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13523 discussions

RE: NetApp/Auspex killer?
by sirbruce＠ix.netcom.com 20 Mar '99

20 Mar '99

On 03/19/99 19:26:02 you wrote: > >Hey Toasters - > >How about: >[List of things snipped] > >Please excuse the plug, but I couldn't resist. > >/Christian Adams >Systems Engineer >South San Francisco, CA >EMC Corporation Er, I assume this means your claiming EMC can do these things and Netapp can't? Netapp can do just about all of the things you mention that anyone would *want* to do. They don't do RAID in hardware, but that's because they do RAID-4 which is better than RAID-5. And they still beat you on performance. Why would you want them to beat you even easier? When EMC can provide both NFS and CIFS support in a NAS box, on the same filesystem, same files, with coherent locking, which full support of all NT permissions, with a RAID level as easily expandable as RAID-4, with your own OS (not on the back end of a UNIX server), with better throughput *and* response time than Netapp (with published SFS results), for a *lower* price, email me. Until then, go pick on Sun. Bruce

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Fibre Channel and 5.2.1 issues
by Diptish Datta 20 Mar '99

20 Mar '99

There have been a lot of concerns expressed on this list regarding two issues - Fibre Channel drive stability and the current Data ONTAP release 5.2.1 stability. I just wanted to take a moment to address these concerns. Fibre Channel Drive Stability: There have certainly been some problems we faced with stability and that obviously is the source of all the concern expressed in this exchange. But quality data that we monitor tells me that the stability of FC-AL systems have been good. One indication of the quality is the initial field failure rate of FC-AL drives. It has been a maximum of 0.3% for 18G drives and a maximum of 1.19% for 9G drives. That means that less than 3 out of 1000 18G drives and less than 12 out of 1000 9G drives shipped failed within 30 days. In the course of diagnosing and addressing the issues that have come up we have found a couple of things that everyone should be aware of. The following are the things to watch out for: 1. Disk driver and firmware upgrade We discovered some problems in the FC-AL drive firmware with the implementation of the FC-AL protocol. This was corrected by newer firmware. Data ONTAP 5.1.2 or higher and drive firmware FB37 is *required* for FC-AL drive stability. A lot of people have upgraded to 5.1.2 or 5.2.1 but have not taken the time to upgrade the firmware on their disks. 2. New memory DIMMs on F760 systems with FC-AL It was discovered that the original DIMMs we were shipping systems with was causing noise on the bus and affecting FC-AL signal integrity. NetApp has launched (and concluded) an effort to proactively contact and upgrade all F760 customers with the new DIMMs that were qualified to address this problem. If you feel that you have not been contacted or know that you have not upgraded the DIMMs on a F760 FC-AL system, you should contact Support immediately. 3. Environmental temperature and system ventilation In some instances we have diagnosed a higher than normal failure rate on storage down to overtemperature conditions. This is not unique for FC-AL drives but Fibre Channel allows for denser storage pools and therefore, air flow and cooling is even more critical. Inadequate ventilation where the vents are blocked or shelves are placed such that the exhaust is being directed back into shelves can cause the drives to deteriorate over time. We have proven cases where correcting such situations has reduced the failure rates. 4. Disk seating In some cases we have found that drives not being properly seated in the shelves can cause spurious errors. This is a physical seating problem that NetApp is addressing by considering new designs in next generation shelves. But for now checking that the drives are fully seated by firmly pressing down the drives to make sure there is no play is recommended. With these precautions and corrective actions FC-AL systems should be stable. Of course, there is always the case of a disk not operating within acceptable parameters. These require us to diagnose the problem and remove the disk to gain stability. But that is the exception. Overall, the metrics we collect indicate that FC-AL drives have been very stable. 5.2.1 Stability: The current recommended release is 5.2.1. This release has a lot of bug fixes over previous releases and metrics leads me to believe that it is a release we should feel comfortable with. Based on autosupport logs it looks like there are over 650 systems out there running 5.2.1 or a patch release on it. Patch releases are available for some of the common bugs that are known to exist on 5.2.1 and Tech Support will recommend one if a customer needs it. In another effort to improve stability Engineering is launching a process to release regularly scheduled Maintenance Releases. These will offer you the advantage of predictability (scheduled and planned releases) and thorough QA with bug fixes to address customer crashes. The primary release driver will be bug fixes and increased stability. A pareto of the problems found on 5.2.1 showed that a couple of bugs have caused the most downtime and Engineering is working on the first maintenance release on 5.2.1 so that new systems shipped out from the factory will be protected against these bugs. If you have any questions on any of the above feel free to contact Tech Support. Diptish Datta Director, Product Support Network Appliance

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Quad Ethernet
by Shaw, Kevin 20 Mar '99

20 Mar '99

I am installing quad fast ethernet cards in my F330 and F630 filers. 1) What version of ON-TAP should the filers be running? 2) What configurations issues should I be aware of, and how are multipule default gateways configured? Thanks in advance.

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RE: Legato Backup
by Benn, Paul 20 Mar '99

20 Mar '99

Hi Jay, As long as the AIX version of NetWorker supports NT clients, you should have no problem. I have the procedure (NT to NT) documented at: http://www.netapp.com/technology/level3/3052.html <http://www.netapp.com/technology/level3/3052.html> Legato Section: http://www.netapp.com/technology/level3/3052.html#Sect2.3 <http://www.netapp.com/technology/level3/3052.html#Sect2.3> -----Original Message----- From: Jay Querusio [mailto:jq@opensystems.com] Sent: Friday, March 19, 1999 2:27 PM To: toasters(a)mathworks.com Subject: Legatto Backup Does anyone have any experience using Legatto server on an AIX machine with an NT agent to back up there netapp. If so, could you share how this is working for you and any tricks or techniques needed to make it work Thanks in advance, Jay Querusio

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RE: NetApp/Auspex killer?
by Adams, Christian 20 Mar '99

20 Mar '99

Hey Toasters - How about: 1. Dual redundant design to allow for online servicing and upgrading of all components incurring no down time A. dual redundant Fast/Wide/Differential SCSI channels with software based load balancing B. dual redundant battery for both cache and disks (enough to spin down all disks) C. dual redundant power inputs D. redundant "head"s 2. In box failover design to reduce the price of such ideas as clustered filer heads with 2 minute or less failover 3. Fast packet switching based protocol "head" with 256MB for read cache 4. Pentium/PCI hardware architecture "head" design 5. 16GB shared write cache and 750MByte/second internal bus design in front of JBOD 6. All RAID and disk management handled in the "disk shelf" architecture 6. World wide customer service with 2 hour response time based on soft errors phone'ed home automatically 7. Metadata logging design such that locks are maintained in the event of a failover 8. Metadata logging design such that file system integrity is maintained allowing for fast boot/reboot time of 2 minutes 9. Multi protocol support (NFS, CIFS, FTP, etc.) provided as part of the protocol layer in the "head" 10. Full support of NT and UNIX network based locking 11. Freedom to direct connect hosts via SCSI or FibreChannel to "disk shelf" architecture with dymanic disk management Please excuse the plug, but I couldn't resist. /Christian Adams Systems Engineer South San Francisco, CA EMC Corporation P.S. As Andy Watson and other ex-Auspexians at NetApp may tell you, I am an ex-Auspexian also. > -----Original Message----- > From: Weeks, Thomas [SMTP:Thomas.Weeks@mirage.brooks.af.mil] > Sent: Monday, March 15, 1999 1:48 PM > To: 'askaquestion(a)iname.com'; toasters(a)mathworks.com > Subject: RE: NetApp/Auspex killer? > > I would probably go with a multi-x86 box (low cost) running > Linux (kernel 2.2), SAMBA, hardware RAID, etc. > > I have seen some very good comparative SMB numbers on these boxes. And > now > that > the processor archetecture is scalable with Linux's kernel, the sky's > the limit and the cost is VERY low! > > Tom Weeks > > -----Original Message----- > From: askaquestion(a)iname.com [mailto:askaquestion@iname.com] > Sent: Saturday, March 06, 1999 4:36 PM > To: toasters(a)mathworks.com > Subject: NetApp/Auspex killer? > > > Yes, NetApps are fine boxes but... > > If you started a company to build a NAS box, what > would you build that would be better than what > NetApp, Auspex, etc. has? > > I'm looking for serious responses here - to improve > the market with competition! > > I don't view the kind of very-low $ suggestions on > this list recently as the kind of thing that most > of us are interested in. > > Don't let my anonymous query lead you into thinking > that I'm not 100% serious. If anything it should > illustrate just how serious I am. > > > --------------------------------------------------- > Get free personalized email at http://www.iname.com

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RE: NT backups and snapshots on a F760
by Smith, Gil 19 Mar '99

19 Mar '99

Mark is right that it is best to backup a snapshot (it is not changing) because then you get a consistent backup from a certain point in time. You would potentially miss some files that are changing frequently depending on the backup software your using. But I still think keeping cifs.show_snapshot to the default (off) is best. I would think you would only want to backup a single snapshot (level0) then do incrementals as long as you can. Keep in mind that a decent snapshot schedule can keep you from going to tape in the first place.-Gil -----Original Message----- From: Mark Muhlestein [mailto:mmm@netapp.com] Sent: Friday, March 19, 1999 12:15 PM To: Mike Ball; toasters@mathworks. com Cc: Paul Benn Subject: Re: NT backups and snapshots on a F760 If the snapshot is visible from the explorer (which on newer releases only happens if you set the 'cifs.show_snapshot' option), then yes, you will back up the live filesystem plus all snapshots. The normal procedure is to create a share on a temporary snapshot you create just for the backup. Then when you backup that share you don't get the '~snapshot' in the path. If you want to backup all the snapshots only you can create a share on the ~snapshot directory itself. In that case you will get a copy of all data in all the snapshots, although the paths will start with the snapshot name, so you'll have to be aware of that if you do a restore. Paul Benn has a white paper on all this. Is is on line yet, Paul? Mark Muhlestein -- mmm(a)netapp.com -----Original Message----- From: Mike Ball <mball(a)rtp.opensystems.com> To: toasters@mathworks. com <toasters(a)mathworks.com> Date: Friday, March 19, 1999 8:54 AM Subject: NT backups and snapshots on a F760 >Running NT 4.0 > >Backup programs: Backup Exec, Arcserve IT or NT Backup > >If I am backing up a F760 filer which only has one qtree with NTFS security >and the root volume is setup for NTFS security. If I map the filer C$ from a >NT server and backup the filer from this mapped drive where I can see the >~snapshot directory, will snapshot be backed up by the NT backup programs I >have listed above? If so how much data will the backups contain (-ex- The >active file systems plus the snapshgots)? > > >

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RE: NT backups and snapshots on a F760
by Benn, Paul 19 Mar '99

19 Mar '99

Yes it's now on-line. Here's a link: http://www.netapp.com/technology/level3/3052.html 8><-----snip----snip-----snip----- Paul Benn has a white paper on all this. Is is on line yet, Paul? Mark Muhlestein -- mmm(a)netapp.com -----Original Message----- From: Mike Ball <mball(a)rtp.opensystems.com> To: toasters@mathworks. com <toasters(a)mathworks.com> Date: Friday, March 19, 1999 8:54 AM Subject: NT backups and snapshots on a F760 >Running NT 4.0 > >Backup programs: Backup Exec, Arcserve IT or NT Backup > >If I am backing up a F760 filer which only has one qtree with NTFS security >and the root volume is setup for NTFS security. If I map the filer C$ from a >NT server and backup the filer from this mapped drive where I can see the >~snapshot directory, will snapshot be backed up by the NT backup programs I >have listed above? If so how much data will the backups contain (-ex- The >active file systems plus the snapshgots)? > > >

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RE: NT backups and snapshots on a F760
by Smith, Gil 19 Mar '99

19 Mar '99

Hi Mike, Try this URL, replacing your_filer with the name of a filer running OnTap 5.x on your network, http://your_filer/na_admin/man/na_options.1.html <http://your_filer/na_admin/man/na_options.1.html> I included the relevant section below which I hope answers your question. The answer in my mind being that you should keep this option set to FALSE and then the NT backup programs will not backup multiple copies of your filesystem :) cifs.show_snapshot By default this option is FALSE. The snapshot directory ~snapshot is no longer shown at the root of a share. This is a change in behavior from previous versions. Setting this to TRUE will restore the old behavior. On Windows NT 4 or Windows 95 clients, the user can access snapshots by entering \\filer\share\.snapshot (or ~snapshot or ~snapsht) in the Start->Run menu. Snapshots can also be accessed lower in the share by providing a path to a lower directory. Snapshots can be accessed through DOS on any system by changing to the ~snapsht directory. NOTE: When this option is TRUE it can confuse programs like FastFind that don't know about snapshots. -----Original Message----- From: Mike Ball [mailto:mball@rtp.opensystems.com] Sent: Friday, March 19, 1999 11:52 AM To: toasters@mathworks. com Subject: NT backups and snapshots on a F760 Running NT 4.0 Backup programs: Backup Exec, Arcserve IT or NT Backup If I am backing up a F760 filer which only has one qtree with NTFS security and the root volume is setup for NTFS security. If I map the filer C$ from a NT server and backup the filer from this mapped drive where I can see the ~snapshot directory, will snapshot be backed up by the NT backup programs I have listed above? If so how much data will the backups contain (-ex- The active file systems plus the snapshgots)?

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Re: NT backups and snapshots on a F760
by Mark Muhlestein 19 Mar '99

19 Mar '99

If the snapshot is visible from the explorer (which on newer releases only happens if you set the 'cifs.show_snapshot' option), then yes, you will back up the live filesystem plus all snapshots. The normal procedure is to create a share on a temporary snapshot you create just for the backup. Then when you backup that share you don't get the '~snapshot' in the path. If you want to backup all the snapshots only you can create a share on the ~snapshot directory itself. In that case you will get a copy of all data in all the snapshots, although the paths will start with the snapshot name, so you'll have to be aware of that if you do a restore. Paul Benn has a white paper on all this. Is is on line yet, Paul? Mark Muhlestein -- mmm(a)netapp.com -----Original Message----- From: Mike Ball <mball(a)rtp.opensystems.com> To: toasters@mathworks. com <toasters(a)mathworks.com> Date: Friday, March 19, 1999 8:54 AM Subject: NT backups and snapshots on a F760 >Running NT 4.0 > >Backup programs: Backup Exec, Arcserve IT or NT Backup > >If I am backing up a F760 filer which only has one qtree with NTFS security >and the root volume is setup for NTFS security. If I map the filer C$ from a >NT server and backup the filer from this mapped drive where I can see the >~snapshot directory, will snapshot be backed up by the NT backup programs I >have listed above? If so how much data will the backups contain (-ex- The >active file systems plus the snapshgots)? > > >

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NT backups and snapshots on a F760
by Mike Ball 19 Mar '99

19 Mar '99

Running NT 4.0 Backup programs: Backup Exec, Arcserve IT or NT Backup If I am backing up a F760 filer which only has one qtree with NTFS security and the root volume is setup for NTFS security. If I map the filer C$ from a NT server and backup the filer from this mapped drive where I can see the ~snapshot directory, will snapshot be backed up by the NT backup programs I have listed above? If so how much data will the backups contain (-ex- The active file systems plus the snapshgots)?

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