Greetings,
I've had first hand experience with Netapp 270s / iSCSI
on couple of windows host. (past life)
Nutshell: SLOW, don't try exchange on it,
it kept timing out on me. I've also seen a large client have issues with Lotus
notes when using Gfilers 980c and HDS as the backend storage. (this was a poor
configuration issue, too many LUNs over a 1 gig
connection)
I've also tried it for another purposes and I
lost my LUN a few times. The only way of getting it back then was by
restarting the client! not a fun thing to do when you are running multiple
apps on the same server.
Suggestion would be, directly attach application
servers via GigE across to your iSCSI device. If direct connecting your
app servers is not realistic. use VLANs to segregate traffic, dedicate iSCSI
traffic to a set of bonded ports.
Start slow, make sure that the number of LUNs being
provisioned to the app servers are provisioned in a control manner.
(meaning, see how your application behaves in a controlled
environment before doing any big role out)
Monitor performance, use a testing tool (iozone) to see how much
performance you would gain or loose from moving away from current
solution.
Also, consider the advantages and disadvantages an iSCSI
solution would bring your environment. (replication, HA, speed, easy of
management, backup, etc)
TOE ? I think that the purpose of having iSCSI in
your environment is to lower the investment of FC (SAN) solution by leveraging
your current network infrastructure and current staff expertise so, if
you start purchasing the TOE cards, you will in fact start cutting
into the savings a properly architected and managed IP SAN (iscsi) solution
would offer your company.
I have not had the opportunity to try a TOE card nor have
I needed it to yet since I am able to reach almost wire speeds on GigE at the
moment.
Can not comment on the HDS and EMC solutions but I can't
believe they would be better than what Netapp has to offer since their main
business is in the FC world.
Hope this helps guide you!
Best Regards,
From:
owner-toasters@mathworks.com [mailto:owner-toasters@mathworks.com] On
Behalf Of Raj Patel
Sent: Tuesday, November 21, 2006 11:40
AM
To: toasters@mathworks.com
Subject: iSCSI SAN
Queries
Hi,
We're in the preliminary scoping phase for a
low/mid-range iSCSI SAN solution. I was wondering if anyone had any positive
or negative real-world experiences with -
NetApp 270c
HDS
AMS200
EMC CX320
At the moment the NetApp is the most familiar to me
as I have used one of their NAS boxes before and the simulator provides a
pretty good indication of how it works. However the iSCSI seems a bit of a
'bolt-on' and its not clear if it will handle tiered storage as well as the
other vendors (then again does it matter?).
The HDS & EMC are
unknown quantities (other than what I can glean from the web).
Any
feedback concerning ease of use, expansion, licensing, snapshot mechanism (the
EMC seems clunky from their literature but I don't know if that's the case in
operation).
Also does anyone have any iSCSI 'gotchas' ? Is a TOE one
of those 'nice to have but not really necessary' things on a modern server or
should it be factored into the solution
?
Cheers,
Raj.