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Re: Potential user has questions
by Brian Atkins 09 Nov '98

09 Nov '98

Shannon Madison wrote: > > > Can you add drives to a file without shutting down? > > yes. Our filers feature "hot swap" capabilities which allow the file system(s) > to grow dynamically while online. > There may be some useful links @ Network Appliance - Architecture > > > How would you add shelves/adapters? > > the same way you'd add them to any other system. Often, shutting down is > _recommended_ but not necessarily required. Interesting.. other posters have claimed a shutdown is required. Can anyone clarify? > > > Is the filer OS considered secure? > > At least as secure as an NT server when running CIFS, and/or a UNIX server > running NFS, and quite often a bit more so (since the filer isn't running a > lot of superfluous processes). > > > Y2K compliant? > > As of v5.1.2 of the Data ONTAP OS, yes. Look at: Network Appliance - Year > 2000 > > > Would you feel safe running your filer attached to potentially > > hostile web servers running user-uploaded CGI programs? > > Absolutely, as we won't run CGI processes on our filer. I think you misunderstood... I mean if the nfs client machines have CGI running on them; CGI that could potentially do just about anything... Basically would you say it is safe or not safe to have a filer attached to the public Internet, or do you recommend that they be firewalled? > > > Can we use third party drives/shelves/canisters/mem? > > They would not be supported. Need some clarification: so if we had a problem with our filer, would we still be able to get support/warranty service? I understand that if the problem was traced to third party parts we would be on our own at that point- but before that determination would we still get help? > > > Will 18GB and larger drives work ok? (Seagate just announced > > 36GB half-height drives...) > > We will soon be supporting 18gb drives. 36gb are in qualification. (I'm not > sure if I'm really allowed to say that ;) > > > What kind of real-world bandwidth can it put out (F740) ? I > > see the transaction specs, but what about sustained mbits > > in a web-type environment (3x more reads than writes)? > > Brian Palowski (beepy(a)netapp.com) would be your best source for that (or some > of the more frequent contributors on Toasters). I have cc:ed him, hope that is ok. Brian, can you provide some rough estimates of how much bandwidth a F740 is capable of outputting? More than 100mbit easily? > > > If you use Cisco Fast EtherChannel, does it failover to the > > lower bandwidth if you are using multiple network links ? > > (assume a CF environment) ? > > > > If yes, and assuming you are using CF with two filers, wouldn't > > that be a system with no single point of failure, or is there > > anything else we should worry about? > > (I'll pass on the CFO questions without more exact research) If anyone can provide more details here, that would be greatly appreciated. > > > Works with these systems over nfs: http(apache), news(inn and dnews), > > dns(bind), > > mail(qmail), ftp(NcFTPd), Frontpage ? > > Our filer supports NFS, CIFS (SMB), and HTTP "get" and "head" transaction > protocols, and SNMP, DNS, NIS, WINS, RIP, RMT, telnet, and rsh administration > protocols. What I am trying to get at with that question is whether those services (and particular software packages) have been shown to run over nfs. For instance, going through the mailing list archives I can see that you guys have done research on running Exchange on a filer, and I'm sure you have tested other software too. > > > Does the CF cost extra? (for the software.. I know it takes a > > second filer :-) > > yes :-) It also has added hardware. > > > Does Netapp charge for OS upgrades beyond a certain time period? > > "Software Subscription" is available (at an additional cost) after the expired > warranty period. > > > Finally, do you feel there are any serious contenders to Netapp > > that we should check out? Anyone tried the EMC Symmetrix stuff > > or Artecon LnyxNSS systems? > > I'll leave that one to customers to answer. I'm sure there are a couple viable > competitors (Sun, Cisco?) but do make sure you compare apples-to-apples. I've > seen Sun benchmarks that blow us out of the water, but it turns out they're > using what would have to be a non-real-world $2million system against our $60k > system. > > hope that helps. I'm sure you'll get lots of other responses as well. Let me > know if you need more follow-up on the CFO stuff. > > -Shannon Thanks for the responses I've gotten so far! > > -- > Shannon Madison <shannon(a)netapp.com> > > Network Appliance, Inc. > 2770 San Tomas Expressway > Santa Clara, CA 95051 > USA > > Work: (408) 367-3574 > Fax: (408) 367-2151 > > The usual disclaimers apply. > -- The future has arrived; it's just not evenly distributed. -William Gibson ______________________________________________________________________ Visit Hypermart at http://www.hypermart.net for free business hosting!

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Dell (was Re: Potential user has questions)
by sirbruce＠ix.netcom.com 08 Nov '98

08 Nov '98

On 11/07/98 22:07:04 you wrote: > >I agree with Sir Bruce. If you buy a netapp, only use approved >add-on products, i.e. their ethernet controllers, disks, scsi >controllers, etc. This is expensive, and a legitimate reason not to >by a netapp. If you are on a tight budget or can tolerate living >without netapp's features (performance, reliability, snapshots, etc.) >then build a file server out of a linux box. If you need the >advantages, poney up the money. And this neatly transitions to another topic - the Dell OEM agreement. While at first they are just going to be selling Netapp's servers, my understanding is that eventually Dell would be using Netapp's software on servers with it's own hardware label. Now, I presume that Netapp will continue to sell it's own servers, so the two will be dividing up the market segments in some way. Will Dell be attacking that low-end (i.e. $10,000) price point? Presumably accomplishing this will mean cheaper components, which means they will have to work together to ensure the software supports it, the performance is acceptable, and so on. If Netapp is still going to make the hardware and Dell just puts their name on it, that's fine, but that still begs the question of whether or not this will be the vehicle in which Netapp can provide servers for the low-end of the market. Another question: Would it make sense for Netapp to invest in the design and development of a RAID-4 hardware controller? Bruce

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Re: Potential user has questions
by Tom Reingold 08 Nov '98

08 Nov '98

I agree with Sir Bruce. If you buy a netapp, only use approved add-on products, i.e. their ethernet controllers, disks, scsi controllers, etc. This is expensive, and a legitimate reason not to by a netapp. If you are on a tight budget or can tolerate living without netapp's features (performance, reliability, snapshots, etc.) then build a file server out of a linux box. If you need the advantages, poney up the money.

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Re: Potential user has questions
by Brian Atkins 07 Nov '98

07 Nov '98

"Stephen C. Losen" wrote: > > > > Is the filer OS considered secure? Y2K compliant? > > Would you feel safe running your filer attached to potentially > > hostile web servers running user-uploaded CGI programs? > > One of the latest versions purports to be y2k. The filer software and > filesystem should not have trouble with "potentially hostile web servers". > That is, the filer should stay running and serving files without trouble. > However, the files themselves have the usual unix protections. So it's > still up to you to configure the filer properly (to restrict access to > certain hosts) and set proper file permissions (to restrict access to > certain users on those hosts). And there are insecurities inherent > to NFS, so you don't want to export filesystems to hosts that you > don't have some control over. Right, of course if you misconfig something you open yourself to mischief. What I want to get at is whether it is safe to have a filer attached to the net-at-large, or whether it needs to be firewalled or otherwise protected. Can you elaborate on the nfs insecurities you mention? > > > > > What kind of real-world bandwidth can it put out (F740) ? I > > see the transaction specs, but what about sustained mbits > > in a web-type environment (3x more reads than writes)? > > Netapp prefers to measure "response time" vs. "transactions/sec". > In other words, a filer might be showing tremendous throughput > for one party, while starving out the others (delayed responses). > In the real world, you want average response time to be as fast as > possible because that is what people notice. Netapp has very > impressive throughput and average response time does not degrade > dramatically at high loads. Excellent, but is the filer capable of overloading 100mbit ethernet? If so, just how much bandwidth should we spec out for it so that it can perform to its max abilities? -- The future has arrived; it's just not evenly distributed. -William Gibson ______________________________________________________________________ Visit Hypermart at http://www.hypermart.net for free business hosting!

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Re: Potential user has questions
by Tom Reingold 07 Nov '98

07 Nov '98

On Fri, 06 Nov 1998 19:41:46 EST, Brian Atkins <brian(a)posthuman.com> wrote: > Right, of course if you misconfig something you open yourself > to mischief. What I want to get at is whether it is safe to > have a filer attached to the net-at-large, or whether it needs > to be firewalled or otherwise protected. Can you elaborate on > the nfs insecurities you mention? > [...] A friend of mine does this, and it seems like a very good design. The toaster has an interface on each side of the firewall. It exports read-only to a web server on the outside, and read-write to a server on the inside. He doesn't run http on the toaster, only NFS. But I don't see any vulnerability in this elegant design.

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Re: Potential user has questions
by sirbruce＠ix.netcom.com 07 Nov '98

07 Nov '98

On 11/06/98 16:54:16 you wrote: > >Hi, we are considering going with one or more filers for our >free hosting service. I've got some basic questions that I >hope you all can help us out with. (I'll ask Netapp too whenever >they return my voice mail..) Most of these are already answered at least once, but what the hey, I'm bored. :) >Can you add drives to a file without shutting down? Yes. And grow the filesystem dynamically to include the new drive, while still in service. >How would you add shelves/adapters? Basically, you'd mount your new disk shelf in the rack, populate it with drives, shut down the filer, open the back of the cabinet, quickly slip in the adapter to the appropriate slot (if a new one is needed), close it back up, attach the cable from the shelf, and turn the filer back on. With a little practice the actual downtime of the filer for such an operation can be under 10 minutes. With the new FCAL, I don't know if you can add new shelves without shutting down or not. >Is the filer OS considered secure? I would consider it pretty secure. There's not much on it. You have the same risks of sniffing packets as you do with UNIX or NT from another machine, but breaking into the filer itself is unlikely. >Y2K compliant? Yes. >Would you feel safe running your filer attached to potentially >hostile web servers running user-uploaded CGI programs? As far as the filer is concerned, yes. As far as other servers on the network, less so. That is, the uploaded CGI could compromise security on your web server on your UNIX box that is talking to the filer over NFS, but I wouldn't worry about the filer itself being compromised. >Can we use third party drives/shelves/canisters/mem? You could in theory. They may or may not work at first. Even if they appear to work, they may or may not work later when you stress them or encounter an unusual SCSI condition. And you'll get minimal support for running a non-standard configuration. So why bother? You may save a few bucks by using the 18GB disk you got at Fry's and some cheap memory, but once it starts failing in the filer because it's not tested by Netapp, you'll wish you hadn't. If you really want to run something third-party, you may be able to make a special arrangement with Netapp. Talk to your salesperson. >Will 18GB and larger drives work ok? (Seagate just announced >36GB half-height drives...) As far as I know they aren't supported yet. When qualifying new drives, Netapp has to take into account not only the drive itself and if it can stand the load, but also the power concerns of the disk shelf. If the shelf can only handle half as many 18GB drives as 9GB drives, you haven't gained anything. >What kind of real-world bandwidth can it put out (F740) ? I >see the transaction specs, but what about sustained mbits >in a web-type environment (3x more reads than writes)? Raw bandwidth isn't a common measurement because rarely are you going to encounter the same mix of operations at each site. And it would depend on whether or not you're accessing the filer over CIFS or NFS, what version, how many drives you have, what kind of network, etc. Having said all that, I would say 40MB/sec or more is possible in a fully maxed out configuration. You mentioned used 100tx ethernet before. I would recommend using gigabit ethernet if you can, or going with multiple 100tx interfaces (full-duplex if you can). >If you use Cisco Fast EtherChannel, does it failover to the >lower bandwidth if you are using multiple network links ? >(assume a CF environment) ? I don't know anything about CFE or even if Netapp supports it. >If yes, and assuming you are using CF with two filers, wouldn't >that be a system with no single point of failure, or is there >anything else we should worry about? Within that system, there's no single point, but when you're talking about the overall service, you'll need to consider multiple sources of power, multiple networks and attached hardware, and so on. >Works with these systems over nfs: http(apache), news(inn and dnews), dns(bind), >mail(qmail), ftp(NcFTPd), Frontpage ? I don't know about Frontpage, but all the others do/should work fine. >Does the CF cost extra? (for the software.. I know it takes a >second filer :-) I think so. >Does Netapp charge for OS upgrades beyond a certain time period? This depends on the support contract. Again, I think so, but you'd need to get the details from your salesperson. Things may have changed. (Note that upgrades and fixes are probably free. Any release that provides major *new* features and functionality will probably cost you.) >Finally, do you feel there are any serious contenders to Netapp >that we should check out? Anyone tried the EMC Symmetrix stuff >or Artecon LnyxNSS systems? It's always good to shop around, but I suspect the other vendors will make a lot of promises they can't keep, or focus on one particular area to shoot down the Netapp (it's slow during reconstruction, for example) rather than address all the other advantages or the deficiencies in their own systems. That having been said, I think EMC and Sun are both worth a look. You may find that for your needs, you'd like to have UNIX available to you on the NFS server. I used to like Falcon, but I haven't heard anything from them lately. Bruce

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Netapp OS networking code stability?
by Brian Atkins 07 Nov '98

07 Nov '98

Jim Davis wrote: > > > Would you feel safe running your filer attached to potentially > > hostile web servers running user-uploaded CGI programs? > > No. But that's a trick question, since user-uploaded CGI programs are > always going to potentially defeat any security system you might use. That's a rather pessimistic way of looking at it :-) What I am after is more like: if some script kiddies upload stuff that goes portscanning and otherwise mucking with the filer, is it going to wig out and die ? I mean people seem to find bugs in the networking code of NT every month- how stable is the filer's OS? Barring any misconfiguration or inherent bugs in the protocols (nfs), is it gonna be rock solid? Or are we gonna have to pamper it behind a firewall or something? -- The future has arrived; it's just not evenly distributed. -William Gibson ______________________________________________________________________ Visit Hypermart at http://www.hypermart.net for free business hosting!

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Potential user has questions
by Brian Atkins 07 Nov '98

07 Nov '98

Hi, we are considering going with one or more filers for our free hosting service. I've got some basic questions that I hope you all can help us out with. (I'll ask Netapp too whenever they return my voice mail..) Can you add drives to a file without shutting down? How would you add shelves/adapters? Is the filer OS considered secure? Y2K compliant? Would you feel safe running your filer attached to potentially hostile web servers running user-uploaded CGI programs? Can we use third party drives/shelves/canisters/mem? Will 18GB and larger drives work ok? (Seagate just announced 36GB half-height drives...) What kind of real-world bandwidth can it put out (F740) ? I see the transaction specs, but what about sustained mbits in a web-type environment (3x more reads than writes)? If you use Cisco Fast EtherChannel, does it failover to the lower bandwidth if you are using multiple network links ? (assume a CF environment) ? If yes, and assuming you are using CF with two filers, wouldn't that be a system with no single point of failure, or is there anything else we should worry about? Works with these systems over nfs: http(apache), news(inn and dnews), dns(bind), mail(qmail), ftp(NcFTPd), Frontpage ? Does the CF cost extra? (for the software.. I know it takes a second filer :-) Does Netapp charge for OS upgrades beyond a certain time period? Finally, do you feel there are any serious contenders to Netapp that we should check out? Anyone tried the EMC Symmetrix stuff or Artecon LnyxNSS systems? Thanks -- The future has arrived; it's just not evenly distributed. -William Gibson ______________________________________________________________________ Visit Hypermart at http://www.hypermart.net for free business hosting!

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Re: can't see ~snapshot directory
by Tom Reingold 06 Nov '98

06 Nov '98

On Fri, 06 Nov 1998 09:37:23 EST, Tom Limoncelli <tal(a)dnrc.bell-labs.com> wrote: > In fact, I wonder if the solution here is to turn off visible .snapshot > and ~snapshot at the mointpoints and put symbolic links in the user's > directory that are SNAPSHOT -> .snapshot. Or, if NetApp could have > these appear as symlinks/shortcuts that would solve the problem. That won't work. NT (and I presume win9[58]) won't let me make a shortcut to a non-existent thing, and it doesn't think .snapshot or It will work when it's a symlink, but you have to be on UNIX to create a symlink, and then I think you're back with the same problem, because fastfind will traverse it. It doesn't know symlinks are special. It thinks SNAPSHOT is a folder (directory). I just tested this.

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None
by Nail, Larry 06 Nov '98

06 Nov '98

unsubscribe lnail(a)ti.com

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