RE: SAN evaluation

  • From: "Freeman, Donald" <dofreeman@xxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: "Andrew Kerber" <andrew.kerber@xxxxxxxxx>, "Freeman, Donald" <dofreeman@xxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Wed, 9 Jul 2008 10:00:09 -0400

Yes we did.  I don't remember that it was a package deal.  I do remember
that we had a Dell server contract at the time but got an exception to
buy a fully configured 2 node HP RAC solution.  It wasn't HP Unix
though.  Windows 2000 Server at the time on HP servers.
 
Donald Freeman
Database Administrator II
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
Department of Health
Bureau of Information Technology
2150 Herr Street
Harrisburg, PA 17103
dofreeman@xxxxxxxxxxx
 
 

  _____  

From: Andrew Kerber [mailto:andrew.kerber@xxxxxxxxx] 
Sent: Wednesday, July 09, 2008 9:52 AM
To: dofreeman@xxxxxxxxxxx
Cc: Tom.Terrian.ctr@xxxxxxx; ORACLE-L Freelists
Subject: Re: SAN evaluation


Did you have HP servers connecting to the HP SAN?

I had a hardware consultant tell me the other day that HP-UX does not
support asynch IO except on raw devices.  I am curious if that is a true
statement.


On Wed, Jul 9, 2008 at 8:09 AM, Freeman, Donald <dofreeman@xxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:


        I'm going to be a bit vague because I don't remember all the
details.
        We bought an HP SAN a few years ago which was our first one.  We
are a
        Windows Server shop.  Two bad things happened.  We bought the
business
        copy option for about 60 or 80k and found out later that it
couldn't
        handle all aspects of the Oracle File System. We wanted to
automate this
        and take cold backups of our data warehouse. We wanted to create
a new
        lun and assign it a drive letter and found out there was no way
to
        automate it.  You had to manually get in there to assign a new
drive
        letter.  So, somehow, a major feature which was one of the
deciding
        features that steered us to buying it was totally lost.
        
        The second thing was that parts became unavailable a lot sooner
than we
        thought. It was a pretty significant purchase for us, about
200k, and we
        thought we would be able to use the thing for a long time.  So,
make
        sure you know exactly how long this thing needs to run and how
long
        parts are going to be available. Stock up on drives.  Don't
assume that
        in three years you will be able to add another cabinet and
drives.  They
        won't be available.
        
        Otherwise I wasn't too unhappy with it. At first it was the
magic box.
        We added too many databases to it and found out the hard way
what
        happens when you do that.  Now we know.  The support was very
good the
        first 3 years.  They offered 24X7 monitoring and a couple of
times
        called us to tell us they were sending parts or people to fix it
before
        we knew we had a problem.
        
        
        Donald Freeman
        Database Administrator II
        Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
        Department of Health
        Bureau of Information Technology
        2150 Herr Street
        Harrisburg, PA 17103
        dofreeman@xxxxxxxxxxx
        


        -----Original Message-----
        From: oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
        [mailto:oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Terrian,
Thomas J Mr
        CTR DLA J6DIB
        
        Sent: Wednesday, July 09, 2008 7:19 AM
        To: ORACLE-L Freelists
        Subject: SAN evaluation
        
        We have just begun the process of evaluating a new SAN vendor.
We are
        presently developing a list of criteria/requirements/questions
for the
        new vendor.  So far we have come up with the following:
        
        1.  What is their I/O speed.
        2.  What kind of SAN replication options do they offer.
        3.  Presently we are using RAID 5.  I would like to move to RAID
0+1.
        What do they recommend?
        4.  Does their product have any Oracle related features.  For
example, I
        know that HP has a SAN developed specifically for an Oracle
warehouse.
        Does their product have any bells and whistles for RAC, Streams,
etc.
        
        Has anyone gone through a similar exercise where they had to
evaluate a
        SAN vendor?  If so, could you share your thoughts with the list?
        
        Thanks,
        Tom
        
        
        
        --
        //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l
        
        
        
        
        --
        //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l
        
        
        




-- 
Andrew W. Kerber

'If at first you dont succeed, dont take up skydiving.' 

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