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How does Netapps win and lose business?
by Jeffrey Skelton 12 Aug '99

12 Aug '99

I'm interested in hearing any stories on how Netapps wins or loses your business. I'm currently shopping for storage and a Netapps filer seems to fit the bill. I've talked to other storage system vendors -- that big one, EMC (or is it Data General), MTI, and some others. They all emphasize that: - SAN is the future of storage - Netapps and NFS is a lock in to old technology - Netapps is JBOD - that Eurologic is an unknown scrap vendor - Netapps are impossible to back up - RAID 4 is unreliable - WAFL is slow - WAFL is impossible to recover when it becomes corrupt - wack takes all day to report that you're still in trouble - the cluster failover takes too long - the cluster failover is unreliable at best - the Netapps performance is terribly slow - the software is big pile of patches that are impossible to keep track of They've also given me references of companies that have switched from Netapps to other solutions. In general three themes came from the references: - they lost data with Netapps. Why? Because they could not take a backup with their enterprise backup software and then they suffered a multiple disk failure from a set of disks with problem firmware. I've seen a lot of griping on this least lately about backups. How much of a problem is the backup situation and does the situation become a problem when it requires a patch for the Netapps software that may introduce other instabilities? - the Netapps filer was too slow for database use. I could understand how some of the storage arrays directly attached to a server could be faster. This isn't my application space, so I'm not outright concerned with it. But, I have seen some of the recent messages on performance and throughput. How would you rate the Netapps for performance for things like home directory storage? - the clustering did not work. Paid for cluster and the failover did not work as advertised. This concerns me, because I am willing to pay the extra money for a cluster. As long as I'm shelling out, should I go to EMC for reliability or hope that the Netapps failover can work? I can get more Netapps for the money. I'm not dumb enough to believe all of the claims that sales droids make. But, I'd like to hear some opinions as to what makes you buy Netapps, what keeps you on Netapps, and what will drive you away from Netapps. --jeff skelton

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To 5.2.3 or 5.3.2?
by Chuck Hilyard 12 Aug '99

12 Aug '99

I'm faced with an upgrade to my F520. 5.2.3 is a recommended release. 5.3.2 is early access, but has been around for a while now. 5.3.2 has features that I want, such as UID to SID mapping. Are there any reasons why I should or shouldn't go to 5.3.2? Thanks in advance, -- Chuck Hilyard (chuck.hilyard(a)engineering-e.com)

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Re: How does Netapps win and lose business? (cont.)
by Michael Salmon 12 Aug '99

12 Aug '99

+----- On Wed, 11 Aug 1999 07:48:28 CDT, Arvind K Aggarwal writes: | Maybe our Auspex sales people don't know what is going on with CIFS. | They have constantly pointed us to using SAMBA because of their | inability to support CIFS. Overall Auspex is HIGHLY unreliable as | compared to Network Appliances. At least that is OUR experience here. I've worked with Auspices for over 5 years now and some of the machines that we have here are even older than that. My toaster experience is much less, about 18 months. I find that Auspices are extremely reliable if you leave them alone, part of that is due to some of the OS releases that come out of Auspex, particularly the odd releases for some unknown reason. We have only rarely had any hardware problems with them and I don't recall that we ever had a big outage as a result. We haven't had many OS problems with our toasters with the exception that they seem just out of the ark in some respects (e.g. ntp). There have been some hardware problems though, one particular example was a faulty qfe card, the system refused to boot and gave a cryptic error message that neither I and our netapp representative understood. The qfe card turned out to be the only one that wasn't on site but even without that the down time was too long. I feel that netapp feels that they don't have too worry about rebooting because they do it so well, Auspex takes a lot longer so they have to be more careful. Taking everything into account, I feel happier with Auspex than we netapp. As a sysadmin I feel even better with having Sun's but I can't satisfy all of our requirements that way. We bought Dell toasters because they satisfied our user's perceived needs and have to accept that it'll take more work on our part to keep things working. /Michael

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RE: [Fwd: The Promise Of SAN ???.....]
by Savini, Patrice 12 Aug '99

12 Aug '99

I will verify information with EMC. Regards, Patrice -----Original Message----- From: G D Geen [mailto:geen@msp.sc.ti.com] Sent: Thursday, August 12, 1999 3:06 PM To: Toasters Maillist; storage(a)list.ti.com - Share information on Storage config and prices Subject: [Fwd: The Promise Of SAN ???.....] Hi, I just received this message from Auspex and thought that I would share it. I do not make any claims to the validity of the message. I only pass it along so that it may be verified. The writer does not quote the source, thus I am at first sceptical. Comments and suggestions on ways to verify are, of course, welcomed. -gdg -------- Original Message -------- Just had to put this out as food for thought. As Auspex begins building SAN gateways we are even more confident the analysts are correct about the convergence of NAS/SAN. Hope you enjoy. Kevin Kirksey Auspex Systems EMC's Fibre Alliance Woes and the state of SAN Interoperability On 7/23 Jo Maitland announced in UNIGRAM, that more than half of the Fibre Channel switch manufacturers (McData, Brocade, Ancor, Gadzoox and Vixel) defected from EMC's Fibre Alliance, "fed-up with its slow pace on standardization". These 5 vendors have created their own, independent group, (the Open Standards Fabric Initiative - OSFI) charged with settings standards of interoperability between their own products and between their products and third party products. Key points: 1. Standards exist for interoperability between switches, and third party products, but each vendor was using their own interpretation of those standards. This led to a lack of interoperability between different manufacturers switch products and the need for customers to purchase proprietary SAN solutions - something they are not interested in doing. This also led to lack of plug-and-play interoperability between switches and third party products (such as the HBAs needed in servers to connect to the SAN) - in turn forcing vendors of SANs to go through exhaustive interoperability testing every time a new product revision was released or a new product line was added to their suite of SAN products. 2. EMC set up the Fibre Alliance in February with great fanfare, splitting off from the SNIA to develop interoperability between components. Notably absent from the group were any other storage vendors such as IBM or Hitachi. As a result it was seen by many in the industry as a way for EMC to force it's own standards on the rest of the Fibre and SAN community. An effort that has obviously failed - at least for now. 3. Despite the fact that the OSFI has stated that it is a subgroup within the FibreAlliance, EMC has stated that they will monitor the group to see if their work conflicts with what the Fibre Alliance is doing - in other words EMC will do what they're doing, without input or feedback from the OSFI, leading yet again to dual (and dueling!) standards. An indication of this is contained with the report: "One analyst on the call said that working on device level interoperability is fine but without an overall framework for managing those devices, the storage area network is still way off. A spokesperson for McData, a member of OSFI said, "We have to crawl before we can walk." " 4. A third group working on standards is the SNIA (Storage Network Industry Association) with over 100 members. A quote from the SNIA and from a member of the OSFI sums up the situation with multiple standards committees working on the same issues but in opposite directions. SNIA chairman, Roger Reich, director of Compaq's network storage division said of the new group: "I don't know where they are going or what they are doing, but if they need backing in the form of money or talent we would be happy to speak to them." He added that the Fibre Alliance was a closed, profit-making group with a different agenda to the SNIA. In response to Reich, Greg Reyes, CEO of Brocade and a member of the OSFI said: "We are not interested in his offer." Summary 1. Despite their protestations to the contrary, EMC is proprietary, will continue to be proprietary and does not wish to work on a global scale with other vendors to open up interoperability of servers, storage devices and interconnect products such as switches, hubs and HBAs. Customer purchasing EMC storage devices or SAN implementations will be locking themselves into the high price leader and into a proprietary solution. 2. This lends further credence to Auspex stated vision (backed up by analysts) of NAS as the "Intelligent Gateway" to the SAN, and that NAS should be implemented today with an eye toward tomorrows SAN implementation (i.e. SAN should not be implemented today). Install SAN today at your own risk, if for no other reason than a lack of standards and a lack of a current methodology of moving toward a single set of globally accepted standards.

1 0

[Fwd: The Promise Of SAN ???.....]
by G D Geen 12 Aug '99

12 Aug '99

Hi, I just received this message from Auspex and thought that I would share it. I do not make any claims to the validity of the message. I only pass it along so that it may be verified. The writer does not quote the source, thus I am at first sceptical. Comments and suggestions on ways to verify are, of course, welcomed. -gdg -------- Original Message -------- Just had to put this out as food for thought. As Auspex begins building SAN gateways we are even more confident the analysts are correct about the convergence of NAS/SAN. Hope you enjoy. Kevin Kirksey Auspex Systems EMC's Fibre Alliance Woes and the state of SAN Interoperability On 7/23 Jo Maitland announced in UNIGRAM, that more than half of the Fibre Channel switch manufacturers (McData, Brocade, Ancor, Gadzoox and Vixel) defected from EMC's Fibre Alliance, "fed-up with its slow pace on standardization". These 5 vendors have created their own, independent group, (the Open Standards Fabric Initiative - OSFI) charged with settings standards of interoperability between their own products and between their products and third party products. Key points: 1. Standards exist for interoperability between switches, and third party products, but each vendor was using their own interpretation of those standards. This led to a lack of interoperability between different manufacturers switch products and the need for customers to purchase proprietary SAN solutions - something they are not interested in doing. This also led to lack of plug-and-play interoperability between switches and third party products (such as the HBAs needed in servers to connect to the SAN) - in turn forcing vendors of SANs to go through exhaustive interoperability testing every time a new product revision was released or a new product line was added to their suite of SAN products. 2. EMC set up the Fibre Alliance in February with great fanfare, splitting off from the SNIA to develop interoperability between components. Notably absent from the group were any other storage vendors such as IBM or Hitachi. As a result it was seen by many in the industry as a way for EMC to force it's own standards on the rest of the Fibre and SAN community. An effort that has obviously failed - at least for now. 3. Despite the fact that the OSFI has stated that it is a subgroup within the FibreAlliance, EMC has stated that they will monitor the group to see if their work conflicts with what the Fibre Alliance is doing - in other words EMC will do what they're doing, without input or feedback from the OSFI, leading yet again to dual (and dueling!) standards. An indication of this is contained with the report: "One analyst on the call said that working on device level interoperability is fine but without an overall framework for managing those devices, the storage area network is still way off. A spokesperson for McData, a member of OSFI said, "We have to crawl before we can walk." " 4. A third group working on standards is the SNIA (Storage Network Industry Association) with over 100 members. A quote from the SNIA and from a member of the OSFI sums up the situation with multiple standards committees working on the same issues but in opposite directions. SNIA chairman, Roger Reich, director of Compaq's network storage division said of the new group: "I don't know where they are going or what they are doing, but if they need backing in the form of money or talent we would be happy to speak to them." He added that the Fibre Alliance was a closed, profit-making group with a different agenda to the SNIA. In response to Reich, Greg Reyes, CEO of Brocade and a member of the OSFI said: "We are not interested in his offer." Summary 1. Despite their protestations to the contrary, EMC is proprietary, will continue to be proprietary and does not wish to work on a global scale with other vendors to open up interoperability of servers, storage devices and interconnect products such as switches, hubs and HBAs. Customer purchasing EMC storage devices or SAN implementations will be locking themselves into the high price leader and into a proprietary solution. 2. This lends further credence to Auspex stated vision (backed up by analysts) of NAS as the "Intelligent Gateway" to the SAN, and that NAS should be implemented today with an eye toward tomorrows SAN implementation (i.e. SAN should not be implemented today). Install SAN today at your own risk, if for no other reason than a lack of standards and a lack of a current methodology of moving toward a single set of globally accepted standards.

1 0

RE: backing up a filer w/Legato Networker
by Chambers, Carolyn 12 Aug '99

12 Aug '99

The NDMP version is in external test now. I think it's very flexible in that you can setup any number of Networker Storage Nodes and use them as backup servers. The plan is to have each NSN SCSI connected into a tape library. Then point them, through a logically or physically separate LAN, to filers for backup over the network. With a backup network and snapshots, your backup window should now be 7x24. Carolyn -----Original Message----- From: Geir Odden [mailto:etogod@ericsson.no] Sent: Thursday, August 12, 1999 3:02 AM To: toasters(a)mathworks.com Subject: Re: backing up a filer w/Legato Networker Michael Salmon wrote: > | I've perused the archives here, and checked out the netapp and legato > | websites, and have come up with no hard information about the > | availability of a networker client for my netapp. > > AFAIK networker cannot backup netapp filers, the functionality was > promised for february but by all accounts it appears to have > disappeared into the black hole at Legato. The only way that I know of > backing a filer is via NFS or CIFS and I presume that is what you have > done, you need to look carefully at your client specification to see > exactly what you are backing up. I found this at the Legato web. Our incorporation of an NDMP II compliant backup solution will occur in NetWorker release 6.0, due in Dec, 1999. This should better facilitate NetApp integration within a backup and restore strategy. Geir Odden

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Re: backing up a filer w/Legato Networker
by Michael Salmon 12 Aug '99

12 Aug '99

+----- On Wed, 11 Aug 1999 19:07:33 EDT, "Marc C. Poulin" writes: | We have an f740 providing nfs to a bunch of sun boxes hard-mounted to it | over a private network. We have been *aparrently* backing up the | filer via Legato Networker to a DLT jukebox (i.e. the networker logs | claim to have backed things up). While perusing dejanews recently, I | noted some comments about Networker not backing up filers properly. | Sure enough, after several vain attempts to restore some files, | Networker complains that I am trying to restore files for a client | that is not registered. | | I've perused the archives here, and checked out the netapp and legato | websites, and have come up with no hard information about the | availability of a networker client for my netapp. AFAIK networker cannot backup netapp filers, the functionality was promised for february but by all accounts it appears to have disappeared into the black hole at Legato. The only way that I know of backing a filer is via NFS or CIFS and I presume that is what you have done, you need to look carefully at your client specification to see exactly what you are backing up. /Michael

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backing up a filer w/Legato Networker
by Marc C. Poulin 11 Aug '99

11 Aug '99

We have an f740 providing nfs to a bunch of sun boxes hard-mounted to it over a private network. We have been *aparrently* backing up the filer via Legato Networker to a DLT jukebox (i.e. the networker logs claim to have backed things up). While perusing dejanews recently, I noted some comments about Networker not backing up filers properly. Sure enough, after several vain attempts to restore some files, Networker complains that I am trying to restore files for a client that is not registered. I've perused the archives here, and checked out the netapp and legato websites, and have come up with no hard information about the availability of a networker client for my netapp. Does anyone out there have any suggestions or ideas? Thanks, Marc Poulin

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Re: How does Netapps win and lose business?
by sirbruce＠ix.netcom.com 11 Aug '99

11 Aug '99

On 08/10/99 18:25:05 you wrote: > > >On Tue, 10 Aug 1999 sirbruce(a)ix.netcom.com wrote: > >> Given that Netapp's NVRAM allocates writes and then dumps them to disk >> periodically in stripes, this type of optimization would probably work >> well with them. Perhaps they do it already. :) > >I'm sure they do it. Does NetApp's NVRAM allocate writes? I though >NetApp held raw NFS packets in the NVRAM. Yes. I was sorta speaking in shorthand. My understanding is that the raw NFS packets get storied both in NVRAM and main memory; the point is once the NVRAM is half-full, or at 10 seconds, outstanding write data is collected and sent to disk, and the NVRAM flushed. There's some amount of allocation involved here and I think some parity stuff that actually gets stored in NVRAM as well; I didn't mean to imply, however, that actual SCSI commands or disk blocks are being stored there. My knowledge of exactly what happens in detail ends here, so I'll let someone else explain more thoroughly if you're really curious. Bruce

2 1

(no subject)
by Alexandre Gomes (r7043c) 11 Aug '99

11 Aug '99

unsubscribe toaster

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