What's wrong with SAN? iSCSI is most certainly SAN and has proven itself very well in the marketplace as well as being technically very
Fair point -- there's absolutely nothing wrong with SAN (= Storage Area Network, remember). I could argue, and keep that argument going, that if iSCSI is "SAN" (which I can agree that it can be) then so is NFS. Depending on how you build the infrastructure for the NFS server(s) and client(s).
But anyway, just to make things a bit clearer then on my part, stay away from non-encapsulated FC. iSCSI over Ethernet is fine :-) No one will care about FC anymore when iSCSI over 10 GbE is a commodity. It wont take *that* long before it is.
Cheers, /M
Is there any reason you kept talking about SANs? SAN has its place, especially if you need high end performance. But for a lot of applications NAS works just fine.
I agree. Use NFS. Configure it well. Build a "storage network" if you like, put in dedicated GbE switch(ws) (10 GbE?) with the Oracle server(s) and the NAS Filer(s) in it, make sure everything is Jumbo frames of course, tweak if for optimum performance as best possible, make sure traffic flows the way it should a.s.o. No client traffic on that net.
Use ONTAP 7.x (aggregates) and have enough spindles. Go for the smaller drives probably, not the 144G's, but the 72's
Most likely this will be Good Enough(TM) so you can stay away from complicated bug-ridden SAN setups that always are a nightmare to change config-wise. Especially if you need to change the config quite often in some way (= more than once a year...)
Just my 0.10 SEK worth
/M
Michael - here's my 2¢.
iSCSI and FCP are specifically SAN technologies and NFS is specifically not. The difference is not the fabric or packeting so much as it is where the file system lives.
NFS is NAS, so the file system is owned and controlled by the NAS device. In an iSCSI or FCP SAN, the file system is owned and controlled by the Server(s) to which the SAN is attached... Another way to think of it is that SAN technologies utilize device-type commands, whereas NAS technologies simply say "give me data or take the data" and it's up to the NAS device to decide where to put it...
I believe the point is that the NFS deployment on a NetApp filer takes FULL advantage of Data OnTap features and performance.
..okay, maybe I went longer than 2¢ worth... sorry
Kevin H. Schoener Lynx Technologies Inc.
KHSchoener@LynxTechnologies.NET http://www.LynxTechnologies.NET/
1576 Sweet Home Rd Suite 230C Amherst, NY 14228 716.636.5470 866.316.8599 fax 716.998.6065 cell
-----Original Message----- From: owner-toasters@mathworks.com [mailto:owner-toasters@mathworks.com] On Behalf Of Michael Bergman Sent: Wednesday, February 01, 2006 2:15 AM To: toasters@mathworks.com Subject: RE: Replacing our NetApp
What's wrong with SAN? iSCSI is most certainly SAN and has proven itself very well in the marketplace as well as being technically very
Fair point -- there's absolutely nothing wrong with SAN (= Storage Area Network, remember). I could argue, and keep that argument going, that if iSCSI is "SAN" (which I can agree that it can be) then so is NFS. Depending on how you build the infrastructure for the NFS server(s) and client(s).
But anyway, just to make things a bit clearer then on my part, stay away from non-encapsulated FC. iSCSI over Ethernet is fine :-) No one will care about FC anymore when iSCSI over 10 GbE is a commodity. It wont take *that* long before it is.
Cheers, /M
Is there any reason you kept talking about SANs? SAN has its place, especially if you need high end performance. But for a lot of applications NAS works just fine.
I agree. Use NFS. Configure it well. Build a "storage network" if you like, put in dedicated GbE switch(ws) (10 GbE?) with the Oracle server(s) and the NAS Filer(s) in it, make sure everything is Jumbo frames of course, tweak if for optimum performance as best possible, make sure traffic flows the way it should a.s.o. No client traffic on that net.
Use ONTAP 7.x (aggregates) and have enough spindles. Go for the smaller drives probably, not the 144G's, but the 72's
Most likely this will be Good Enough(TM) so you can stay away from complicated bug-ridden SAN setups that always are a nightmare to change config-wise. Especially if you need to change the config quite often in some way (= more than once a year...)
Just my 0.10 SEK worth
/M
-
Kevin H. Schoener -
Michael Bergman