Search results for 'app:weblogs' matching tag 'Storage'

SAN HQ 2.0 First look

DELL-Jeff S — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 05:00:00 GMT

If you are already a part of the EqualLogic fan base, hopefully you downloaded a free copy of SAN HQ 1.0 off the support site. Less than a year after introducing an already great product (free to customers on support I might add), Dell EqualLogic is getting ready to debut the second version, likely before the end of the year.

SAN HQ 2.0's interface is still as snappy, informative and intuitive as the previous generation, with some added capabilities:

Packaged Reports --

"Top 10" reports such as Top 10 Busy Volumes, Top 10 Hosts by Connection, and more.
Performance Report
Host Connections Report
Group Configuration Report with Alerts
Capacity Utilization and Trending Report
Thin Volume Status Report
Replication Status Report
Alerts Report for All Groups
Hardware Summary Report

Enhanced Analytics: calculation and display of maximum theoretical IOPS; degraded performance limits; estimated percentage-busy IOPS for groups, pools, and members; IOPS vs. latency; and volume queue depths

Broader Data Collection: additional metrics on iSCSI sessions, outbound replication, volume collections, network ports and controllers, including temperature charts

New Alerts: including those for unreachable member ports, port status, member disk mirroring issues, and disk alternate signatures

Better Communication: finer-grained control over e-mail notification and group e-mail settings

Improved Usability: single sign-on, new wizards, simpler navigation, and chart enhancements

Since a picture is worth a 1000 words, I'll save my usual marathon-length blog and throw up some screen captures from our two groups in the DellTechCenter monitored by SAN HQ 2.0:

Figure 1: Main page of one of our groups.

Figure 2: New with 2.0 SAN HQ Report Wizard

Figure 3: Page from "Top 10" report generated

Figure 4: Expanded Network port and controller information available in 2.0

Boot from iSCSI – We’d like your $.02

DELL-Jeff S — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 05:00:00 GMT

Our storage interoperability lab team is taking a look at updating a boot from iSCSI document found here. If you consider the possible scenarios (four different supported array types and multiple supported server/NIC combinations across the supported OS's (W2K3, W2K8, W2K8R2, RHEL, SLES) you start to get a feel for the challenge of creating and maintaining up to date content across all potential Dell supported configurations.

That’s where you come in. The Interop team would love to hear your real world datacenter management perspectives on this. What configurations do you think we should look at first? Why and where do (or would) you boot from iSCSI?

You can comment at the end of this blog, or on our forum section where I’ve started a thread. Not only do you get to influence development of our support content, but there’s also a DellTechCenter.com t-shirt for the best one or two responses.

(Wookie suit not included.)

The Search for SANity: Comparing FCoE and iSCSI

DELL-Jeff S — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 05:00:00 GMT

For those of you who would enjoy a little balance to all the FCoE buzz in the industry, let me introduce you to Robert Winter and Gaurav Chawla - two of Dell's strategic engineers in this space.

Read below for their take on the realities of FCoE. Thanks again, guys.

Robert Winter Gaurav Chawla

FCoE has been positioned by some as a future primary data center fabric and by others as simply a transitional technology. We believe that the ultimate position of FCoE will probably be somewhere between these two extremes. At this point, FCoE is not a full-formed solution and will probably require several years to achieve the same maturity level as iSCSI or FC.

The fact is that FCoE represents an attempt to completely detach an existing, purpose-built storage protocol, namely Fibre Channel (FC), and move it to a completely different physical fabric, Ethernet. To say that this migration is seamless ignores some very real practical challenges.

Let’s take a look at the technology facts.

The FCoE Storage Protocol and the OSI Model Are Not The Best of Friends

The OSI Layered Model (Open Systems Interconnect) is a well-known architectural abstraction that helps to describe the operation of protocols. In looking at FC, FCoE, and iSCSI, one consideration that mustn’t be lost is that Fibre Channel protocol layers cannot be mapped to OSI layers in a straight forward manner because the FC protocol originates from a much different historical context. FCoE, which leverages the FC protocol, has an inherent awkwardness when applied to Ethernet networks that iSCSI does not. The iSCSI protocol, which originated from a traditional Ethernet and IP environment, was designed with those technologies in mind. (Figure 1)

Figure 1: Storage Protocols mapped to the OSI model

Fibre Channel is a layered protocol and may consist of 5 layers if all are implemented. iSCSI is also a layered protocol but folds more easily into the OSI model and has a determinate and consistent implementation. The iSCSI layer can be interpreted as an application protocol that exists over a native TCP and IP infrastructure. SCSI can then be thought of as a presentation layer as it adapts data to an iSCSI format and the iSCSI layer adapts SCSI messages to the TCP/IP protocols.

FCoE Needs DCB to Work

There’s been an unfortunate blurring of FCoE and the standards that attempt to evolve Ethernet fabrics to the point where they can better support a lossless network, namely, DCB (Data Center Bridging), DCE (Cisco’s version of DCB; Data Center Ethernet) or CEE (Brocade’s version of DCB; Converged Enhanced Ethernet). Data Center Bridging improves the Ethernet fabric irrespective of what protocol (be it iSCSI, NFS, TCP or FCoE) runs over the top of it. The important qualifier here is that FCoE won’t work at all without this new type of Ethernet. iSCSI works with any Ethernet but the same benefits that come from DCB may also accrue to iSCSI when running over a DCB network. You don’t need FCoE to have DCB but you MUST have DCB to support FCoE.

FCoE Lacks Native Routing

FCoE is deployed on a layer 2 Ethernet network and does not seamlessly work across WANs or IP subnets. Both FC and FCoE require the use of other companion protocols to connect multiple FC or FCoE SANs. FCIP (Fibre Channel over IP) and FC-IFR (Fibre Channel Inter-Fabric Routing) are two such protocols. FCIP is well defined and it tunnels FC over IP to connect two FC fabrics. However, it is not widely deployed in practice. FC-IFR is another protocol, currently under development.

FCoE is More Expensive

There is a fork-lift upgrade for FCoE – new switches, new adapters, new software and, at some point, new targets. See Figure 2.

Figure 2: FCoE fork-lift upgrade

Several additional cost components come into play with FCoE. FCoE switches are more costly due to additionally needed functionality and they require access to FC services, either co-located on the switch or accessed via a remote FC switch. The only reusable component is the FC target and possibly some FC switches.

FCoE Requires New Hardware

Figure 3: FCoE New Hardware transition

There are several components that need to be deployed for an FCoE SAN. This is necessary because FCoE is a new protocol that maps FC onto a non-FC link layer and that link-layer (Ethernet) does not have the same capabilities as the FC physical layer. See figure above.

The focus of the first version of the FCoE standards specification (FC-BB-5) was to allow FCoE initiators (FCoE enabled servers) to connect to existing FC SANs via Ethernet. This requires both DCB capabilities and FC services to be available on the Ethernet network. In the initial deployments, there is a single link hop on the Ethernet network. FCoE enabled servers run a new adapter called CNA (Converged Network Adapter). The CNA runs FCoE initiator functionality in the firmware or as a combination of software and firmware. The FCoE initiator connects to the edge switch via Ethernet. This edge switch is typically a Top of Rack (ToR) switch. It supports DCB functionality to ensure there are no packet drops on the CNA-to- switch link. The edge switch also contains FCF (FCoE Forwarder) functionality. i.e. it contains both DCB Ethernet and native Fibre Channel ports. The FC ports connect to an FC-SAN. Due to the above components such a single hop deployment requires new CNAs and switches (FCoE Forwarder). The Cisco Nexus 5000 is an example of such a switch. Since 10GBase-T is not widely available these deployments use SFP+ direct attach schemes for cabling.

As a next step in its evolution FCoE may evolve to multiple hops on a DCB network. As the DCB standards mature customers will have the opportunity to further reduce cabling complexity by converging Ethernet and FC cables from a ToR switch to a core switch. In this environment FCF functionality will move to the core network. The chassis switches in the core network will have Fibre Channel blades which will connect to an existing FC SAN. This will require new core switches. The Cisco Nexus 7000 is an example of such a switch.

As a final step in the evolution of FCoE native FCoE may become viable. In this environment, both FCoE initiators and FCoE targets will connect to a DCB enabled Ethernet network. It will not require FCoE Forwarder devices, but will require FC services to run on the Ethernet network. The standards work for this is currently in progress but it will require FC services and may require new capabilities on the DCB enabled edge switches.

iSCSI, on the other hand, does not necessitate the use of new hardware components. iSCSI can run over a standard Ethernet network. The server may run iSCSI stack in software (SW-iSCSI stack is part of OS) or may run it on an adapter (full iSCSI offload to hardware). However, if the underlying network infrastructures (CNA, switches) are DCB capable then iSCSI will take advantage of all the DCB capabilities. It will leverage the DCB layer 2 flow control (802.1Qbb) and will also be able to provide a guaranteed QoS (bandwidth reservation) using 803.1Qaz.

FCoE must overlay specific services, provided by new types of equipment, over a new kind of Ethernet, DCB. To say this is convergence stretches the point a bit as FCoE is an overlay network and only converges Ethernet to the extent that Ethernet frames are used in data transfers.

FCoE Still the New Kid on the Block

Figure 3: FCoE and iSCSI maturity timeline

The timeline indicates that FCoE is still an emerging technology with wider deployment expected around 2011. FCoE will take time to mature and be inter-operable due to its dependencies on multiple standard’s efforts. Expectations are for most IEEE DCB standards to be finished by April 2010. iSCSI was approved by IETF in 2002 and has a three to five year edge over FCoE in terms of maturity and use in deployed user networks.

Summary

A technology such as FCoE that attempts to bring simplification to the data center by converging on a single fabric, namely Ethernet, is an effort that we fully support. We support the effort, however, with our eyes fully open to the difficulties of porting the FC protocol to a completely different underlying fabric. The FC protocol was designed to be a reliable, lossless fabric from the ground up. The physical layers of FC were in large part responsible for its success. The migration of FC to Ethernet requires Ethernet to have same level of lossless behavior as native FC.

FCoE will require time for maturity and interoperability. FCoE depends on multiple standards activities (T11 FCOE, IEEE DCB) and all these standards need to be ratified and implemented to ensure inter-operability. Given enough money and time we believe all these concerns can be alleviated but this will not occur easily, cheaply or simply.

Convergence to a single Ethernet fabric really means that an overlaid FC protocol network rides over the top of native Ethernet. Convergence is, therefore, somewhat mythical at this point

iSCSI was built, from the ground up, to run on Ethernet. While it is true iSCSI doesn’t need an expensive Ethernet upgrade such as DCB (DCE, CEE) it is also true that a better experience occurs over DCB with iSCSI. iSCSI can take advantage of better Ethernet but doesn’t require it as FCoE does.

iSCSI has evolved to adapt to the advantages that 10Gbps Ethernet, protocol offload and TCP protocol efficiencies have provided. iSCSI today is not your Father’s iSCSI. It is a reliable, fast, native storage protocol that continues to improve and evolve.

Where FCoE and iSCSI are in 3 years, when FCoE reaches iSCSI’s current maturity level, will be critical to which storage fabric wins the data center. FCoE may be more mature but iSCSI won’t stand still and will continue to evolve into a superior storage protocol

16 Member Groups Available with Latest Dell EqualLogic Firmware

DELL-Jeff S — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 05:00:00 GMT

Last week Dell EqualLogic debuted 4.2.1 firmware for the PS Series arrays, which you can download from the support site. Take a look at the release notes and you'll find there's some pretty amazing additions --and you didn't even have to buy a new array to take advantage of them. Well, unless you want to pick up a PS6500X or two (which I talked about here.)

Here's a few highlights of what's new in the 4.2.1 release:

Preemptive drive replacement
Support for new PS6500X
Support for 16-member groups

Take note: ALL GENERATIONS of EqualLogic arrays are eligible for the latest firmware upgrade. They too benefit from the expansion of up to 16 members/arrays in a single group. One of the best selling points, beyond the widely accepted ridiculous ease of use, is the investment protection through backwards compatibility that Dell EqualLogic continues to deliver.

Growing the group size by 33% (from 12 to 16 members) provides several benefits. It allows a storage admin to manage more arrays in a single pool. It load balances data more efficiently across more arrays and more drives. The larger spindle count and group capacity also reduces sprawl of applications. You can manage more of those applications in a single group.

Upgrading is a cinch, especially if you are at a 4.1.3 or later versions of the firmware. Here's a short video of me upgrading one of our arrays through the GUI to 4.2.1:

(Please visit the site to view this media)

I recommend you read the "Updating Storage Array Firmware" document found on the support site before giving it a go.

Michael Dell Paints His Vision of the Efficient Enterprise at Oracle OpenWorld

DELL-Greg W — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 05:00:00 GMT

You might think that after two full days of keynotes, breakout sessions, events and meetings at Oracle OpenWorld it would be hard to excite a convention hall full of business and IT leaders, but Michael Dell had just the right formula with:

A compelling vision - Redirect IT dollars from management and maintenance to innovation and improving the business by building an Efficient Enterprise;
Big commitments for quantifiable results like working to take $200 billion of inefficiency out of the $1.2 trillion IT infrastructure industry spend and driving $200 million in savings for Dell's own IT;
Impressive statistics, something almost all of us in the IT industry get into, of the power of the Dell and Oracle partnership and Dell's leadership and track record in providing solutions;
Cool products, including:
- Dell's 11th generation of PowerEdge servers were onstage and Michael highlighted the enhancements in these new servers to simplify deployment, enhance performance, reduce complexity and lower power and cooling requirements;
- He also discussed more innovation to come next year with new PowerEdge servers based on Intel Nehalem EX architecture; and,
- Talked about continued enhancements to the EqualLogic storage products, like SSD (launched this year) and 10Gbps Ethernet (coming soon) that will drive efficiency and performance for storage.
A blueprint to make this vision a reality including:
- Standardization on open standard solutions built on x86-based servers;
- Simplification by starting with the applications and taking the complexity out of the way they are supported and managed, and by using Virtualization and Storage Consolidation;
- Automation by streamlining Services delivery and enabling self-service IT models where critical business services can be deployed through the cloud.
Dell's own plan - Robin Johnson, CIO of Dell, shared how he is driving inefficiency out of the Dell IT machine
Having fun - Everyone was excited by Larry Ellison's surprise appearance and from the return of the Tech Force alliance!

Hopefully you are as excited as we are about building the Efficient Enterprise, and if you’re here this week, be sure to come see us in the booth.

You can follow us on Twitter @dellatORACLEwld and check out my earlier post on Direct2Dell with details of all our activities.

Going to SNW 2009? Make Sure to Checkout These Hands On Labs

DELL-Jeff S — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 05:00:00 GMT

This year's Storage Networking World (SNW) is coming up fast -- October 12-15, 2009. Dell Storage is participating in 3 excellent Hands On Labs, which you can register for here. So while hanging out in Phoenix, stop by and get some quality time in with our DL2000, EqualLogic, and MD3000i. I've listed the theme, abstract, and our labs below:

IP SAN Solutions
In organization of all sizes, Internet (IP) Storage Area Networks (SANs) are increasingly becoming a networked storage solution for business critical IT environments. This Lab guides students through the steps required to quickly setup and configure an IP SAN. Upon completion, attendees will better understand IP based SAN technology, associated strategies, storage system capabilities, and usage of IP Storage solutions.
In detail, students will learn how to setup and configure a iSCSI SAN in a choice of Windows or Linux environments. Students will also learn how to setup and configure a network boot environment using a Windows iSCSI initiator, how to attach to an iSCSI LUN/volume from a virtual host server, and preserve/restore data using snapshot technology.

Dell EqualLogic PS Series
Dell PowerVault MD3000i

Storage Virtualization
With ever more focus on ROI and TCO, there is heightened interest in storage virtualization. This Lab guides students through the steps required to establish a virtualized storage environment. Upon completion, students will have a good basic understanding of how to set up and configure a virtualized block storage environment with fault-tolerant protection.
Exercises will include basic provisioning, data migration, volume expansion, and data protection. Students will understand how to set up and take advantage of advanced virtualization features in a storage environment, including dynamic expansion and allocation of resources, replication, data migration, and data protection.

Dell EqualLogic PS Series

Data Deduplication
With today’s pressure on organizations' storage infrastructure, deduplicating data offers a solution to reduce the physical disk footprint and required bandwidth. This lab guides students through exercises that illustrate how organizations store data - first for backup and disaster recovery, and now across the entire storage ecosystem - using data deduplication technology. Upon completion, students will better understand the powerful cost savings this new technology can offer as a way to augment traditional data protection methodologies.

Dell PowerVault DL2000 with CommVault

Multiple Vendors Collaborate for Customers Using iSCSI with VMware vSphere

Dell-Jennifer G — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 05:00:00 GMT

Back in January, we collaborated with VMware and other storage vendor partners in a multivendor post to make sure iSCSI customers were successful in deploying iSCSI for VMware. Dell has a close engineering partnership with VMware, as is EMC, to assure integration of storage platforms with vSphere via the vStorage APIs.

There have been some notable changes to VMware's architecture and how it works with iSCSI, so it was important for us to update you on the latest at the Dell TechCenter.

I LOVE coming together for the greater good!

Watering My SMB Roots

Dell-Jennifer G — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 05:00:00 GMT

It’s hard to believe that I’ve now been at Dell for almost 10 years. Where did the time go? I think back to my first year at Dell as a fledging server marketing manager, studying RAID groups, redundant-hot-swap whatever every night when I went home, so I wouldn’t get roasted by the hard-core technical sales reps (TSRs). Let’s be clear … they roasted me anyway, but at least it was on my terms. Anyone that knows me knows I thrive on sarcasm and strong personalities. Those guys shaped me into the storage person I am today.

I was part of the Small and Medium Business (SMB) group of Dell back in those days. I loved the emotion involved in that job … entrepreneurs growing their businesses, people in love with their job (not necessarily in love with IT) -- I could relate. After living in that universe for almost three years, it became my foundation. Our performance plans call it Customer Advocacy (or something like that), but it ingrained a passion in me that still surfaces regularly today.

Maybe that’s why I’m all over our new PowerVault NX300 Network-Attached Storage (NAS) platform. It gives me a chance to get back on my SMB soap box and show how we’re addressing their business problems with technology -- like the quick set up, convenient yet advanced file sharing and the ability to reduce duplicate files, do snapshots and replicate files. Dell’s seamless integration of our hardware and Windows Storage Server 2008 make all of this possible.

We announced the NX300 introduction today as part of a larger launch addressing SMBs. It feels good to give back a little efficiency to the folks that essentially started my career.

Imprisonment or Independence in the Data Center … Your Choice

Dell-Jennifer G — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 05:00:00 GMT

I never feel like I get enough sleep … fighting to get six to seven solid hours in every night. However, my stresses are NOTHING compared to the noise and pressure IT admins, CIOs and CTOs deal with. Just look at our industry. From what I’ve read and learned so far, it seems Cisco and HP want customers to rip out their current hardware, software and solutions, and start “fresh” with their Unified Computing System (UCS) and BladeSystem Matrix offerings. Correct me if I’m wrong about that, but I still have to ask -- what’s their motivation? Think about it, why would they insist on something so disruptive especially in a time when customers are fighting to thrive with restricted budgets?

The bottom line in my opinion is this: locking your company into an infrastructure means a locked-in revenue stream for the provider and lack of choice and flexibility for you.

This is incredibly frustrating. It shouldn’t be novel to do the right thing for customer FIRST and make money second. Folks are dealing with legacy hardware and limited budgets (in most cases) with an intense desire to virtualize and do something called “the cloud,” whatever that means to them. That’s enough to digest without having to consider that everything they’ve done up to this point might have been a waste of time and money.

Dell thinks there’s another way, a way where you don’t have to eat your own young to thrive and stay competitive.

First, we’re open. We’ve figured out how to get you where you’re going, specifically with virtualization, using most of what you’ve already invested in.

Second, we’re pragmatic. (pause for smirk on overused marketing word) We give you answers to IT problems now, today, just in case you don’t feel like waiting on promises that no one has proven or deployed.

Finally, we’re end-to-end. We already offer first class products at each step of the fully virtualized solution, including servers, storage, networking, desktop and the cloud, instead of specializing in only one part of the data center and trying our hand at new businesses.

This week at VMworld, we announced two new partnerships that strengthen our open, pragmatic and end-to-end approach. Brocade expands its 10-year relationship with the Dell family to provide enhanced leadership of next-generation data center networking with 10/40/100GbE, Security, iSCSI, FCoE and Converged Enhanced DCB Ethernet. These are in addition to our Brocade FC switches.

But we’re covering more than just the networking side of investment protection. We’re also partnering with Scalent Systems to make heterogeneous, virtualized environments portable for easier disaster recovery and higher availability. Now, you’ll no longer have to redefine your physical storage and network connections each time you need to move whole hypervisors, physical applications, workloads or virtual machines (VM). All of this can be done NOW with your existing technologies and future flexibility to purchase and use what you need to customize your infrastructure.

This is just the beginning. Folks like The Register, eWeek and ChannelWeb are already talking, and we’ll hit the streets a few times this fall with more info. In the meantime, ask some hard questions. The next time you find yourself sitting in the big, leather chair being entertained by the “latest and greatest” buzz solution, make sure it doesn’t end up stinging you.

Northeast Bank Reduces IT Complexity With Dell

DELL-Kristin S — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 05:00:00 GMT

One of the great opportunities about my job is that I get to travel onsite to customer locations, usually capture their story on video video . Earlier this year, I had the experience of traveling to Maine via Boston in the middle of winter - rough for a Texan! With my director, Arlette, in tow, we packed up the car in Boston and drove about 3.5 hours until we arrived in Lewiston, home of Northeast Bank.

The next day we were up bright and early -- and after scraping the ice off the rental car, we were on our way! The Northeast Bank employees were such gracious hosts to have Dell onsite, especially with all our video equipment. After spending the morning with members of the IT department, Greg and Drew, their IT challenges were real to me.

Reducing complexity and enabling employees to do their jobs more efficiently are two of the most important goals of the eight-person IT staff.

“All the regulations that apply to big banks apply to us, and we perform the same due diligence and the same compliance. The major difference is that we don’t have deep pockets. A dollar that we spend has to serve the greater good of the company and the communities we serve,” said Greg Thompson, vide president, Northeast Bank.

By using virtualization technology they were able to virtualize up to 50 servers using PowerEdge 2950 servers. An important part of that value proposition is the virtualized storage that the bank acquired with Dell EqualLogic PS5000XV and PS5000E iSCSI SAN arrays. By refreshing their technology the company saved 25-30 percent of its utility costs for power and cooling and avoided the cost of having to buy another cooling unit for the data center.

It’s a great experience for me to see how technology enables businesses to become more efficient. Despite the cold, this Texan soon realized how gorgeous the winter can be in Maine. Maybe next time, I’ll go when it’s a little warmer!

(Please visit the site to view this media)