Don’t let me be misunderstood …
Posted in General, Storage Applications, Storage Management, Advisor - Neil by NeilI talk to a lot of people who know a lot of stuff about servers. They sell them, build them, repair them, attach storage to them etc. So when we start talking about external storage in general and IPSAN in particular, why is it I get the feeling there is such a vacuum of specific knowledge out there?
ISCSI, IPSAN … it’s a foreign language to a lot of the IT industry … why?
I’ll spend one meeting talking to people who know more about the ISCSI protocol than I regard as healthy for the average human, then spend another talking to people who are brilliant at recommending server solutions to customers using big brand name equipment.
Why then, should it be, that the people in one meeting have absolutely no idea what the people in the other meeting are talking about?
Don’t get me wrong … I’m not saying that sales people should have a brilliant handle on the technicalities of their products (they are, after all, sales people), and I don’t think that the technical boffins in the backroom should be able to sell jack, but in every other sphere of computing there is a middle layer who understand the technology and can position it within a marketplace.
So why can’t we do it with IPSAN?
Application engineers are a dime a dozen in serverland, networking, disk storage, even to some degree fibre san, but they are not exactly easy to find in the IPSAN arena.
This technology has been around a long time. It’s mature, it works and is ready for the general masses. So what is stopping it. If I read another analyst report saying that IPSAN will grow by x next year (and will be the next big thing) I think I’ll puke … it’s been that way for years now and never seems to change. Why?
I believe it’s because we are lacking people who (a) understand the technology to a reasonable degree, (b) can explain it in laymans terms to the end user and (c) can dispel the fear and doubt that the fibre lads have been dispensing since the usurper came along and started to challenge their right to make obscene profits.
So here’s the challenge. Send me your storage scenarios. Let’s make some discussion about the pros and cons of IPSAN and see if we can find people out there who can explain its benefits and weaknesses to the general public in a language they can understand.
I know there is a gap in the IT knowledgebase in the area of IPSAN and ISCSI … let’s fill it in a bit.
Otherwise we’ll be reading those same reports again next year.
December 4th, 2008 at 5:31 am
Oh man, I’ve been waiting for someone brave enough to say it out loud!
100% agree
looking forward into the (hopefully) upcoming discussion.
December 5th, 2008 at 5:59 am
Andre …
Brave? No. Stupid? Debatable.
Bring it on.
Neil
January 29th, 2009 at 9:09 pm
OK, I’ll bite.
I’m moving into a new job. The job I left I built a VMWare cluster (2 nodes and 1 management/VCB proxy) to host about 20 servers (AD, Exchange, SQL, linux file servers, linux web apps, etc etc). I used 2 Proliants with dual 4GB FC HBA’s connected to dual FC switches connected to dual storage controllers connected to fiber storage. Essentially the HP EVA 4100 “my first san” kit done HA. This has been rock solid, but hardware and software were in the $100k range.
The job I’m going to is in the public sector. They have the *exact* same needs as my old job, but there is zero chance of getting $100k to play with. Initally I was looking at FreeNAS with a bunch of DAS with an iSCSI initiator, but quickly tossed that idea away.
How would I “white box” and iSCSI storage solution similar in functionality to the HP EVA 4100? Their performance needs are pretty low, and they have no OLTP demands. I imagine their heaviest app will be MS Exchange with 400 or so mailboxes, but this should be a pretty light load all things considered. Maybe a dozen or so virtual guests, and just 3 physical servers.
So, “bring it on Neil”,,, sort me out!
Cheers,
February 3rd, 2009 at 3:29 pm
Ben,
Did I actually say “Bring it on”? I think my daughter must have made me sit through one of her favourite movies!
OK … I’ll basically forget the first bit about the HP EVA 4100 because that’s enterprise, and while it may have done the job beautifully, the cost will kill your newfound employer. However since you liked it so much it gives me an insight into the functionality I believe you are looking for (you’ll note I’ve made up a few of my own new computer industry acronyms):
Survive Component Failure (SCF): hard drive (RAID), power supply (dual), motherboard/nic/backplane (mirrored targets).
Survive Path Failure (SPF): Multiple switches (ethernet of course) with multiple NICs in your hosts (virtual or physical), and multiple ports on each target combined with mirrored targets.
Survive Target Failure (STF): Mirrored units to safeguard against an entire storage target going belly up.
Survive Host Failure (SHF): clustering of either individual hosts or some fancy work in VM – your choice … you just need to be able to survive some guru accidentally turning a system off.
Performance (P): nothing much … but enough to keep Exchange from getting upset.
Flexibility (F): the ability to put in high performance expensive SAS drives as well as cheap (and hopefully not nasty) SATA drives.
Cost ($): nowhere near Fibre, with the ability to start small and add all of the above features in a staged, planned or otherwise manner.
So the (my) equation is: Ben wants SCF+SPF+STF+SHF+P+F for not much $
Now the fibre lads can do the first part of the equation … all except for the “not much $” part. But what can the iSCSI IPSAN industry offer?
There are plenty of good iSCSI storage targets out there, and so I don’t get myself shot for promoting one solution over the other, I’ll keep this generic, but stick within the capabilities that I know are available in iSCSI IPSAN storage targets today. Then when you are really interested I’ll get our sales people to find who is talking a solution we can do for you in your region and get everyone together in a big iSCSI IPSAN love-in.
So … I’m thinking about a 1U server running an Adaptec 5445 RAID card (4 ports internal, 4 ports external). It has the necessary RAM and CPU (as per the OEM iSCSI IPSAN specs), either 2 x 10gb NICS (probably too expensive) or 4-8 x 1gb NICS, and 4 x 1TB SATA drives in the unit. RAID 5 the 4 drives and you have 3TB of usable space. This can be cut up into lots of different virtual disks which become iSCSI targets. You enable the software iSCSI intiators on your hosts to connect to these targets.
So I start with 3TB of space in a single 1U server. Now that should be a lot less than $10K (depending on your country and what your $ is worth) … but it doesn’t give you SCF or SPF or STF or SHF or F. You do get performance and low cost, and it’s enough to get you up and running.
When the money tree flowers, you can add a second identical system and mirror whichever volumes you want. You’re still (well) under $20K and now you have SCF+STF+P. Note that you should not have to pay anything extra for the mirroring functionality … that should be standard in the box.
A little bit more money will put another network switch and some cabling into the scenario. You now have SCF+SPF+STF+P (still under $20K).
Need more space … put some JBOD’s on the head units … the RAID card in the unit will connect to and control the hard drives in the unit. In those JBOD’s you can put both SAS and SATA hard drives (which will give you the flexibility=F portion of the equation). Let’s be generous and say you spend $10K on each of the JBODs with drives.
So now you have spent $41K (or less) and you have 2 x head units, 2 x switches, 2 x jbods with drives. Without knowing the capacity of your previous employers system I could say that this is roughly 60% less expenditure than the fibre system … which is not to be sneezed at in anyone’s dollar value today.
That gives you SCF+SPF+STF+P+F. All that is required is for you to organise the SHF (survive host failure to save you scrolling back up) and you have a complete enterprise-class high-availability system.
Explanation without the TLAs: you can survive a drive or component failure, a switch failure, a cabling failure or a complete system failure in a system which will give over 300mb per second throughput with automatic failover and online expansion functionality.
Now I reckon that will “bring on” a few questions.
Thanks
Neil
February 3rd, 2009 at 3:32 pm
Ben,
I should have apologised that my reply was longer than the original blog … pity I don’t get paid by the word
Thanks
Neil