From: Naylor, Jim (Jnaylor@Schnucks.com)
Date: Wed Jul 28 2004 - 15:44:07 EDT
Thanks to all that replied. The responses I have received so far are below:
Alan Riggs
------------------------------------------------------
I run an HP shop using EMC Control Center to manage my SAN. I had some
colleagues in another segment visit. They run an OBM shop with ESS and SVC.
We compared notes and I showed them some of the things we do with Control
Center, and they were very impressed with the ease of use, robustness, and
flexibility of display/reporting. Based solely upon their reports of how
IBM software handled the same tasks, I would be leery of using SVC as my
primary SAN administrative tool.
That speaks to administration, though. Your product list for EMC did not
include Control Center. For functionality, it is quite likely that the IBM
product will do a fine job of replicating data either locally or remotely.
I might ask some in-depth questions about the OPTIMIZER functionality,
though.
Steve Bonds
------------------------------------------------------
These devices are called SAN Appliances. HP has one they call "Casa".
http://www.hp.com/products1/storage/products/virtualization_appliances/netwo
rk/sv3000/index.html
The main problem with them is that ALL your data goes through it, so a
failure here means your storage is ALL unavailable. They have a history
of being somewhat unreliable, which most folks who have paid the EMC
premium don't want to see.
For now, I'm avoiding them until the reliability is brough up to the level
I need. (99.999%+ uptime). If you only need 99%ish, they should be fine,
and will be a big timesaver for you since they make SAN administration
much simpler.
I would also be cautious about what the salesguys say about reliability.
I've seen especially vast discrepancies between claimed reliability and
actual reliability on these products.
Alex Vinson
---------------------------------------------------------
The new IBM storage router (that's more-or-less what it is) is similiar
to HP's "CASA" box from a while back.
IBM is pretty good at convincing executives to buy whatever is new -
it's been their strategy for years. Me, I don't like being a
beta-tester for new technology. My first question would be "So, how
about some references in my industry?"
SVC is supposed to be "Storage independent", so why do you need to buy
IBM storage? That'd be my second question,as this is a classic IBM
lock-in strategy.
Gene Sais
---------------------------------------------------------
We looked at it 6-9 months ago. IBM marketing was pushing it hard. In
my opinion, it is not ready for prime time, i.e. production. I would
like to hear from customers who are actually using it with success in
Production. It's a neat concept, just don't want to be the first to go
live with it :).
Jonathan Fosburgh
---------------------------------------------------------
We have three sharks (2 F20s and an 800) and we love them. Very reliable
for
us, no outtages planned or otherwise in 2 and a half years. We will be
implementing the SVC solution in production real soon now, currently just on
the 800 but that is only because the LIC on the F20s is downlevel, something
we will be addressing. You can do all of the SVC's management through the
CLI, in fact, we will probably wind up doing most of our work through it
once
we are up on the interface. Now as for the Sharks, the GUI needs a lot of
work. You can now use a CLI to configure them but it is a Java app, just
like the GUI and just feels a little crufty. The interface is the real
weakness on the Shark. But, if you can do all your storage through the SVC
then you should rarely have to touch the Shark.
-----Original Message-----
From: Naylor, Jim
Sent: Monday, July 26, 2004 10:51 AM
To: Hpux-Admin@Dutchworks. Nl (E-mail)
Subject: [HPADM] IBM Storage Question
Hello All,
This may be a bit off topic but I need some feedback on this. We currently
have 4 HP9000 systems connected to EMC SYM5/DMX1000 via ED-1032 fibre
switch. We also have an EMC and HP9000 systems at our disaster site. Upper
management is looking at IBM ESS and/or FAST-T with a product called SVC
(SAN Volume Control). The IBM Var says this SVC can do everything that EMC
SRDF, TIMEFINDER, OPTIMIZER, etc. can do and it does not care what kind of
storage is connected. Does anyone have any experience with SVC or that
matter FAST-T/ESS good or bad. Any response would be greatly appreciated
Thanks,
Jim Naylor
Unix Systems Administrator
Schnuck Markets, Inc.
* Direct: (314) 994-4784
*)) Cell: (314) 691-0186
* Fax : (314) 994-4684
* jnaylor@schnucks.com
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