Reply to rant: [olug] server life span

Fri Sep 27 15:46:22 UTC 2002

Well of course what is best for you will depend on what you're going to do
with it.

The possible iterations of hardware are too numerous to cover.  We looked
mainly at Dell/EMC (they're partnered) and Xiotech.  There are dozens of
other vendors out there.

Between those two:

Initial price:  EMC was a little more than Xiotech for our initial space
requirements, but the upgrade costs will be incurred much sooner, and will
be much more expensive with EMC.  EMC has their appliance processor in one
"box", and their disks in other "boxes" (10 per box).  Xiotech has it all
in one chassis which holds up to 32 drives.   One very interesting thing
was that Dell/EMC SIGNIFICANTLY cut their prices when they heard they had
competition.  I think if they get the bid their prices could go back up for
the upgrades.

Performance:  I think EMC has the edge here.  Xiotech virualizes their
storage at the software level and thats going to incur a performance hit
(despite what they say).  That being said I think that unless you need
every drop of performance the Xiotech will be fine.

Redundancy:  EMC's appliance is fully redundant right down to the
processor.  Xiotech is redundant except for the processor.  As far as data
redundancy both systems support multiple "hot" spares in the chassis.

Managability:  Neither of them are manageable through command line or web.
Sorry.  I think Xiotech's software is a little better as it runs on DOS and
not Windows.  IMO that makes it more stable and much easier to get back.

The one thing you didn't ask about but you should look at is support.
Everyone that I've talked to that has a Xiotech has given them absolutely
glowing recommendations.

For my application I like the Xiotech better.  Cheaper upgrade path, easy
manageability, good support, and it supports all the OS's I need it to.
(Windows, Netware, *nix)

What I would say if you are looking at a SAN is: get a budget.   $50K will
get you started with a Xiotech, but it won't even touch an EMC system.

Bill

***********************Reply separator***********************

                      David Walker                                                                                   
                      <linux_user at grax.        To:       olug at olug.org                                               
                      com>                     cc:                                                                   
                      Sent by:                 Subject:  Re: Reply to rant: [olug] server life span                  
                      olug-admin at olug.o                                                                              
                      rg                                                                                             

                      09/27/2002 10:30                                                                               
                      AM                                                                                             
                      Please respond to                                                                              
                      olug                                                                                           

Thanks for the excellent explanation.  I now realize that I need one.
Which
one do you recommend.  I am, of course, interested in price, performance,
redundancy, and the ability to manage it easily through the command line or
a
web interface.

On Friday 27 September 2002 09:47 am, olug-admin at olug.org wrote:
> A SAN (Storage Area Network) moves the physical storage from the server
to
> a central appliance.  The server gets a fibrechannel card which appears
to
> the OS as a SCSI controller.  The FC card connects to the SAN appliance
> which presents to the server OS x-number of virtual disks.  With some
SAN's
> you can even have boot bios on the FC card to allow for the server to be
> completely diskless.
>
> The advantage of a diskless server is that you can swap out the server
> hardware without losing your OS and data.  Just pull the FC card, replace
> the server, put the FC card in the new server and turn it on.  Your done.
>
> The real strength of a SAN is that you can manipulate your disks without
> disturbing your data or taking your servers offline.   You can resize,
> mirror, swap, and add disks without your users knowing anything.  Some
SAN
> appliances even allow you to upgrade your disks in the array without
taking
> it offline.
>
> Bill
>
> ***********Reply separator*************
>
>
>
>                       "Don E. Kauffman"
>                       <dkauffman at tconl.        To:       olug at olug.org
>                       com>                     cc:
>                       Sent by:                 Subject:  Re: Reply to
rant:
> [olug] server life span olug-admin at olug.o
>                       rg
>
>
>                       09/26/2002 04:31
>                       PM
>                       Please respond to
>                       olug
>
>
>
>
>
>
> For those of us who are in the newbie category. what's a SAN? How is it
> different than a normal server / network?
>
> Thanks!
>
> Don
>
> O
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> OLUG mailing list
> OLUG at olug.org
> http://lists.olug.org/mailman/listinfo/olug

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