This discussion focuses on when to use which type of storage. Many organizations use many different types of storage: direct attach, Fibre Channel, iSCSI, SAS, SATA, and so on. As virtualization becomes a large part of many IT organizations, it makes sense to use these different types of storage with virtualization to create the best solution.


Technical Community - Background Reading

Read the other transcripts of chats in this Dell TechCenter Selecting Storage for Virtualization series.



Chat Transcript

DELL-ToddM Hello Koen. How are you?
koen.vdvelde Hi, I'm fine... just getting used to working with this Java chat client :-)
koen.vdvelde I seem to be too late, or too early?
DELL-ToddM You are a bit early; chat is scheduled to start in about 35 min
DELL-ToddM Where are you in the world?
koen.vdvelde Belgium, a small country in Europe, next to France, Germany, Netherlands. Capital is Brussels :-)
DELL-ToddM I know where Belgium is :)
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DELL-ToddM I just wish that I had actually been there to visit
WSDOT2008 Hi Folks
DELL-ToddM Welcome Ws Dot
WSDOT2008 Thanks
koen.vdvelde You're always welcome. We've got a couple of nice cities to vist :-)
DELL-ToddM I'm in Austin, Texas, USA (actually Round Rock, just north of Austin, at Dell HQ)
koen.vdvelde I already had the impression that you made your bed there (without getting too much of sleep)
koen.vdvelde I'll think I 'll let you do your job for another half hour; you might be busy just before this chat session
DELL-ToddM Good idea; I should probably get some stuff done today!
koen.vdvelde See you in a half hour!
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DELL-ScottH Hey peeps
WSDOT2008 Hey
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DELL-ScottH Hey wantmoore, get that car moved? :-)
wantmoore Yeah, I called and threatened my wife
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DELL-ScottH Hey Paul
Paul_Shadwell Good evening, how is everyone? Long time no see
DELL-ToddM Hello everybody
DELL-ScottH Doing great here. Winter is kicking up about 85 degrees today
Paul_Shadwell That's warm isn't it?
DELL-ScottH Yup :-)
DELL-ScottH Love Texas!
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WSDOT2008 We haven't seen 85 degrees all year!
DELL-ScottH Hello James
DELL-ScottH Where's that?
DELL-ToddM Hey James
JamesArnold How do, gang?
Paul_Shadwell We're at 59 right now (15c)
WSDOT2008 Washington state. High of 50 today...brrr
WSDOT2008 Already getting in the low 30s at night
DELL-ScottH Ah, I've got a bbq with friends on Friday; need the weather to hold, think it should
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DELL-ScottH Hey Duncan, thought you were playing poker? :-)
DELL-ScottH Something to do between hands?
depping Yeah, I just stopped
Paul_Shadwell Hey Depping!
DELL-ScottH Err, you mean lost ::surprise
depping No clue how long I can be around here though... my eyes are killing me
depping No dropped my hands; did an all in with no chance of winning
DELL-ScottH Yeah, saw on Twitter you are having allergy problems... don't move to Austin
DELL-ScottH Yuck, drawing dead is so much fun
depping Man, no clue what hit me... allergy or...
WSDOT2008 I heard today on the radio that the WSOP main event will be shown live this year?
depping Let's hope they can tell me something more tomorrow
DELL-ScottH Yeah, the final nine will be live; they've been off for months. Should be fun
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WSDOT2008 Do you know when the live show will be?
DELL-ScottH Let me check; they've been playing here on ESPN every Tuesday... so tonight is my poker watching night
DELL-ScottH Hey Jake
depping Any of you Dell guys already own a Dell Mini 9?
Jake Hey
WSDOT2008 Is the Mini 9 released yet?
DELL-ScottH Nov 11, 9–11 PM EST
DELL-ScottH Some people have gotten them
DELL-ScottH The mini9s
depping Yeah, as a preview I guess
DELL-ScottH I want one, but waiting for Christmas
WSDOT2008 Cool, thanks Scott
depping I can do a review if you want :-D
depping But have you seen it live and worked with it?
DELL-ScottH Too late, you already said you are getting an eee :-) ... I saw the Tweet
DELL-ScottH Not yet
depping Yeah, if I visit the Us in 2009 I will get an eee for sure
depping They are really cheap: $300
DELL-ScottH I just played with one in Best Buy—yeah really cheap
depping They don't sell the mini 9 with ubuntu for now in Europe, so that's definitely holding me back
Paul_Shadwell I ordered a mini 9 from the States through a friend—still waiting.
Paul_Shadwell Wish I saved the money for the new Mac book now.
depping What will shipping cost you, Paul?
DELL-ScottH There's always that route; I wasn't going to say it
depping I don't have any friends, so that will not work for me by the way...
Paul_Shadwell Around $100
depping That's why I spend so much time on the internet... :-D
DELL-ScottH Don't make me cry...we are not your friends?
DELL-ScottH Yeah, but $100 US is like 1/2 to you guys
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DELL-ScottH Hello ssowarby
depping Yeah, you are my friends
Paul_Shadwell It's cool for us in Switzerland; dollar and Swiss franc are 1 to 1
depping But that's gonna cost you
DELL-ScottH w00t, I have an Internet friend!
depping Euro to dollar is okay now
depping That's why I buy most of my stuff through eBay
depping It's cheaper to get it from the Us than to buy it here in a shop
ssowarby So what are we chatting about today?
Paul_Shadwell Actually, it was a guy on Twitter who offered to get one for me—so nice
DELL-ToddM Today’s chat is going to be about storage for virtualization
DELL-ScottH Storage for virtualization... but mini 9 right now
DELL-ToddM Which one to use and when
DELL-ScottH Using "action" "recent room history" will catch you up
ssowarby Perfect, I am looking forward to it
depping How do you guys feel about HP picking up Lefthand?
DELL-ScottH Maybe we can queue up some questions. I think wantmoore is itching to scream about an interface
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DELL-ScottH Feel? I have no feelings; I am technical
DELL-ToddM The rock star has arrived :)
wantmoore Oh crap, my boss is here
DELL-ScottH Hola Jason
DELL-ScottH Lol
wantmoore Now I'm in big trouble
JamesArnold I think that Jasonpowell has experience with Lefthand. Always...Jason!
depping Well is it a 0 or a 1 for HP?
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DELL-ScottH And you are in trouble for the wife-car incident, you better behave :-)
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JasonPowell What up, fellow geeks!
DELL-ScottH Lol
JamesArnold Should'a towed it.
DELL-ScottH Hello mattj
MattJ Hello
DELL-ScottH Yeah, I second that
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DELL-ToddM I haven't really worked with the Lefthand stuff.
DELL-ScottH Hello tapioca
JamesArnold ...ducking...
depping Is Koen.vdvelde also Dutch speaking?
Tapioca Hello
DELL-ToddM Welcome everybody, we will be getting started in just a few more minutes
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DELL-ScottH Me neither, I saw them at a show a few years back; don't really remember anything impressive
koen.vdvelde I am... but going to try to do it in English this evening :-)
JasonPowell I've seen Lefthand demos and have a friend who's done full installs
depping Okay :)
DELL-ScottH @jason how would you compare it to EqaulLogic?
DELL-ToddM Today's Chat topic will be deciding what type of storage to use for virtualization
depping I liked the Lefthand management interface
wantmoore I'm using a Lefthand ink pen right now. It writes much better than the EqualLogic one I got from Jason
DELL-ScottH But which one has more ink?
depping And the fact that you can combine the VSA with a SAN and replicate between them
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DELL-ScottH Hello kcc
JasonPowell Lefthand solution left us wondering why you needed three nodes to be fully redundant. That and the rep strongly encouraged us to get three days of training to use it
JamesArnold Uses the ink more efficiently
DELL-ScottH What's the ROI on each?
Paul_Shadwell Before we start, do you guys know why I would be getting I/O errors on a Pe1800 with VMware ESX 3.5?
JasonPowell When we got our first SAN it was down to Lefthan and EqualLogic
Paul_Shadwell Was working fine with v2.x
JasonPowell EqualLogic won us over with easy implementation and management
DELL-ScottH Loose cable?
DELL-ScottH What type of errors?
DELL-ToddM Are the I/O errors related to the PERC or external storage? Or can you tell based on the error?
wantmoore Apparently we need three days of training for this MD3000i too
DELL-ToddM @wantmoore - Did the LUN init finish yet?
JasonPowell Yeah, our new MD3000i is reminding me why I love EqualLogic
Paul_Shadwell CPU0:1024) Vmnix:<0>journal Commit I/o Error
DELL-ToddM I haven't see that one before; would need to do some research
wantmoore Todd, finally. But Server 2003 won't connect to the LUNs
DELL-ToddM If you post a question on the site in the discussion threads I can get one of our platform engineers to take a look
Paul_Shadwell I've searched everywhere for an answer.
Paul_Shadwell OK, will do; thanks, Todd.
DELL-ToddM Welcome everybody to the TechTuesday Chat
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DELL-ScottH Paul, see this thread. It looks like several different vendors have similar problems; no res on that thread: http://communities.vmware.com/thread/121229
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DELL-ScottH Sorry, back to topic
DELL-ScottH Hello david
DELL-ToddM We have already started the discussion with some Lefthand and EqualLogic iSCSI talk, but I just wanted to bring up a few more points to get started
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DELL-ToddM In addition to iSCSI there is another storage type that is also widely used: Fibre Channel
David Hello
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DELL-ScottH Welcome new people! And hello old friends. Quick tips: use "action" "recent room history" to catch up on conversation, and right-click on URLs in this box, or you get kicked out, and we laugh at you :-)
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DELL-ToddM I wrote a blog yesterday that summarizes my thoughts on Fibre versus iSCSI: Confessions of a Recovering Fibre Channel User, http://www.delltechcenter.com/page/10-20-2008+-+confessions+of+a+recovering+fibre+channel+user+-+comments
mburleson Hola
DELL-ToddM Right-click on links to avoid exiting chat
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Lisa_Knochenhauer Howdy
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DELL-ScottH Got one :-)
DELL-ScottH Got two :-)
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DELL-ScottH Todd, I had a tear when I read that blog post, I thought you would never convert
DELL-ToddM When I originally scheduled these chats I thought that we would get more discussion of Fibre Channel vs iSCSI, but so far it has been more of which iSCSI :)
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DELL-ScottH Welcome back!
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depping Sorry, my eyes are killing me...leaving the chat
DELL-ToddM I used the Dell|EMC Fibre Channel (Clariion) arrays for years and only in the last year starting using iSCSI
DELL-ScottH Get better
wantmoore Wow. If the MD3000i is easier than the Cx3-40c, I'd hate to admin one of those
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DELL-ToddM I was very skeptical of iSCSI for years, but after trying it I do find that it is much easier and performance has also been good
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DELL-ToddM Navisphere, the management tool for the CX Fibre Channel arrays is great
DELL-ScottH I for one have just been tired of switch zoning, WWN mapping, and all the typical Fibre admin that has to happen, not that I don't still love it because I was raised on it
DELL-ToddM It is probably better than MDSM; it’s the other stuff that makes it more difficult
JasonPowell I couldn't hack the cost for the FC switching, let alone the management
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wantmoore I actually don't find MDSM to be all that bad. Just wish it were Web based
JasonPowell That's the main reason I keep resisting XSAN
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DELL-ToddM I agree with Jason that the cost of Fibre is usually much more because of the cost of Fibre switches and Fibre HBAs
DELL-ScottH Welcome newcomers. Use "action" "recent room history" to catch up
DELL-ScottH And jump in anytime
DELL-ToddM I will say that if you have an existing Fibre Channel SAN, it may be easier and even more cost effective to use it instead of a new iSCSI SAN
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DELL-ScottH @wantmore, I agree, everything should be Web based
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Paul_Shadwell When I saw the EqualLogic management interface I thought it was so nice, especially after having used Navisphere for a while
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DELL-ToddM And the performance of Fibre Channel arrays, like the CX3, can be better than iSCSI in large block sequential
thewizard813 I'm looking forward to using my MD3000i with my new Dell Blade server
DELL-ToddM The advantage that Navisphere has over the EqualLogic arrays is Navi Analyzer
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DELL-ScottH FYI, we've got a demo on the site showing EqualLogic and the EMC management interface, http://www.delltechcenter.com/page/ebc+demos+and+presentations, bottom of that page; it's about 30 minutes of demo
DELL-ToddM You can do in-depth performance analysis at the array level
thewizard813 Any update on the 2 TB limit with the MD3000s?
Paul_Shadwell SAN costs are still very prohibitive for SMBs
DavidSzpunar Is there a demo for the MD3000i interface?
DELL-ScottH Was supposed to be in Nov, but will be 1Q now...as specific as I can be
wantmoore David, sure, come back up hwy 31
DELL-ToddM There is an update in the works to get past the 2 TB limit, but I haven't heard what the release date will be
koen.vdvelde Hi, Talking about performance, I know it depends on a lot of things, but just wanted a rough thought what you should expect from iSCSI / FC4. I own an EMC/CX310 (5x146GB FC4 in RAID5) and an MD3000i iSCSI (5x146 GB SAS in RAID5). I did the same test on both (simple copy of 3 GB file from LUN1 to LUN2). The FC4 clocked 30 MB/second, and the iSCSI ran at 20 MB/second. My feeling is that this is pretty slow, especially for the FC4. The 4 is for 4 gigabit, isn't it?
DavidSzpunar wantmoore: haha :-) I wanted a demo when I was up there, but you just had it sitting. Busy with something like fileserver issues?! Come on! ;-)
DELL-ScottH You've got to throw more at these things than a simple file copy
JasonPowell I hear that new performance monitoring is coming down the pipe to the EqualLogic arrays
DELL-ToddM I'm actually working on putting an MD3000i demo together to add to our site in the next week or so
DELL-ScottH Both are designed for multiple things happening all around it
stephensflc I would like to see a user interface demo as well
DELL-ScottH You need mulithreaded, multi-machine workloads hitting the boxes to see "real" performance
DELL-ToddM Jason, You are correct that the EqualLogic will be updating with some new capabilities in this area
thewizard813 You should do a demo of a Dell Blade solution and MD3000i
wantmoore David/Stephen, I’ll set you both up with remote access to my desktop. You can finish setting ours up for us.
DavidSzpunar Dell-Scott H: I'm actually 99% sure I'm buying an MD3000i by the end of next week so that's good timing
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stephensflc haha
koen.vdvelde @scotth : Tried from two hosts at the same time: result = half speed? What more can I do?
DELL-ToddM Koen, There are lots of factors in the performance of the storage, but I agree that you should get better than what you are seeing. Look at the SP cache settings
DELL-ScottH Well, you might be maxed out on spindles if your performance decreased with more workload
DELL-ScottH Yeah, Todd is going more down the right path; before we look at #drives as the bottleneck
DELL-ToddM David, are you going to be running some type of virtualization on the blades?
DELL-ToddM Davidszpunar, Why did you choose the MD3000i? (I think it’s a good choice, but want you to share your decision with the class)
DavidSzpunar Dell-Todd M: Price :-)
DELL-ScottH Haven't heard that one before :-)
DavidSzpunar I really wanted EqualLogic, but there's a better chance of me being hit by lightening ten times in a row as I walk to my car tonight to go home than getting an EqualLogic array approved in the next three years
DELL-ToddM That is one of the best features of the MD3000i :)
DavidSzpunar I've got two 1950 III servers, dual-quad core 2.3 GHz with 16GB RAM, each that I'm going to run ESXi on
DELL-ToddM The free version of ESXi?
DavidSzpunar And I've got a 3-year-old PowerEdge 1800 single 3 GHz Xeon that I might use too (it's running 10 VMs by itself now with no SAN)
DavidSzpunar Yes
DavidSzpunar Again, price :-)
DELL-ScottH That old machine will definitely breathe some new life with those extra drives from the MD3000i
DavidSzpunar I'd love to someday get VirtualCenter though
DELL-ToddM I'm not hearing anybody on the Fibre Channel side of this discussion
DavidSzpunar The PE1800 has 16 GB SCSI internal mirrored boot 100 Gb internal SCSI RAID 5, and SCSI-attached PATA RAID5 array (1 TB)
wantmoore Todd, probably because those guys are all too busy managing their SAN
thewizard813 If you don't already have Fibre Channel, it's expensive to start out with
DELL-ScottH Hey, how about all you token-ring people—give a shout out :-)
koen.vdvelde Sorry, had to look it up. Read 310 MB/Write 3072 MB. But before we go into detail of my configuration (not the correct place here), is there any documentation regarding what one can expect (in different typical configurations) and especially, how to do a correct measurement?
DELL-ToddM Wiz, I agree and I think that the rise of virtualization has come at about the same time as iSCSI. So they are common together
DELL-ToddM Koen, I think there are some docs on EMC's PowerLink, but not a whole lot
thewizard813 My blade solution will be running four blades with multiple VMs on each blade attached to the MD3000i
DavidSzpunar I have been a bit concerned about performance on the MD3000i since everyone says, "Get the EqualLogic; it screams and does RAID 50," but ESXi doesn't show much usage on my PE1800 disk-wise, in reality, so I'm not too concerned now
DELL-ToddM Typically, storage tests are done with IO meter
DELL-ToddM The performance of the MD3000i will be good; it just requires that you manage your LUN design and layout. The EqualLogic would do this “automagically” for you to optimize performance
koen.vdvelde Any docs on what throughput the MD3000i should get? And how to (reproducibly) test it?
thewizard813 Are there metrics for the MD3000i on how many VMs it can handle or how many concurrent disk IOs it supports
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DELL-ScottH Todd, looks like we have some opportunities for lab activity
DELL-ToddM Koen and Wiz, I'm not aware of any performance-intensive testing that has been published on the MD3000i, but maybe I could do something
thewizard813 Yes, I'm currently in the process of setting up my Blades and MD3000i
DavidSzpunar Todd M, When you say you have to manage the LUNs, is there documentation on best practices to get good performance out of it?
DELL-ToddM The LUN setup on the MD3000i should follow the same type of general best practices for LUNs
koen.vdvelde I looked at Iometer...problem is, it can get 1000 different test setups. Had no idea what to choose to make it representable. Other thing: since ESX hosts are attached to my SAN, I had to run this in a VM, which would cause an additional overhead.
DELL-ToddM Depending on the application you can get very specific guidance
koen.vdvelde The simple 3 GB copy from the ESX console was easier :-)
DELL-ToddM With Exchange and SQL Server we have advisor tools that will give very specific guidance around the number of disks in what type of RAID
DELL-ToddM www.dell.com/exchange
DELL-ToddM www.dell.com/sql
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DavidSzpunar Todd M, guess I'll have to get me some “edumacation”; never actually used a SAN other than playing with Jasonpowell's demo at a conference :-)
DELL-ScottH Yeah, but that's not a typical workload you are going to be doing :-)
JasonPowell David has seen the glory that is EqualLogic
DELL-ToddM The four corners tests with Iometer is the classic that measures the extremes of performance
DELL-ToddM The best way to use Iometer is to model your own workload in terms of percentage reads and writes as well as block size
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DavidSzpunar My performance testing will probably be when I start adding production stuff to the SAN
JamesArnold Ha
DavidSzpunar Qa = crosses fingers... :-)
DavidSzpunar Well, and I work at a church, so prayer plays a part
JasonPowell I see a number of us church IT guys in here today :-)
koen.vdvelde @david, tip from an end-user: do some tests before production is added and save them, at least you got something to refer to. If you start doubd'ing about performance in a year or two
DavidSzpunar Koen, Not a bad idea, especially while I learn to manage the darn thing
DELL-ScottH Takes me back to the old plug-and-pray days!
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koen.vdvelde Yeah, had to learn it myself ("te laat de put gevuld als 't kalf verdronken is," we say in Dutch. No idea how to translate that ;-)
DELL-ToddM For the MD3000i I put up a wiki page a couple of months ago that shows how to capture performance data: http://www.delltechcenter.com/page/md3000i+performance+monitoring
DELL-ToddM There isn't a way to get the performance data for the array from the MDSM GUI
DELL-ScottH FYI, there's a really good thread on VNTN about storage performance that's been going since the first of the year: http://communities.vmware.com/thread/73745
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DELL-ScottH Will take a little bit to read it all—27 pages
DavidSzpunar Scott H, Yeah, I saw that when you posted it; read it with interest and bookmarked it on Delicious I think
DavidSzpunar Figured I'd get to do it myself soon enough
koen.vdvelde Hmm, I know what to do tomorrow (or this night?)
Brad Question: I've seen a post where someone was running 7–8 VMs off of a single RAID 5 array on the MD3000i. Performance-wise, how would this be? What would be the maximum number of VMs on a single array that you would recommend?
DELL-ScottH You can usually find a similar setup to what you may be running and get a good ballpark idea before running the test
wantmoore Is the Windows iSCSI initiator supposed to work with the MD3000i, or do we have to install the tools that came with the array to be able to mount the LUNs?
DavidSzpunar Cool, thanks for the link
DELL-ScottH @brad, you are about to get "it depends" from everyone
wantmoore I'm finally giving up and taking advantage of the "remote assisted setup," but it says it can take 3+ days to get it scheduled :(
JasonPowell Gotta jet to bank...later dudes
DELL-ToddM Brad, the number of VMs on the MD3000i would heavily depend on what they were doing
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DELL-ScottH What applications are in the VMs?
koen.vdvelde Well, it depends what you do on the VMs
DELL-ScottH Later, Jason. Thanks for joining and retweeting
DavidSzpunar Anyone got a real-world comparison between using SATA and nearline SAS in the MD3000i? The Dell site claims 30% improvement, just due to the SAS interface. True?
DELL-ToddM Later Jason, Thanks for coming
DELL-ScottH @davidszpunar, Todd found a great paper on that...let me find the link
DELL-ToddM David, The SAS-versus-SATA issue is more than just the interface, it’s also the speed disks
DELL-ToddM The SATA disks are 7200 rpm; the SAS are 10K or 15K
DavidSzpunar Yeah, I'm definitely getting the nearline SAS, and I know they're 7200 rpm, but I'd rather have the storage than the SCSI speed, I think :-)
DELL-ToddM That's the trade-off: performance versus space
DavidSzpunar But that's why I'm wondering, nearline SAS is just SATA with SAS controller, basically—still the same speed as SATA, etc., but does that really make them that much faster is my question?
thewizard813 It all depends on the type of activity you’re doing with the MD3000i
DavidSzpunar Obviously, if I needed super high performance I could get straight SAS
DavidSzpunar I'll be doing a little bit of everything
Brad I was thinking about 3–4 VMs, running on SAS 15k RAID 5. Two basic servers doing file sharing and such, and the other is a small Exchange and SQL. Data would be on a different physical array
DELL-ToddM When doing everything, pick the one in the middle :)
DavidSzpunar Probably about 10–20 (or more) VMs but only about five with any kind of load (Exchange, SQL, etc., but only for less than 40 users) plus a lot of file storage
astorrs Hi guys, I figured I would jump in at the end today (was stuck in a meeting)
DELL-ScottH Hey astorrs! Meetings, ugh!
DELL-ScottH Todd, I can't find that Adaptec paper link, do you have it?
DavidSzpunar I was contemplating 4–6 SAS 15K plus, the rest 1 TB nearline SAS, but probably going to end up with 15 1 GB nearline
DELL-ToddM Brad, If you are just going to host the C: drive of the VM on the array, then you will be able to get quite a few
DELL-ToddM Brad, How many disks are you going to assign to the Raid 5?
thewizard813 My C: Drives will be on the blades; the data will be on the MD3000i
DavidSzpunar I just don't have that busy of an environment to require true SAS performance I think, but I do need to decide how to divvy up the 15 disks for applications versus storage still
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DELL-ToddM David, Your scenario sounds OK, only 40 Exchange users shouldn't be too big a deal
thewizard813 MD3000i, remember the 2 TB limit
DELL-ScottH Found it. On this thread: http://en.community.dell.com//virtualization/f/4472/p/19417894/19983470.aspx
DELL-ScottH Here's the paper link SAS versus SATA. Not our stuff, but a good paper: http://www.bellmicro.com/partners/linecard/suppliers/adaptec/raidperformancewhitepaper.pdf
Brad I was concerned about the hit on the Os with multiple on one array. Thanks
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DELL-ScottH Hey Stuart!
DavidSzpunar Todd M, that's what I'm thinking, and not all of them are heavy users. We use Cached Exchange Mode and the store is about 12 GB or so I think, nothing huge. Exchange box now (2003) currently runs Exchange and MSDE 2000 on different disks and is underloaded (but it is on SCSI)
Stuart Hiya, Scott :)
DELL-ScottH Good chat on storage virtualization. Youu can catch the transcript tomorrow, or read through the history to wake you up
DELL-ToddM It sounds like I've got some work to do with the MD3000i
astorrs Hope this is cool to ask, but going back to the earlier discussion you guys were having along the lines of iSCSI versus FC, this week and last there have been a number of articles "touting" the death of iSCSI at the hands of FCoE and as a result questioning the value of Dell's EqualLogic purchase. How do you guys see the market evolving and EqualLogic's focus going forward?
DELL-ToddM A couple of demo videos and some performance testing :)
DELL-ScottH Just when we thought everyone was buying EqualLogic
wantmoore I can tell you there is a ton of interest in the MD3000i in the church/non-profit IT space
wantmoore Where budget is normally a larger factor than any other
DELL-ToddM I don't understand why you would want to run Fibre Channel over Ethernet
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wantmoore FCoE seems a little late to the party
DavidSzpunar More and more churches are doing virtualization and hence iSCSI makes that easier/better, but church budgets don't usually magically grow just because we need SANs now :-)
wantmoore And not just fashionably late
DELL-ToddM It is really much cleaner and easier to just run iSCSI over Ethernet, in my opinion
astorrs Well, there is a difference between FC over Ethernet and iSCSI, which is SCSI over TCP/IP
DELL-ToddM I have a friend who absolutely loves the FCoE-versus-iSCSI discussion :)
astorrs Lol
astorrs Which side of the fence does he sit on?
DELL-ToddM http://www.storagerap.com/
DELL-ToddM He is firmly on the iSCSI side
DELL-ToddM (Used to work for EqualLogic and was here at Dell for about six months after the acquisition)
wantmoore FCoE will probably make life easier going forward for people who have FC stuff already in place
DELL-ToddM FCoE does make sense for existing Fibre Channel users
wantmoore iSCSI still makes SANs easier and more affordable for more people
astorrs I was just curious on how you guys see it; I see the amount of FUD/marketing spam coming out of the post-SNW conferece by the FC vendors and they’re getting picked up all over the place by the blogs and magazines
astorrs And that’s how I see it too
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astorrs There is a different market to some degree, but I can't see SMEs adopting FCoE
DELL-ToddM I was skeptical of iSCSI before I started using and testing with it. I didn't see how it could be that much easier
DELL-ToddM But I believe that it is much easier, and it seems to be where most people are going with new SANs
DELL-ToddM Which means that cost will probably continue to drop with iSCSI
wantmoore Cost dropping is good.
DavidSzpunar I do sometimes wish I was in the Dell Tech Center playing with much more expensive toys than I'll ever seen where I'm at now :-)
astorrs Lol
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wantmoore No kidding. Do you guys give tours? :)
DELL-ToddM If you are ever in Austin, come by and we will set you loose in the lab
wantmoore Sweet!
astorrs Most of my world is FC, with a handful of iSCSI, but that's just due to the existing investments by my current client
DELL-ToddM Yes, we give tours
DELL-ScottH Yes, Todd and I have too much stuff to play with, and forget at times that you all can't just get the software for free :-) and the hardware!
astorrs But you
wantmoore We've talked about visiting someday when we have more travel budget
koen.vdvelde I hear everyone saying that iSCSI is that much easier than setting up FC. My experience is that the network-configuration part of a good iSCSI is much more difficult than just plugging in some UTP cables. And finding good documentation (how to's) on it is not easy. Isn't it?
DELL-ScottH Yes, come to Austin; love to have you co-author stuff from the lab
DavidSzpunar Sad, might be a while before I make it from Indiana to Austin!
DELL-ScottH Do your testing and let us publish
astorrs but you're right, it's a lot easier to set up iSCSI, and the cost of entry is a fraction of FC, and I expect a fraction of FCoE
DELL-ToddM Koen, you are on to something with your comment
DELL-ToddM There are some aspects of iSCSI networking that can be more complex, but it is much easier to get everything up and running with iSCSI
astorrs Yeah, but you're not dealing with fabrics, zoning, etc
koen.vdvelde Is it zoning is now called VLAN? But what's the difference (yes, I agree, that's a bit short through the corner, but...)?
DELL-ToddM Getting the best performance by getting your switches configured optimally can be more involved
astorrs Well for your average network admin, setting up a VLAN is something they know how to do
DavidSzpunar I'm getting two PowerConnect 5424 switches. They're iSCSI aware, so I should just be able to plug and play right?
DELL-ToddM In many iSCSI setups, people just get dedicated Ethernet switches, and there is no need to VLAN
DavidSzpunar (Just kidding :-)
DELL-ToddM David, For the most part, yes
astorrs That’s different than zoning
DavidSzpunar The switches will pretty much be dedicated to the SAN
astorrs In FC zoning the switches is dedicated to the SAN too
astorrs But the switch controls who can see what
DavidSzpunar I may use them for data from the SAN to the network too, on a separate VLAN. I'm familiar with VLANs on Procurve equipment, but these will be my first Dells
wantmoore Fun chat, guys. Gotta go home and fuss at my wife for blocking the boss in his driveway
DELL-ToddM David, you need to set up an ISL between the 5224s
astorrs It’s as though each group of servers (say a cluster) cannot physically get to the LUNs they don't have access to
DELL-ScottH Lol, yeah tell her the whole world knows!
DavidSzpunar LSL? New terminology to learn
astorrs You could do similar things with iSCSI using VLANs, well VSANs actually
JamesArnold @wantmoore, Ha. I might hit you up for some Asterisk help soon!
astorrs In large enterprise environments that level of separation is usually required
DELL-ToddM Inter Switch Link, just a cable directly connecting the switches together (assuming that you are going to have one subnet)
DELL-ScottH Have fun on Cod4, @watnmoore
wantmoore James, sounds good!
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DavidSzpunar Ahh, ISL. Stupid I/l looking the same!
DavidSzpunar As far as I know it will just be one subnet, especially at this point. I just want redundancy
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DavidSzpunar I was going to get one switch, but I'm getting two for the price of 1.5 now (go Eoq!), so no reason not to do two now
DavidSzpunar I'm getting dual controllers
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DELL-ToddM You should probably have at least two ISLs trunked together
DavidSzpunar So I need to figure out how it works to make everything redundant and still be happy
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DELL-ToddM David, we have a reference architecture for VMware and MD3000i: http://www.dell.com/downloads/global/solutions/md3000i_esx_deploy_guide.pdf
DavidSzpunar I have done trunking to multiple ports between Procurve switches before; I assume it's similar
Stuart Seeya guys, have a great day!
DavidSzpunar I'm definitely getting some good reading material, so I don't have to bother wantmoore on IRC as much, once my SAN comes!
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DELL-ToddM Yes the trunking can be done through the Web interface for the switch
DELL-ToddM Hey, thanks to everybody for attending!
DavidSzpunar Aww...I should dig in and use the CLI :-)
DELL-ScottH Yes, thanks to all!
DELL-ScottH See you next week
DavidSzpunar Also going to monitor the switches with my Cactiez install, which I'm loving
DELL-ToddM Next week we are going to cover some VDI or flexible computing
koen.vdvelde Great document...just one comment: some extra information on the network-configuration would make it even better
DELL-ToddM David, I'm not ashamed to use the GUI
koen.vdvelde I think I wrote a bit on it (for my own document); might sent you a copy if you want
JamesArnold Great stuff, guys. Thanks much. Much to read now... Sweet. And Yuck :)
DavidSzpunar Todd M, I like the CLI menu on Procurve stuff, rather than true CLI
DELL-ToddM Koen, I agree about some extra detail, but we kind of have that in our thread: http://en.community.dell.com//virtualization/f/4472/p/19417785/19983097.aspx
DavidSzpunar But better than web interface for most stuff for me, esp. for Vlans. But that's Procurve
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DELL-ToddM I've gotta run shortly
koen.vdvelde Hey, that was my question :-)
DELL-ToddM Please feel free to post questions in the discussion forum or at the bottom of any page
DavidSzpunar Thanks, Koen, for that thread!
DELL-ToddM You can also catch Scott and me on Twitter most of the time: www.twitter.com/dellservergeeks
DavidSzpunar I'll definitely read through it in detail
DavidSzpunar I follow your Twitter and get almost too many useful links there too
koen.vdvelde Hi guys, it was nice joining this chat. I 'll certainly get back on another time. First I have to read to all the useful links that were posted here. See you probably in a week or three :-)
DavidSzpunar Thanks, gotta head home, enjoyed it a lot! Was blowing dust off switches in the network closet when Jasonpowell had my wife text me to get in here :-)
DavidSzpunar (Using air compressor, not lungs...HVAC unit is dumping tons of dust in that closet at the moment)