Hardware Question

[George Spiro]

Hi,

I have been running a Microsoft Exchange cluster for close to 5 years now.
It is running on a Storagetek SAN attached (FC) to a Storagetek Library
(FC). Well its time to upgrade my systems due that I cannot renew my
warranty them past next year again. So I been starting to shop around for
new hardware and I was wondering what you guys think about iSCSI SAN Storage
solution to cluster my 3 Storage Groups that add up to 120gigs. We have 500
employees. So my plan is to get a iSCSI Tape Library and iSCSI SAN. What do
you guys think and what models should I look into?

George Spiro

[Nuevo]

I think iSCSI is solid technology and there are many good vendors out there.
I'd start with the HCL

http://www.windowsservercatalog.com/results.aspx?bCatID=1338&cpID=0&ocID=0&OR=1

and go from there.

Nue

Post by George Spiro
Hi,
I have been running a Microsoft Exchange cluster for close to 5 years now.
It is running on a Storagetek SAN attached (FC) to a Storagetek Library
(FC). Well its time to upgrade my systems due that I cannot renew my
warranty them past next year again. So I been starting to shop around for
new hardware and I was wondering what you guys think about iSCSI SAN
Storage solution to cluster my 3 Storage Groups that add up to 120gigs. We
have 500 employees. So my plan is to get a iSCSI Tape Library and iSCSI
SAN. What do you guys think and what models should I look into?
George Spiro

[Ben Winzenz [Exchange MVP]]

iSCSI = Poor man's SAN. :-D

It's supported, but I don't think it will work as well as a real SAN. I am
currently using iSCSI (software-based) for our Dev clusters (no important
data), and it seems to work fine, but then again, I don't stress it very
much.
--
Ben Winzenz
Exchange MVP
MessageOne
Read my blog!
http://winzenz.blogspot.com
http://feeds.feedburner.com/winzenz (RSS Feed)

Post by George Spiro
Hi,
I have been running a Microsoft Exchange cluster for close to 5 years now.
It is running on a Storagetek SAN attached (FC) to a Storagetek Library
(FC). Well its time to upgrade my systems due that I cannot renew my
warranty them past next year again. So I been starting to shop around for
new hardware and I was wondering what you guys think about iSCSI SAN
Storage solution to cluster my 3 Storage Groups that add up to 120gigs. We
have 500 employees. So my plan is to get a iSCSI Tape Library and iSCSI
SAN. What do you guys think and what models should I look into?
George Spiro

[George Spiro]

That is exactly how I feel about the technology, I never had the chance to
test it. I do consider 500 users on a 120 gigs of Excahnge DB pretty
stressful. So I am wondering if there is anyone who actually tested it in a
Production environment.

G.

Post by Ben Winzenz [Exchange MVP]
iSCSI = Poor man's SAN. :-D
It's supported, but I don't think it will work as well as a real SAN. I
am currently using iSCSI (software-based) for our Dev clusters (no
important data), and it seems to work fine, but then again, I don't stress
it very much.
--
Ben Winzenz
Exchange MVP
MessageOne
Read my blog!
http://winzenz.blogspot.com
http://feeds.feedburner.com/winzenz (RSS Feed)

Post by George Spiro
Hi,
I have been running a Microsoft Exchange cluster for close to 5 years
now. It is running on a Storagetek SAN attached (FC) to a Storagetek
Library (FC). Well its time to upgrade my systems due that I cannot
renew my warranty them past next year again. So I been starting to shop
around for new hardware and I was wondering what you guys think about
iSCSI SAN Storage solution to cluster my 3 Storage Groups that add up to
120gigs. We have 500 employees. So my plan is to get a iSCSI Tape Library
and iSCSI SAN. What do you guys think and what models should I look into?
George Spiro

[George Spiro]

Actually I have a question regarding iSCSI does it simply use a giga
ethernet switch? Cisco 2970 or something like that?

G.

Post by George Spiro
That is exactly how I feel about the technology, I never had the chance to
test it. I do consider 500 users on a 120 gigs of Excahnge DB pretty
stressful. So I am wondering if there is anyone who actually tested it in
a Production environment.
G.

Post by Ben Winzenz [Exchange MVP]
iSCSI = Poor man's SAN. :-D
It's supported, but I don't think it will work as well as a real SAN. I
am currently using iSCSI (software-based) for our Dev clusters (no
important data), and it seems to work fine, but then again, I don't
stress it very much.
--
Ben Winzenz
Exchange MVP
MessageOne
Read my blog!
http://winzenz.blogspot.com
http://feeds.feedburner.com/winzenz (RSS Feed)

Post by George Spiro
Hi,
I have been running a Microsoft Exchange cluster for close to 5 years
now. It is running on a Storagetek SAN attached (FC) to a Storagetek
Library (FC). Well its time to upgrade my systems due that I cannot
renew my warranty them past next year again. So I been starting to shop
around for new hardware and I was wondering what you guys think about
iSCSI SAN Storage solution to cluster my 3 Storage Groups that add up to
120gigs. We have 500 employees. So my plan is to get a iSCSI Tape
Library and iSCSI SAN. What do you guys think and what models should I
look into?
George Spiro

[Ben Winzenz [Exchange MVP]]

Yup. At least the ones I've looked at all do. There may be some others
that connect via FC, but iSCSI is just SCSI over Ethernet. You'd have to
check the specific models to make sure they support GigE, but it would be
silly for them not to.
--
Ben Winzenz
Exchange MVP
MessageOne
Read my blog!
http://winzenz.blogspot.com
http://feeds.feedburner.com/winzenz (RSS Feed)

Post by George Spiro
Actually I have a question regarding iSCSI does it simply use a giga
ethernet switch? Cisco 2970 or something like that?
G.

Post by George Spiro
That is exactly how I feel about the technology, I never had the chance
to test it. I do consider 500 users on a 120 gigs of Excahnge DB pretty
stressful. So I am wondering if there is anyone who actually tested it in
a Production environment.
G.

Post by Ben Winzenz [Exchange MVP]
iSCSI = Poor man's SAN. :-D
It's supported, but I don't think it will work as well as a real SAN. I
am currently using iSCSI (software-based) for our Dev clusters (no
important data), and it seems to work fine, but then again, I don't
stress it very much.
--
Ben Winzenz
Exchange MVP
MessageOne
Read my blog!
http://winzenz.blogspot.com
http://feeds.feedburner.com/winzenz (RSS Feed)

Post by George Spiro
Hi,
I have been running a Microsoft Exchange cluster for close to 5 years
now. It is running on a Storagetek SAN attached (FC) to a Storagetek
Library (FC). Well its time to upgrade my systems due that I cannot
renew my warranty them past next year again. So I been starting to shop
around for new hardware and I was wondering what you guys think about
iSCSI SAN Storage solution to cluster my 3 Storage Groups that add up
to 120gigs. We have 500 employees. So my plan is to get a iSCSI Tape
Library and iSCSI SAN. What do you guys think and what models should I
look into?
George Spiro

[John Fullbright [MVP]]

Arizona State University is a 10K+ seat Exchange environment running on
iSCSI SAN.

http://www.netapp.com/library/cs/asu.pdf?xCountry=US&xLanguage=

Arup was 7000 seats

http://www.netapp.com/library/cs/cs_arup.pdf?xCountry=US&xLanguage=

Barry University was 10K plus seats

http://www.netapp.com/library/cs/cs_arup.pdf?xCountry=US&xLanguage=

And LandAmerica

http://www.netapp.com/library/cs/landamerica.pdf?xCountry=US&xLanguage=

And Mazda North America

http://www.netapp.com/library/cs/mazda.pdf?xCountry=US&xLanguage=

and the list goes on and on. We have over 3000 customers on iSCSI SAN. For
small block IO, the performance is comparable to 2G FCP.

Post by George Spiro
That is exactly how I feel about the technology, I never had the chance to
test it. I do consider 500 users on a 120 gigs of Excahnge DB pretty
stressful. So I am wondering if there is anyone who actually tested it in
a Production environment.
G.

Post by Ben Winzenz [Exchange MVP]
iSCSI = Poor man's SAN. :-D
It's supported, but I don't think it will work as well as a real SAN. I
am currently using iSCSI (software-based) for our Dev clusters (no
important data), and it seems to work fine, but then again, I don't
stress it very much.
--
Ben Winzenz
Exchange MVP
MessageOne
Read my blog!
http://winzenz.blogspot.com
http://feeds.feedburner.com/winzenz (RSS Feed)

Post by George Spiro
Hi,
I have been running a Microsoft Exchange cluster for close to 5 years
now. It is running on a Storagetek SAN attached (FC) to a Storagetek
Library (FC). Well its time to upgrade my systems due that I cannot
renew my warranty them past next year again. So I been starting to shop
around for new hardware and I was wondering what you guys think about
iSCSI SAN Storage solution to cluster my 3 Storage Groups that add up to
120gigs. We have 500 employees. So my plan is to get a iSCSI Tape
Library and iSCSI SAN. What do you guys think and what models should I
look into?
George Spiro

[George Spiro]

yeah but running a backup on that isnt exactly small block.

Post by John Fullbright [MVP]
Arizona State University is a 10K+ seat Exchange environment running on
iSCSI SAN.
http://www.netapp.com/library/cs/asu.pdf?xCountry=US&xLanguage=
Arup was 7000 seats
http://www.netapp.com/library/cs/cs_arup.pdf?xCountry=US&xLanguage=
Barry University was 10K plus seats
http://www.netapp.com/library/cs/cs_arup.pdf?xCountry=US&xLanguage=
And LandAmerica
http://www.netapp.com/library/cs/landamerica.pdf?xCountry=US&xLanguage=
And Mazda North America
http://www.netapp.com/library/cs/mazda.pdf?xCountry=US&xLanguage=
and the list goes on and on. We have over 3000 customers on iSCSI SAN.
For small block IO, the performance is comparable to 2G FCP.

Post by George Spiro
That is exactly how I feel about the technology, I never had the chance
to test it. I do consider 500 users on a 120 gigs of Excahnge DB pretty
stressful. So I am wondering if there is anyone who actually tested it in
a Production environment.
G.

Post by Ben Winzenz [Exchange MVP]
iSCSI = Poor man's SAN. :-D
It's supported, but I don't think it will work as well as a real SAN. I
am currently using iSCSI (software-based) for our Dev clusters (no
important data), and it seems to work fine, but then again, I don't
stress it very much.
--
Ben Winzenz
Exchange MVP
MessageOne
Read my blog!
http://winzenz.blogspot.com
http://feeds.feedburner.com/winzenz (RSS Feed)

Post by George Spiro
Hi,
I have been running a Microsoft Exchange cluster for close to 5 years
now. It is running on a Storagetek SAN attached (FC) to a Storagetek
Library (FC). Well its time to upgrade my systems due that I cannot
renew my warranty them past next year again. So I been starting to shop
around for new hardware and I was wondering what you guys think about
iSCSI SAN Storage solution to cluster my 3 Storage Groups that add up
to 120gigs. We have 500 employees. So my plan is to get a iSCSI Tape
Library and iSCSI SAN. What do you guys think and what models should I
look into?
George Spiro

[John Fullbright [MVP]]

Yeah it is. You format the volume with a 4K allocation unit size.. Whatever
the IO size of the backup application, NTFS will split it into 4K IOs anyway
(you can see this happening with the perfmon physical disk counter - split
IOs per second).

Post by George Spiro
yeah but running a backup on that isnt exactly small block.

Post by John Fullbright [MVP]
Arizona State University is a 10K+ seat Exchange environment running on
iSCSI SAN.
http://www.netapp.com/library/cs/asu.pdf?xCountry=US&xLanguage=
Arup was 7000 seats
http://www.netapp.com/library/cs/cs_arup.pdf?xCountry=US&xLanguage=
Barry University was 10K plus seats
http://www.netapp.com/library/cs/cs_arup.pdf?xCountry=US&xLanguage=
And LandAmerica
http://www.netapp.com/library/cs/landamerica.pdf?xCountry=US&xLanguage=
And Mazda North America
http://www.netapp.com/library/cs/mazda.pdf?xCountry=US&xLanguage=
and the list goes on and on. We have over 3000 customers on iSCSI SAN.
For small block IO, the performance is comparable to 2G FCP.

Post by George Spiro
That is exactly how I feel about the technology, I never had the chance
to test it. I do consider 500 users on a 120 gigs of Excahnge DB pretty
stressful. So I am wondering if there is anyone who actually tested it
in a Production environment.
G.

Post by Ben Winzenz [Exchange MVP]
iSCSI = Poor man's SAN. :-D
It's supported, but I don't think it will work as well as a real SAN.
I am currently using iSCSI (software-based) for our Dev clusters (no
important data), and it seems to work fine, but then again, I don't
stress it very much.
--
Ben Winzenz
Exchange MVP
MessageOne
Read my blog!
http://winzenz.blogspot.com
http://feeds.feedburner.com/winzenz (RSS Feed)

Post by George Spiro
Hi,
I have been running a Microsoft Exchange cluster for close to 5 years
now. It is running on a Storagetek SAN attached (FC) to a Storagetek
Library (FC). Well its time to upgrade my systems due that I cannot
renew my warranty them past next year again. So I been starting to
shop around for new hardware and I was wondering what you guys think
about iSCSI SAN Storage solution to cluster my 3 Storage Groups that
add up to 120gigs. We have 500 employees. So my plan is to get a iSCSI
Tape Library and iSCSI SAN. What do you guys think and what models
should I look into?
George Spiro