Berkenbush, Richard E. wrote:
Hello all,
I am in the process of purchasing a 720 to be used for TDM storage for SDRC in a mixed UNIX and NT environment. We also would like to consider its use for PDM storage using Sherpa and Oracle. Our intentions are to pilot the 720 with SDRC and phase in the PDM data base for pilot purposes only. Should this be successful, we would then purchase a higher end model such as the 740 or 760. Also we have a need to consider an enterprise wide data storage solution which would involve UNIX and NT data up to 3500 G. Has anyone out there had any bad experience with the Network Appliance products that I should be aware of?
We put a PDM database on a Netapp filer - and it worked. But we backed off of the decision and put the PDM DB back on a Unix machine because we decided that it was a bad decision from an architectural standpoint - and performance suffered as a result.
Since the database software had to be hosted on a Unix machine, the data would be requested from the unix box, which would then go to the netapp box and get the file and send it to the unix box which would then send it back to the client. The file was being transmitted over the network twice. When it is directly on the Unix server it was a one step process.
This was a few years ago, and if i was doing it today i would run a dedicated 100BT (or better) link between the Unix box and the filer - and i think that the performance drop would have been negligable. The situation that we were in was bad - because the filer and the Unix box were on the same 100BT collision domain. A better network design (something that is unfortunatly out of our hands here) would probably provide an acceptable solution to the problem.
Keep in mind - these were *very large* drawings on a high usage system. If the drawings were small - and the system less busy we probably wouldn't even have noticed the performance drop.
As far as the enterprise wide data storage solution for Unix and NT shared data you cannot make a better decision. I'd tell you all the reasons why - but it'd take me weeks to type out. We've been using the mixed NT/Unix shares with exceptional results. Nothing else on the market can even come close. Other than that, i have no opinion ;-)
Graham