[THIN] Re: Alternative fileservers (EMC Celerra)
- From: "Erik Blom" <erik.blom@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 28 Mar 2008 06:59:48 +0000
Strange, 3 rd time I try to post my reply, hope this one makes it to the list
**************
Hi Adam,
Some background information about my originally posted question:
As far as performance goes, we continuously have about 7,000 files open (which
include files from users’ home drives & the usual company data) and I do not
have the impression that our current Windows 2003 SP1 file server will easily
scale to say 10,000 open files. All relevant maxmpxct, maxworkitems, … tweaks
have been applied to the fileserver and the Citrix servers, and file serving is
this servers’ unique role. Thus in order to scale for more users, I would need
to configure a second file serving environment and kind of ‘load balance’ the
files between these file servers, unless of course another solution would
‘perform’ better, which in my case means more open files without hiccups. BTW,
the SAN the file server is connected to is an EMC Clariion CX300 – Perfmon
shows no abnormally high disk queue lengths so we don’t have the impression
that SAN performance is the bottleneck.
Regarding high-availability, this file server is replicated and clustered with
its counterpart 10 km away. Legato Autostart is at present the
clustering/replication solution, replication is hostbased (via a locally
installed driver) and travels via a Gbit IP link to the other node. So each of
the two file servers is connected to its own CX300 which is kind of a
protection against SAN outages too, I presume. We would like to keep this level
of HA, and if possible ‘upgrade’ towards an active/active clustering solution
if possible (I think this will be difficult to achieve given that we are
talking about two separate sites that are replicated). EMC told us that
active/active clustering is possible with their Celera line. Active/active
clustering would also allow for spreading the load between multiple servers
which would gain us obvious benefits in the performance/scalability department.
This year we are going to upgrade our back-end storage (the CX300) towards a
higher-end storage system that would allow for SAN-to-SAN replication which I
think will perform better, so that the fileserver itself only needs to worry
about its files and not about replication anymore. The clustering solution
might be Windows 2003 cluster, or we might do away with Windows 2003 and deploy
a totally new sort of fileserver, like the Celera or Netapp or one of the other
solutions that I have read here. I don’t know Windows Storage Server that well,
but will certainly look further into it.
Erik
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of
Adam.Baum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: woensdag 26 maart 2008 19:53
To: thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Cc: thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx; thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [THIN] Re: Alternative fileservers (EMC Celerra)
Or you can go for Windows Storage Server. A lot of the NAS/SAN devices on the
market are really just rebranded WSS.
Erik- Can you please be more specific on your definition of high-availability
and performance. The HA term can lead you down a treacherous path of vendor
obsufication. Example, my main file server is clustered. I can (and have) say
that it has HA features. But what about the back-end storage. Does it have
redundant power, controllers, cabling to the host, etc? If the answer is no,
you don't have a true HA system. What about performance? You can have
hugely fat pipes and run slow spindles setup incorrectly. Do you have an
overall throughput in mind that can be tested via some tool suchas IOmeter?
adam
"Steve Greenberg" <steveg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent by: thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
03/26/2008 12:11 PM
Please respond to
thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
To
<thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
cc
Subject
[THIN] Re: Alternative fileservers (EMC Celerra)
I would recommend taking a look at using Windows servers with Datacore SAN
Melody software. Most lower end SAN/NAS devices are just some kind of
embedded linux or XP system anyway. If you go this way you can use off the
shelf servers and disks and get all the same features as much more expensive
SAN including fiber channel support, iSCSI, synchronous mirroring across
systems, etc.
Steve Greenberg
Thin Client Computing
34522 N. Scottsdale Rd D8453
Scottsdale, AZ 85266
(602) 432-8649
www.thinclient.net
steveg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
-----Original Message-----
From: thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf
Of Erik Blom
Sent: Wednesday, March 26, 2008 1:25 AM
To: thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [THIN] Alternative fileservers (EMC Celerra)
Hi,
We are currently evaluating a possible migration from our Windows 2003
fileserver towards another fileserving system. Our main concerns are
security, high-availability and performance. We talked to EMC about this and
they mentioned migrating towards a Celerra system.
Does anyone of you has any experience - good or bad - with such a system?
Regards,
Erik
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