Colm,

I was in charge of our Vantive database for the Sales department when we switched it over to a Filer for storage.

Our internal sales group uses Vantive to track their contacts and leads. This application runs in an NT environment on a Dell Poweredge 6350 with four processors. Vantive itself runs on top of a MS SQL database. We connect all of the data files from this database out to a pair of clustered F760s.

This has been in place since last December, and has been working great since. The system has only been down twice since we went to this configuration - both planned. Once to move the equipment to a different subnet, and a second time when we installed the CFO hardware.

The Cluster Failover setup provides us with additional security and flexibility. Though, due to the stateful nature of CIFS, a successful failover requires some manual SQL Server intervention, we feel the overall configuration saves us time when we need to run scheduled maintenance on the Vantive Filer and provides us with availability should we experience unscheduled downtime of this Filer.

As for the performance, it's great. In fact, I would say that if anything we have seen a slight performance increase due to the fact that many of the searches are repeated across many diffferent users (such as a search for all of the new leads from a particular tradeshow), in addition to all of the other normal reasons.

Additionally, we have installed the SnapRestore software onto these machines and have snapshots running every hour. If something were to happen, we can recover from the snapshot taken at the top of the hour, instead of relying on the more manual process (where it has taken multiple hours to restore in the past). As you probably know, when we perform the SnapRestore, it's a simple reboot of the Filer, then we are working again. The value this provides to the Sales team is difficult to measure.

If you have any other questions, please let me know.

chris

-----Original Message----- From: Colm Buckley [mailto:colm@tuatha.org] Sent: Friday, May 19, 2000 9:38 AM To: toasters@mathworks.com Subject: SQL Server 7 with data files on toaster?

Hi -

Another request for success or horror stories; does anyone on the list have experience with running MS SQL Server 7 using a toaster to store the data (as described in http://www.netapp.com/tech_library/3042.html and http://www.netapp.com/tech_library/3044.html)? One possibility being looked at here is to run a database from something like a Dell PowerEdge 8450 with the data files on an F720 or F740. I'm aware of the advantages the toaster will bring in relation to backup, snapshots etc, but I'm interested in how the performance of such a setup would compare to, say, attaching a big LVD or Fibre RAID5 directly to the server.

Any comments?

       Colm

-- Colm Buckley BA BF | NewWorld Commerce, 44 Westland Row, Dublin 2, Ireland colm@tuatha.org (personal) | colm.buckley@nwcgroup.com (business) +353 87 2469146 | whois cb3765 | http://www.tuatha.org/~colm/ No, my powers can only be used for good.

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