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13531 discussions

RE: Non disruptive upgrade of FAS960c cluster
by Watanabe, Steve 31 May '05

31 May '05

> From: Steve Losen [mailto:scl@sasha.acc.virginia.edu] > > We want to upgrade a FAS960c cluster from 7.0.0.1 to 7.0.1R1. > The cluster is only doing FC SAN, providing LUNs for our > central email servers, which are Suns running Solaris 8 and > Veritas volume manger and filesystem. Veritas is configured > to to multi-pathing. > > We do not want to schedule downtime for the email servers > whenever we upgrade the filers. I have been reading about > the "non disruptive" upgrade procedure where you install the > new system files, download, and instead of reboot, you "cf > takeover" one filer and "cf giveback", then do the same with > the other filer. > > Is this really significantly less disruptive than doing a > normal upgrade where you "cf disable" and then just reboot > both filers? Hi Steve, The non-disruptive upgrade (NDU) process is the same level of disruptiveness as a reboot (e.g. no disruption for NFS; connection lost for CIFS). The difference is that the length of time the filer isn't servicing the clients is shorter in the NDU case. The takeover time, while dependent on the load of the filers, is faster than a reboot which requires the filer to do POST, load the kernel, scan the Pci bus, init the adapters, init all the processes, etc. > > When you "cf takeover" the current SAN data path that the Sun > boxes are using to access some LUNs becomes unavailable, so > they must switch to an alternate data path through the > surviving filer. How long does this take and how disruptive > is it? Then when you "cf giveback", the Sun boxes need to > switch back to the original data path. If you simply reboot > both filers, then all of the LUNs are unavailable during the > reboot and come back after a minute or two. I've cc'd our FCP person for his answer to this but again the service "pause" is shorter for takeover/giveback then a reboot. > > Is it really less disruptive and "safer" to use the > takeover/giveback procedure in our situation? NDU is a tested, documented procedure. > > I am also concerned about the disk firmware upgrade that may > happen as part of an ONTAP upgrade. Is it better to upgrade > the disk FW before upgrading ONTAP, to make the ONTAP upgrade > as fast as possible? Yes, in fact the current recommendation is that you don't use NDU if you need a disk f/w upgrade and you have raid-4 aggregates. It is ok to use NDU if you use raid-dp or mirrored raid-4 aggregates. -Steve Watanabe NetApp Cluster Group > > > Steve Losen scl(a)virginia.edu phone: 434-924-0640 > > University of Virginia ITC Unix Support > >

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Non disruptive upgrade of FAS960c cluster
by Steve Losen 31 May '05

31 May '05

We want to upgrade a FAS960c cluster from 7.0.0.1 to 7.0.1R1. The cluster is only doing FC SAN, providing LUNs for our central email servers, which are Suns running Solaris 8 and Veritas volume manger and filesystem. Veritas is configured to to multi-pathing. We do not want to schedule downtime for the email servers whenever we upgrade the filers. I have been reading about the "non disruptive" upgrade procedure where you install the new system files, download, and instead of reboot, you "cf takeover" one filer and "cf giveback", then do the same with the other filer. Is this really significantly less disruptive than doing a normal upgrade where you "cf disable" and then just reboot both filers? When you "cf takeover" the current SAN data path that the Sun boxes are using to access some LUNs becomes unavailable, so they must switch to an alternate data path through the surviving filer. How long does this take and how disruptive is it? Then when you "cf giveback", the Sun boxes need to switch back to the original data path. If you simply reboot both filers, then all of the LUNs are unavailable during the reboot and come back after a minute or two. Is it really less disruptive and "safer" to use the takeover/giveback procedure in our situation? I am also concerned about the disk firmware upgrade that may happen as part of an ONTAP upgrade. Is it better to upgrade the disk FW before upgrading ONTAP, to make the ONTAP upgrade as fast as possible? Steve Losen scl(a)virginia.edu phone: 434-924-0640 University of Virginia ITC Unix Support

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Snap restore hung...
by Mats.Oberg＠tietoenator.com 31 May '05

31 May '05

Hi, I was going to test snap restore the other day on one of our filers, it didn't work out the way I was hoping... Anyway, the problem was that the volume is snapmirrored to another filer and the "snap restore" told me that you can't restore on volumes that are snapmirrored. I didn't think that was a big problem until today I discovered that the snapmirroring stoped at around the time I tried the restore.. So now I have a volume that can't do snapshots anymore.. I couldn't even take the volume offline because the snap restore is still running (But restoring a single file shouldn't really take a week to complete, right?) Anybody know how to kill the snap restore?(or remove the lock/flag) I'd rather not reboot unless theres no other option. (the filer is a fas920 running 7.0.0.1p6 if thats any help...) / Mats

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ISCSI boot problems.
by Jeff Mohler 28 May '05

28 May '05

Ive got the Qlogic 4010c card, and so far NO problems at all, except I cannot transfer an existing HDD partition to it, and boot from it. Ive created the LUN, windows mode, and using Ghost I can see it, and do a disk to disk transfer of the old C: drive to the LUN. Then it wont boot, I get the PC error that it cant find anything to boot from. The Qlogic card during boot sees the Lun, and there is even a few moments of activity to the LUN before the PC says it cant. Ive even re-ghosted with the 'copy boot sectors' option no to avail. I can start an XP install from the CD, using the driver floppy, and it will install files, and boot just fine, fast too I might say. If I let XP restart for the disk based install from the LUN, it runs fine, so I reboot again into ghost off a floppy, and go to Xfer the HDD image to the LUN. Same error as the first try..cant boot. Any idears?? I need to work up a plan to migrate from HDD to LUN, and it cant be a dynamic LUN either..so I cant do a simple mirror operation.

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Qlogic 4010c Feedback
by Jeff Mohler 27 May '05

27 May '05

Other than I had up update the BIOS and Firmware to the latest levels (and that the BIOS in the card when I got it reported corrupted), I found the instasllation and configuration of booting via iscsi on the netapp to be pretty painless. Thumbs up from my end.

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RE: amd / netapp issue?
by Leeds, Daniel 26 May '05

26 May '05

hrm, i am also seeing odd cpu issues with 7.0.0.1 on some new deployments. with only a few systems we are constantly over 75% cpu and alot of times well into the 90's steadily on cpu usage. i havnt seen anything related on NOW yet. -----Original Message----- From: owner-toasters(a)mathworks.com on behalf of Langborg Tom Sent: Thu 5/26/2005 6:10 AM To: 'Jay(a)Williamsons.org'; toasters(a)mathworks.com; am-utils(a)am-utils.org Subject: SV: amd / netapp issue? There were some problem with redhat7.3 and nfs. That bug on redhat break down my tru64 fileserver. For that bug you need to update the kernel. We run now 2.4.20-28 on the old rehat7.3. I have also a problem with ontapp 7.0 with 100% cpu. We think it was nfs logical problem who crashed my netapp. So we upgraded now to 7.0.1R1 and hope it works. /tom -----Ursprungligt meddelande----- Från: Jay Williamson [mailto:jay_williamson@yahoo.com] Skickat: den 26 maj 2005 14:20 Till: toasters(a)mathworks.com; am-utils(a)am-utils.org Ämne: amd / netapp issue? Hi. I'm sending this to am-utils and toasters since I'm not entirely sure where the problem is. These systems (redhat73-1, redhat73-2, etc.) are in a cluster. These errors all occur around the same time on all the clients (freqently different jobs) but sometimes spread out across 10-30 minutes. My first guess is simply that the netapps are to busy to answer the clients. *If* that's the case, then what can I change on the netapp or the client-end to mitigate this problem? What other options are there? From the /var/log/amd on clients: redhat73-1: May 25 13:48:01 redhat73-1 amd[965]/error: get_nfs_version: failed to contact portmapper on host "netapp1": RPC: Timed out redhat73-2: May 25 13:48:07 redhat73-2 amd[965]/error: get_nfs_version: failed to contact portmapper on host "netapp2": RPC: Timed out clients are dual Xeons running redhat 7.3 am-utils-6.0.7-4 2.4.20-28.7smp mount options=(rw,hard,intr,grpid,retrans=30,timeo=30,retry=10,dev=00000010,vers=3,proto=tcp) # Interesting note: We actually set retry=10000 but the rh7.3 systems use 10 instead netapps are 960/980 class systems ontap=6.5.2R1P13 They are typically very busy (100%) when the errors occur Network switches show no errors NIC cards on client and netapps show nothing Nothing in the messages file in clients nor on the netapps. Thanks in advance and I'll summarize if I get some good input. - Jay __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com

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SV: amd / netapp issue?
by Langborg Tom 26 May '05

26 May '05

There were some problem with redhat7.3 and nfs. That bug on redhat break down my tru64 fileserver. For that bug you need to update the kernel. We run now 2.4.20-28 on the old rehat7.3. I have also a problem with ontapp 7.0 with 100% cpu. We think it was nfs logical problem who crashed my netapp. So we upgraded now to 7.0.1R1 and hope it works. /tom -----Ursprungligt meddelande----- Från: Jay Williamson [mailto:jay_williamson@yahoo.com] Skickat: den 26 maj 2005 14:20 Till: toasters(a)mathworks.com; am-utils(a)am-utils.org Ämne: amd / netapp issue? Hi. I'm sending this to am-utils and toasters since I'm not entirely sure where the problem is. These systems (redhat73-1, redhat73-2, etc.) are in a cluster. These errors all occur around the same time on all the clients (freqently different jobs) but sometimes spread out across 10-30 minutes. My first guess is simply that the netapps are to busy to answer the clients. *If* that's the case, then what can I change on the netapp or the client-end to mitigate this problem? What other options are there? From the /var/log/amd on clients: redhat73-1: May 25 13:48:01 redhat73-1 amd[965]/error: get_nfs_version: failed to contact portmapper on host "netapp1": RPC: Timed out redhat73-2: May 25 13:48:07 redhat73-2 amd[965]/error: get_nfs_version: failed to contact portmapper on host "netapp2": RPC: Timed out clients are dual Xeons running redhat 7.3 am-utils-6.0.7-4 2.4.20-28.7smp mount options=(rw,hard,intr,grpid,retrans=30,timeo=30,retry=10,dev=00000010,vers=3,proto=tcp) # Interesting note: We actually set retry=10000 but the rh7.3 systems use 10 instead netapps are 960/980 class systems ontap=6.5.2R1P13 They are typically very busy (100%) when the errors occur Network switches show no errors NIC cards on client and netapps show nothing Nothing in the messages file in clients nor on the netapps. Thanks in advance and I'll summarize if I get some good input. - Jay __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com

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amd / netapp issue?
by Jay Williamson 26 May '05

26 May '05

Hi. I'm sending this to am-utils and toasters since I'm not entirely sure where the problem is. These systems (redhat73-1, redhat73-2, etc.) are in a cluster. These errors all occur around the same time on all the clients (freqently different jobs) but sometimes spread out across 10-30 minutes. My first guess is simply that the netapps are to busy to answer the clients. *If* that's the case, then what can I change on the netapp or the client-end to mitigate this problem? What other options are there? From the /var/log/amd on clients: redhat73-1: May 25 13:48:01 redhat73-1 amd[965]/error: get_nfs_version: failed to contact portmapper on host "netapp1": RPC: Timed out redhat73-2: May 25 13:48:07 redhat73-2 amd[965]/error: get_nfs_version: failed to contact portmapper on host "netapp2": RPC: Timed out clients are dual Xeons running redhat 7.3 am-utils-6.0.7-4 2.4.20-28.7smp mount options=(rw,hard,intr,grpid,retrans=30,timeo=30,retry=10,dev=00000010,vers=3,proto=tcp) # Interesting note: We actually set retry=10000 but the rh7.3 systems use 10 instead netapps are 960/980 class systems ontap=6.5.2R1P13 They are typically very busy (100%) when the errors occur Network switches show no errors NIC cards on client and netapps show nothing Nothing in the messages file in clients nor on the netapps. Thanks in advance and I'll summarize if I get some good input. - Jay __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com

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RE: Snapshot usage breakdown
by Venkat Appineni 25 May '05

25 May '05

You can go to the advanced mode Filer > priv set advanced Filer > snap status The output is in number of Blocks.. -Ven -----Original Message----- From: owner-toasters(a)mathworks.com [mailto:owner-toasters@mathworks.com] On Behalf Of P.S.Jones Sent: Wednesday, May 25, 2005 10:33 AM To: toasters(a)mathworks.com Subject: Snapshot usage breakdown Sorry to be a nuisance but could someone remind what the command is that shows how much space each snapshot really takes up. I don't mean 'snap list' but another, possibly privileged command, which was mentioned on this list several months back. Unfortunately I failed to file the reference. Thanks. -- Paul Jones, Head of Systems Services, Information Technology Service, University of Durham, South Road, Durham DH1 3LE Email: p.s.jones(a)durham.ac.uk Phone/Fax: 0191 334 2749/2701

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Snapshot usage breakdown
by P.S.Jones 25 May '05

25 May '05

Sorry to be a nuisance but could someone remind what the command is that shows how much space each snapshot really takes up. I don't mean 'snap list' but another, possibly privileged command, which was mentioned on this list several months back. Unfortunately I failed to file the reference. Thanks. -- Paul Jones, Head of Systems Services, Information Technology Service, University of Durham, South Road, Durham DH1 3LE Email: p.s.jones(a)durham.ac.uk Phone/Fax: 0191 334 2749/2701

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RE: NDMP and IBM Tivoli
by Bui, Marcus 24 May '05

24 May '05

Mark, You can accomplish the same by 'zoning' the tape to the Filer. Connect the Filer to a SAN switch with the tape library. On the SAN switch, you zone the number of tape drives you want dedicated to the Filer. The Filer will essentially see the tape as local attached. I'm not familiar with the 349x but I would think you can 'zone' out some tape drives in the library. Good luck, Marcus Bui _____ From: owner-toasters(a)mathworks.com [mailto:owner-toasters@mathworks.com] On Behalf Of Crawford, Mark (CBC) Sent: Tuesday, May 24, 2005 10:39 AM To: toasters(a)mathworks.com Subject: NDMP and IBM Tivoli Does anyone backup their filers' CIFS data to IBM Tivoli (TSM) using NDMP? We have a 349x tape library connected to our Tivoli server using fiber channel. Based upon the IBM docs, we have to connect the NetApp filers directly to the 349x library. I can physically accomplish this. My question is with respect to the tape drives within the library. Our local TSM support staff are telling me that I must be physically connected to a tape drive within the library. That is not the way I am interpreting the IBM docs. Any configuration help would be appreciated. Confidentiality Notice: This e-mail is intended only for the personal and confidential use of the individual to whom it is addressed and may contain information that is privileged, confidential and protected by law. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any use or disclosure of this information is strictly prohibited. If you have received this message in error, please notify the sender immediately by reply e-mail and delete the original message. Your compliance is appreciated. ----------------------------------------- Confidentiality Note: The information contained in this message, and any attachments, may contain confidential and/or privileged material. It is intended solely for the person or entity to which it is addressed. Any review, retransmission, dissemination, or taking of any action in reliance upon this information by persons or entities other than the intended recipient is prohibited. If you received this in error, please contact the sender and delete the material from any computer.

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NDMP and IBM Tivoli
by Crawford, Mark (CBC) 24 May '05

24 May '05

Does anyone backup their filers' CIFS data to IBM Tivoli (TSM) using NDMP? We have a 349x tape library connected to our Tivoli server using fiber channel. Based upon the IBM docs, we have to connect the NetApp filers directly to the 349x library. I can physically accomplish this. My question is with respect to the tape drives within the library. Our local TSM support staff are telling me that I must be physically connected to a tape drive within the library. That is not the way I am interpreting the IBM docs. Any configuration help would be appreciated. Confidentiality Notice: This e-mail is intended only for the personal and confidential use of the individual to whom it is addressed and may contain information that is privileged, confidential and protected by law. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any use or disclosure of this information is strictly prohibited. If you have received this message in error, please notify the sender immediately by reply e-mail and delete the original message. Your compliance is appreciated.

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I can see your internet is slow
by Jeffry Johnson 23 May '05

23 May '05

black peach purple grapefruit AUDIENCE: Yes. EDWARDS: They are doing all they can to take the campaign for the highest office in the land down the lowest possible road. orange peachbrown banana

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Dear Sir,
by manyaya＠gemari.or.id 23 May '05

23 May '05

Dear Sir, This letter is very confidential and I hope you will receive it and give necessary considerat-ion. My name is Nicholas Batimana, former director of finance in Strategic Planning Department in the election campaign team of our former President, Mr. Didier Ratsiraka of Madagascar. During the election proper in 2002 my office received their respective budget for the election from the presidency which runs into hudge some of money. It is to be used to settle post election expenditure. Unfortunately, my boss came out of the election worse than ever, as opposition took to the street in protest with violence, This developed into a near civil war in my country. There was chaos and insecurity all over the nation. Lives were lost and properties burnt and damaged. This situation lead to ouster of the president and he went into exile in France. I have before he finally left for exile informed him that the fund was lost to the violent protesters in my office, which he accepts. During those period of anarchy I used all available means to secure the fund and sent it out to europe as it was disguised as personal cargo. It arrived safely and was since then in the custody of the agent that received it. Now I want the cargo ( that's the fund) to be released to me or my potential partner who would represent me and take delivery in europe. As am writing this letter 'am still under some level of restrictions imposed by the new regime in my country that is why its not possible for me to travel out of my country now. Some necessary amenities were denied us by the govt. such as telephone lines, (except from public booth) travelling, access our local bank accounts, and my passport. These are my reasons of contacting you to seek your assistance to represent me as my partner/beneficiary of the cargo so it will be released to you in the country which I will let you know when you have aggreed to work together with me. More details will be passed to you such as the name of the country where you will go to receive delivery, amount involved, the company's name and contact number your benefit and others as soon as I receive your possitive reply. If you have question to ask pls. 'am available to give you an answer. Finally this is very confidential letter and should be kept confidential. Hoping to hear from you soon. Thanks and God bless You. Yours Truely Nicholas Batimana Alternative E-mail;bluedawater2003(a)yahoo.co.uk

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Account # 71055V Sun, 22 May 2005 19:30:36 -0800
by Jbd.Jacobsen＠comcast.net 23 May '05

23 May '05

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Super low mortage rate
by Bonnie Carlson 22 May '05

22 May '05

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F720 unofficial upgrades
by Leeds, Daniel 22 May '05

22 May '05

I have an older F720 filer and was wondering if anyone had done any unofficial upgrades etc like adding more than 8mb NVRAM or more than 256MB system ram and ontapp successfully utilized the upgrades

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RE: Experience with Acopia
by Venkat Appineni 20 May '05

20 May '05

Thanks everyone for replying.. From what I heard and have seen the product at customer locations is its reliable and fast... We were just concerned thinking about scenario where EMC would buy Acopia and then the 2 companies (Netapp and EMC) would end up pointing fingers at each other for any issues with NFS :( Other than that anyone know when Netapp is coming up with their Spinnaker integration... -Venkat -----Original Message----- From: John Stoffel [mailto:john.stoffel@taec.toshiba.com] Sent: Thursday, May 19, 2005 11:15 AM To: Jonathan Cragle Cc: Venkat Appineni; toasters(a)mathworks.com Subject: Re: Experience with Acopia Jonathan> Pros: Jonathan> 1.. Their CEO is fairly well known in the industry. So? Jonathan> 2.. Microsoft Gold Partner So? Since when has that meant anything? Jonathan> 3.. Won an award from Leading Lights (same publishing Jonathan> group that publishes Byte and Switch) Might mean something... I think some of the pros that you ignore or don't mention are: 1. virtualizes your NFS/CIFS storage so you can move/manage/upgrade that backend without user downtime or them even noticing. I like to think of it as VxVM for NFS/CIFS. In my case, we're looking at it strictly from an NFS point of view. 2. Allows you to do HSM style management. Files which aren't accessed in a certain amount of time can be migrated transparently between backend storage pools. 3. It's not trying to pass through the NFS traffic, it's both a server and client and does it's own translation. This is unlike the Rainfinity box which sat in the middle of the stream and played games with what the clients saw. 4. It's an appliance. I don't have to setup an OS and then applications and get it all configured to make it run. It's pretty much plug and play. Just like NetApps. Jonathan> 1.. Expensive: The ARX1000 lists for $45,000; the ARX6000 Jonathan> lists for $150,000. You'll need two of them to provide Jonathan> redundancy, so you'll need to double both of these prices. Yup, this is certainly a con. It's gotten better price wise if you look at how many Acopia volumes they now allow, versus backends per Acopia volume. But noone has ever said that NetApps are cheap, but they are good devices. Jonathan> 2.. Proprietary file system I have no clue what you're talking about here, the Acopia provides an NFS or CIFS mount point for clients to access. It uses CIFS or NFS to access the backend storage. What filesystem do you see here? Jonathan> 3.. In-band solution: depends on who you ask, but this can Jonathan> directly impact your network utilization (Of course, Jonathan> Acopia will cite a report they paid to have done by ESG Jonathan> (Steve Duplessie group) that states "no impact on network, Jonathan> etc. There aren't enough installations (last I heard they Jonathan> had less than 15 actual customers). Of course it's in-band, it's virtualizing your backend storage, so it does have an impact. In our case, we'll never see it since we're space contrained, not performance contrained. If absolute raw performance is so darn important, why are you using NFS in the first place? Have you looked at how much overhead VxVM puts into a system versus just accessing the disk directly? I never see any complaints there, and I suspect (no real numbers) that VxVM puts some measureable overhead into the loop. But the benefits outweigh the costs by a large margin. Also, if I were setting up an Acopia, I would have my clients connecting via the public LAN, and the Acopia and the backend storage all talking over their own dedicated LAN. Network utilization should be a non-issue then. Jonathan> 4.. Used mostly for file migration and then the appliance Jonathan> is ripped out and moved to the next location for migration Jonathan> of files. I'm not aware of anyone using it for global Jonathan> namespace purposes. So why is this a con? It's more of what the customer is choosing to do with the tool, not with what the tool can do. You need to also say why this is a *bad* thing anyway. And as you say, with only 15 customers so far (maybe more by now), just because some or alot of them have used it for migration, does that mean that the one(s) who are using it for virtualization (global namespace purposes) are doing something extraordinary? Maybe I don't understand your reasoning here, I'd appreciate if you could expand on why you think this is a con of the product as opposed to a mis-use by the customer. Jonathan> 5.. Can't leverage the current computer resources one Jonathan> already has, rather you're paying extra for the hardware. Jonathan> You also can't upgrade the hardware as you see fit, rather Jonathan> you'd need to upgrade to a different switch. When was the last time you took an old computer and turned it into a network switch? Jonathan> 6.. Partners with NetApp, but not OEM'd by them. This is a strength in my mind, since you can use the Acopia to make the transition from one vendor's backend solution to another vendor without hassle. Leverage with your next set of price negotiations with NetApp. Jonathan> Have you already evaluated using VFM software to do this? Jonathan> 1.. It's more cost-effective than Acopia Jonathan> 2.. Sold and supported by NetApp Does the VFM software support me using some other vendors backend storage? For example ,the Acopia would let me keep the currently accessed files on the NetApp, but once they aren't used for a while, I could migrate them automatically to cheaper/slower storage. And then I don't need to do backups either of that data, since I know I have backups elsewhere. Jonathan> 3.. Provides support for NetApp and Microsoft snapshots Jonathan> and more. So why is this an advantage? Jonathan> 4.. Software suite of applications that provide Jonathan> policy-based global namespace, migration, archiving, DR, Jonathan> namespace backup/restore, data classfication & reporting. How is this different from the Acopia? Jonathan> 5.. Award-winning (has won three major industry awards in Jonathan> the past couple of months) Bogus, I could care less whether it won an award, but how does it work in the minds of my peers? Jonathan> 6.. Out-of-band solution that won't impact the network So what if you run the DFM servers on a slow box and it can't keep up with the clients and their needs? What happens then? Jonathan> 7.. Standards-based Which ones? Acopia supports NFS and CIFS. Jonathan> 8.. You can actually try it before you buy it versus going Jonathan> through a huge "selection" process to get an Acopia switch Jonathan> in-house to test in your environment. Download is Jonathan> available. This is a possible advantage, in that you can setup an in house test setup without having to bring hardware in house. I will certainly buy that arguement. But it's not an appliance, which means I now have more work to do setting up the server to host the DFM software. And I have to setup, test, document all the failover steps for DFM as well. So why am I not buying an appliance which has all this work done for me already? And of course, I'm speaking for myself, not my company. John John Stoffel - Senior Staff Systems Administrator - System LSI Group Toshiba America Electronic Components, Inc. - http://www.toshiba.com/taec john.stoffel(a)taec.toshiba.com - 508-486-1087

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Another namespace question.
by Alex Bochannek 20 May '05

20 May '05

Since there has been a lot of discussion about namespace virtualization lately, I thought I'd throw in a question. Nightly, an application creates a fairly large number of files, makes a new directory on an R200, and then dumps the data to it. For a number of reasons, the volume this data is on is 5TB in size and it's currently half full (or half empty, depending on your way of looking at things). The R200 is running 6.5.3P4 and has plenty of space for additional volumes. >From the perspective of the application generating the data as well as from the perspective of the users accessing it, the volume is expected to be accessible under one particular name. The obvious question is: What do I do when /vol/foo runs out of space and I need /vol/foo2? Usually, I'd play automounter tricks since the directories under the volumes are all uniquely named, but I'd rather not. This is NFS-only and the clients are all sorts of different UNIXish systems. Any suggestions? Thanks! Alex.

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Experience with Acopia
by Venkat Appineni 19 May '05

19 May '05

We are planning to use Acopia networks ARX switches to provide global name space to bunch of filers. Has anyone used them before ? Any pros and cons ? -Venkat

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RE: Experience with Acopia
by Kennedy, Jeffrey 19 May '05

19 May '05

I don't know about the pro's but the con's you cite are not accurate in most cases. 1) pretty much the case 2) how do you figure? They use CIFS and NFS just like every other network client. They just happen to be the only client to your servers and the only server to you clients if you go all the way with them. But you don't have to go all the way if you choose not to. You can have just certain file systems under Acopia control. 3) They have owned up to a .5% latency insertion which, given their architecture, I can believe. We'll be looking to verify that claim in our testing. 4) Not hardly, at least not in the NFS world. Since this becomes the mount point for all your clients there's no way someone who needed something like this would be able to tell all the clients "stop doing stuff while I remount all the hosts". This is a put-in-place-and-leave-it-forever appliance. 5) Again, how do you figure? This appliance allows you to mount multiple NFS or CIFS shares from existing servers, aggregate them together into a single view, all the while increasing performance by turning the backend into a storage grid. Are you sure you're talking about Acopia? 6) No idea about that one, but I would use NetApp as the backend of this appliance for certain. The basic idea, given a compute farm and NAS shop (NetApp specifically in this case), is to have the Acopia import however many qtrees you see fit to make up a single file system for the world. Then have it present all of those qtrees as a single file system and mount point. Depending on your policies you can have file writes round robin or do latency based file placement. This is the basic concept of a storage grid, spreading storage IO across multiple systems while still presenting a coherent file system and view. Other people accomplish the same idea in different ways (Ibix, Panasas, Isilon, Lustre, etc..). Acopia is unique in that it puts that capability in the network (switch) rather than in a server appliance or software. I'm not saying that's better, just unique. There are other functions the Acopia can do besides the storage grid but everyone has their own requirements and goals. As to VFM for global namespace, fine if you are a CIFS only shop. They're NFS support is sorely lacking and basically a hack of automounter. They have other functions also, like data replication and site failover, but if you're a mixed environment don't bet on them just yet. ~JK ________________________________ From: owner-toasters(a)mathworks.com [mailto:owner-toasters@mathworks.com] On Behalf Of Jonathan Cragle Sent: Wednesday, May 18, 2005 9:22 PM To: Venkat Appineni; toasters(a)mathworks.com Subject: Re: Experience with Acopia Pros: 1. Their CEO is fairly well known in the industry. 2. Microsoft Gold Partner 3. Won an award from Leading Lights (same publishing group that publishes Byte and Switch) Cons: 1. Expensive: The ARX1000 lists for $45,000; the ARX6000 lists for $150,000. You'll need two of them to provide redundancy, so you'll need to double both of these prices. 2. Proprietary file system 3. In-band solution: depends on who you ask, but this can directly impact your network utilization (Of course, Acopia will cite a report they paid to have done by ESG (Steve Duplessie group) that states "no impact on network, etc. There aren't enough installations (last I heard they had less than 15 actual customers). 4. Used mostly for file migration and then the appliance is ripped out and moved to the next location for migration of files. I'm not aware of anyone using it for global namespace purposes. 5. Can't leverage the current computer resources one already has, rather you're paying extra for the hardware. You also can't upgrade the hardware as you see fit, rather you'd need to upgrade to a different switch. 6. Partners with NetApp, but not OEM'd by them. Have you already evaluated using VFM software to do this? 1. It's more cost-effective than Acopia 2. Sold and supported by NetApp 3. Provides support for NetApp and Microsoft snapshots and more. 4. Software suite of applications that provide policy-based global namespace, migration, archiving, DR, namespace backup/restore, data classfication & reporting. 5. Award-winning (has won three major industry awards in the past couple of months) 6. Out-of-band solution that won't impact the network 7. Standards-based 8. You can actually try it before you buy it versus going through a huge "selection" process to get an Acopia switch in-house to test in your environment. Download is available. ----- Original Message ----- From: Venkat Appineni <mailto:appinenv@yahoo-inc.com> To: toasters(a)mathworks.com Sent: Wednesday, May 18, 2005 4:44 PM Subject: Experience with Acopia We are planning to use Acopia networks ARX switches to provide global name space to bunch of filers. Has anyone used them before ? Any pros and cons ? -Venkat

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RE: ISCSI Boot Questions
by Derek Lai 19 May '05

19 May '05

Sorry I got the model number wrong. It is QLA 4010C. Derek -----Original Message----- From: Jeff Mohler [mailto:jeff.mohler@signasys.com] Sent: Wednesday, May 18, 2005 6:11 PM To: Derek Lai; 'Sto RageC ' Cc: toasters(a)mathworks.com Subject: Re: ISCSI Boot Questions Boot another server..with the same 4004 card, right? On 5/18/05 6:04 PM, "Derek Lai" <Derek.Lai(a)onyxco.com> wrote: > We are testing the Qlogic 4004 card and it works well. It's pretty > easy to setup. You have it point to a lun and then boot off a CD and > install Windows on that new iSCSI drive. > > I personally think it's a great way to get much higer availability > without the added complexities of a full cluster. We have spare servers standby. > With iSCSI booting, if we run into hardware problem, the operator can > shutdown the server, boot another one in place and be up and running > in less than 5 minutes. > > > Derek > > -----Original Message----- > From: Sto Rage(c) [mailto:netbacker@gmail.com] > Sent: Wednesday, May 18, 2005 4:04 PM > To: Jeff Mohler > Cc: toasters(a)mathworks.com > Subject: Re: ISCSI Boot Questions > > not many cards do that. Qlogic has one, but the demo I saw (in late > 2004) was too painful to configure. Its not ready for primetime I think. > -G > > On 5/18/05, Jeff Mohler <jeff.mohler(a)signasys.com> wrote: >> What card is the most supported/liked for booting a diskless >> workstation via iSCSI these days? >> >> And second, how would you go about migrating a disk booting PC, to an >> iSCSI booting one? >> >> Ciao! >> >> >

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RE: ISCSI Boot Questions
by Derek Lai 19 May '05

19 May '05

You can either have just 1 card that you will need to remove from the machine with the hardware problem and place into another server or in our case we just got 2 cards and we can configure 2 separate machines to boot off the same lun. You just need to make sure that they are not trying to do it at the same time. Only one machine should be up on one lun at a time. Derek -----Original Message----- From: Jeff Mohler [mailto:jeff.mohler@signasys.com] Sent: Wednesday, May 18, 2005 6:11 PM To: Derek Lai; 'Sto RageC ' Cc: toasters(a)mathworks.com Subject: Re: ISCSI Boot Questions Boot another server..with the same 4004 card, right? On 5/18/05 6:04 PM, "Derek Lai" <Derek.Lai(a)onyxco.com> wrote: > We are testing the Qlogic 4004 card and it works well. It's pretty > easy to setup. You have it point to a lun and then boot off a CD and > install Windows on that new iSCSI drive. > > I personally think it's a great way to get much higer availability > without the added complexities of a full cluster. We have spare servers standby. > With iSCSI booting, if we run into hardware problem, the operator can > shutdown the server, boot another one in place and be up and running > in less than 5 minutes. > > > Derek > > -----Original Message----- > From: Sto Rage(c) [mailto:netbacker@gmail.com] > Sent: Wednesday, May 18, 2005 4:04 PM > To: Jeff Mohler > Cc: toasters(a)mathworks.com > Subject: Re: ISCSI Boot Questions > > not many cards do that. Qlogic has one, but the demo I saw (in late > 2004) was too painful to configure. Its not ready for primetime I think. > -G > > On 5/18/05, Jeff Mohler <jeff.mohler(a)signasys.com> wrote: >> What card is the most supported/liked for booting a diskless >> workstation via iSCSI these days? >> >> And second, how would you go about migrating a disk booting PC, to an >> iSCSI booting one? >> >> Ciao! >> >> >

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RE: ISCSI Boot Questions
by Derek Lai 19 May '05

19 May '05

We are testing the Qlogic 4004 card and it works well. It's pretty easy to setup. You have it point to a lun and then boot off a CD and install Windows on that new iSCSI drive. I personally think it's a great way to get much higer availability without the added complexities of a full cluster. We have spare servers standby. With iSCSI booting, if we run into hardware problem, the operator can shutdown the server, boot another one in place and be up and running in less than 5 minutes. Derek -----Original Message----- From: Sto Rage(c) [mailto:netbacker@gmail.com] Sent: Wednesday, May 18, 2005 4:04 PM To: Jeff Mohler Cc: toasters(a)mathworks.com Subject: Re: ISCSI Boot Questions not many cards do that. Qlogic has one, but the demo I saw (in late 2004) was too painful to configure. Its not ready for primetime I think. -G On 5/18/05, Jeff Mohler <jeff.mohler(a)signasys.com> wrote: > What card is the most supported/liked for booting a diskless > workstation via iSCSI these days? > > And second, how would you go about migrating a disk booting PC, to an > iSCSI booting one? > > Ciao! > >

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ISCSI Boot Questions
by Jeff Mohler 18 May '05

18 May '05

What card is the most supported/liked for booting a diskless workstation via iSCSI these days? And second, how would you go about migrating a disk booting PC, to an iSCSI booting one? Ciao!

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