive or you haven't budgeted for it so can't do it etc.
bodhi said:
Take a look at IBM's VDS Storage line, similar functionality to LeftHand, lower price.
Thanks, not seen that product before.Looks interesting in that it seems you can add shelves and disks as and when you see fit rather than the EQL/LeftHand approach of buying a fully populated brick.
I don't know if it's me but I do find IBM's website absolutely shocking at telling you what their products actually do.
From what I'm seeing so far, HP and Dell are still coming out as the best option.
I have 16tb of Equallogic already, though I've not yet done more than play with it, it was purchased for a project that never quite happened (yet).
With Lefthand I did try their VSA and was very impressed, not that I'd run a VSA in full production, but it's the exact same software/interface.
The only thing that confuses the hell out of me with the Lefthand is working out the usable capacity once you factor in network RAID and the hardware RAID per "brick".
The EVA just looks like it'll work out way too expensive even going off rough pricing available from Google Shops - I'd like to be able to do site to site replication and they seem to want around £13k just for an unlimited replication license.
As much as part of me like the look of vendors like Netapp and Compellent, partly licensing, and partly the fact it's adding vendors puts me off.
I have 16tb of Equallogic already, though I've not yet done more than play with it, it was purchased for a project that never quite happened (yet).
With Lefthand I did try their VSA and was very impressed, not that I'd run a VSA in full production, but it's the exact same software/interface.
The only thing that confuses the hell out of me with the Lefthand is working out the usable capacity once you factor in network RAID and the hardware RAID per "brick".
The EVA just looks like it'll work out way too expensive even going off rough pricing available from Google Shops - I'd like to be able to do site to site replication and they seem to want around £13k just for an unlimited replication license.
As much as part of me like the look of vendors like Netapp and Compellent, partly licensing, and partly the fact it's adding vendors puts me off.
lestag said:
paddyhasneeds said:
From what I'm seeing so far, HP and Dell are still coming out as the best option.
Dell is just rebranded EMC.Don't let google put you of EVAs.
Just be clear in what you want now and in the future,there are unlimited licence models with EVA, but the cost ery much depends on waht you want now and later.
With out this clarity one provider can seem very cheap under one usage model and really expensive in reality.....
I'll do some digging into the EVA range, though I have to say having looked at and priced up a P4000 it looks pretty reasonable - I did like the P4000 when I trialled the VSA appliance.
The problem was trying to find someone within HP who actually knew enough about the P4000 (as it was still a relatively new acquisition), because they knew the EVA they were trying to steer me that way but couldn't tell me what the P4000 wouldn't do to make them steer me that way.
Edited by paddyhasneeds on Sunday 18th July 10:39
Roy the Boy said:
We're having a Netapp system installed in 2 weeks as part of a server virtualisation project. I was extremely impressed from attending one of their seminars as was my boss. Expensive compared to others but they got our vote.
Yes every time I look at their kit I think "That looks neat", the de-dupe may be useful and I keep hearing about how NFS for ESX is really good.My concerns are that it's another vendor in the equation, and that one thing I keep hearing about Netapp (and others to be fair) is that they'll drop their pants to get a foot in the door, then six months later when you need something they'll hitch them up again and you're faced with "list".
RoadRailer said:
How about NexentaStor running on some HP kit? You could probably spec a HA 20tb system for less than you would think.
A bit too home brew. Don't get me wrong I'm all for open source, and I know you can get support contracts but I'd prefer a "one stop shop" solution so far as support/accountability.lestag said:
Geeze look what happens when i turn my back for year on SAN.. didn't know about the lefthand stuff..
It's interesting kit. They also offer the software for ESX so if you have a remote site (like we do) where you can't justify a hardware SAN, you can virtualize the storage on a commodity server but integrate it with your main SAN, so for example we could run a P4000 on ESX on a Proliant and replicate back to main site.swerni said:
You can also do 255 snapshots per volume with no impact to performance and
no space till you change data. Try that with an EVA
I think an EVA is looking unlikely tbh, haven't quite worked out where it's pitched but it does seem a little feature-light.no space till you change data. Try that with an EVA
Very interested in Lefthand, I'm taken with the concept of the clustering and the multi-site and being able to assign "importance" to LUNs via Network RAID.
I may still look into NetApp, but my gut reaction is still that I prefer one vendor for everything.
tvrforever said:
Frankly a question I'd ask is why do you need SAN for such a small capacity? VMWare works great on NFS/iSCSI and you'd be more in the sweetspot of those products without the cost overheads. Or heck, if you're comfortable with capacity planning forecasts then why not DAS with SAS shelves? (given VMware backup/recovery is an utter pig anyway)
I'm open to suggestions so feel free?One of the drivers for looking at the LeftHand solution is simple that it isn't mega expensive, seems growable, and come with any/all licenses so none of this arse-raping a year down the line when you decide you want to replicate or take exchange snapshots and so on.
maddog-uk said:
do you use vmotion? or any feature of DRS or HA? If the answer is yes, then das is not exactly going to help you.
There are ways to fudge this. On the storage side left hand is an interesting story, as it netapps, and a bunch of others Compellent, pillar or even some of the intel boxes ( http://www.open-e.com/products) anything is possible. But we probably would all need more data to design it for you ie workload, number of systems, number of esx boxes, network, power and cooling capability, what iops you think you need, what you currently have etc. Perhaps its worth an engagement!
We use ESX HA and I'd like to look at upgrading us to vmotion, so shared storage is a must have (and is what we have now).There are ways to fudge this. On the storage side left hand is an interesting story, as it netapps, and a bunch of others Compellent, pillar or even some of the intel boxes ( http://www.open-e.com/products) anything is possible. But we probably would all need more data to design it for you ie workload, number of systems, number of esx boxes, network, power and cooling capability, what iops you think you need, what you currently have etc. Perhaps its worth an engagement!
Edited by maddog-uk on Monday 19th July 23:28
I did speak to Compellent and Pillar but at our level I walked away not entirely convinced there'd be any significant benefit over <insert cheaper product here>.
Workload is pretty simple, around 30 VM's, couple of DC's, Exchange server, file server, and SQL server and beyond those you're left with mostly commodity servers such as a dedicated VM for antivirus and so on.
Right now we have 2 single Quad Core ESX hosts each with 24gb of RAM, when they get replaced I'll be going for dual physical socket boxes with "lots" more RAM so I don't envisage needing more than 2 hosts.
Network is ProCurve at the core, if I go iSCSI I'd be dropping in dedicated switches for the host to storage network.
IOPS, our peak load is during our backup window and when I last measured average is around 1100 with a peak of a couple of thousand.
We're a physically large site and our immediate DR room is a couple of miles away on the end of a 10gbps fibre link, so in time I'd be looking at getting some form of replication going between locations and I'd like this to be at the storage level rather than a fudge of robocopy's and client based replication and so on.
I should stress that whilst we don't have money to burn, I'm not looking to do this on the cheap. Our AX4 has served us very well.
Just by way of a follow-up, I have HP and a reseller sorting out ballpark special bid pricing on a P4000 solution, and I also have NetApp coming in to see me with a reseller in a week or so.
I'd be interested in any info on NetApp from fellow PH'ers, obviously there's a fair bit out there on the blogs and on the vmware forums but it all counts.
From what I can see so far, from the Netapp range I suspect a FAS2040 is about the right placement.
I'd be interested in any info on NetApp from fellow PH'ers, obviously there's a fair bit out there on the blogs and on the vmware forums but it all counts.
From what I can see so far, from the Netapp range I suspect a FAS2040 is about the right placement.
Right then. Lefthand, Equallogic and EMC approximate pricing are in, still waiting on Netapp.
As it stands I suspect it's going to be difficult to do two sites (live and backup) in one hit, pricing suggests we will be able to justify one really good array or two lesser featured arrays.
Any other vendors/solutions that people would suggest I look into?
Interestingly I've been taking some performance metrics and our IOPS profile is pretty low, the issue is the volume of storage either needs a lot of SAS spindles (expensive) or relatively few SATA spindles (lower IO).
As it stands I suspect it's going to be difficult to do two sites (live and backup) in one hit, pricing suggests we will be able to justify one really good array or two lesser featured arrays.
Any other vendors/solutions that people would suggest I look into?
Interestingly I've been taking some performance metrics and our IOPS profile is pretty low, the issue is the volume of storage either needs a lot of SAS spindles (expensive) or relatively few SATA spindles (lower IO).
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