Manual Automation

RE: Storage Transport Performance

Virtual_JTW — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 16:10:41 GMT

I read about Z-SAN a year or two ago. Interesting technology but not exactly a tier 1 (or even 2?) vendor.
The other thing I would say is that in general the solution should be design around the problem, in this case, workload. Exchange's workload is not like a streaming media application but is more like a database server. Our current SAN can handle that fine.
I do like the fact that they keep the storage transport on IP/ethernet, I think it's the general direction the industry is going.
For future SAN purchases I'm recommending staying on ethernet via 10GbE iSCSI or FCoE.

RE: Storage Transport Performance

Virtual_JTW — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 16:03:07 GMT

To answer your questions:
My storage networking is not dedicated, but it shares few ports with other hosts. I'm assured by my network team that the dual 3750(?) switches can more than handle the traffice these systems are genterating.
I'm running a Celerra NS350 with 2x1GbE connections dedicated to iSCSI.
We're bonding NICs on the ESX hosts.

I breifly reviewed the Microsoft/EMC doc - very interesting. Thanks for the link. I'm told there are others in Powerlink, I just need to spend some time finding/reading them.

RE: Storage Transport Performance

Anthony James — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 18:35:04 GMT

In the past, I had run into some similar issues as you. After a lot of digging I came across some good information that made a lot of sense. 1. iSCSI is not a good technology to use in certain area's. Using iSCSI for you virtual exchange servers is a risky thing. Even though on paper many "better grade" iSCSI storage platforms have pretty good throughput numbers (I consider anything above 350 Megabytes pretty good). They typically are not able to sustain those numbers. From my experience they any time you try to send large packets they either choke, or the latency goes way up slowing down the whole transfer of packets. This is due to iSCSI utilizing the TCP/IP transport protocol. TCP/IP needs an average of somewhere in the vicinity of 30 to 40 percent of the line's bandwidth for its overhead. It is also plagued by the technology originally being developed to work on the old 10 BaseT copper lines. It was designed to break packets down to fit through a much smaller pipe. It has been updated since those days, but it still seems to break packets down further than needed. This causes slow downs!

My suggestion to you would be to look at what companies are using for high definition video and or video rendering. These are probably the most difficult things to store. They need huge bandwidth to transfer the data efficiently. For this reason they typically use technology that works on the UDP/IP protocol instead of TCP/IP. UDP does not have nearly the overhead of TCP. In fact UDP is capable of utilizing about 90 to 95 percent of the lines total bandwidth. However, you will need to make sure the technology you use has some kind of error checking. TCP has it built in (which is one of the biggest reasons its overhead is so large). So if a storage product/technology works for HD video/rendering, then it should be more than adequate for virtual exchange servers. The one we use in our data center for our virtual machines, and our IP surveillance (we don't use the highest HD available, but higher than most companies would probably use, we use 1080) is a Z-SAN unit. They are relatively cheap (we spent $6000.00 for two model 410's with 4 Terabytes of disk in each unit) and the performance is unbelievable (from what we have seen thus far, and what others have told us). It has been able to take everything we have been able to through at it and not even hiccup a bit! They work on UDP and have error checking built into the software itself. So my opinion is it would be a great fit for you. I don't remember the website off hand, but if you Google Z-SAN, you should be able to find some info on it. I believe the company we purchase through is called MarketStor. But don't quote me on that, because I'm not 100% sure.

RE: Storage Transport Performance

Andrew Cooke — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 02:48:36 GMT

I have just quickly read your blog post.

IOPS absolutely are the key things to consider when you have exchange on a SAN. This is true of the physical world and virtual.
Latency is unlikely or secondary.

There are some excellent docs on the Internet from the likes of EMC and others. A good start is from MS
http://technet.microsoft.com/de-de/exchange/bb412165.aspx

My company has been to see many customers who sometimes fall into this problem. I would offer the following as a place to start

1. Figure out what IOPS you would plan for assuming a green field
2. Monitor the transfers/sec over a period of time to establish what you are really using
3. Consider all of the factors that reduce IOPs available for use namely.
- SAN replication
- Small SAN cache/wrong size matched to workload type 4Kb for ex2003 and 8Kb for 2007
- NTFS format mis-alignment
4. Is your SAN virtaulized (ie mixed server workload)

Other environmental questions for you
1. Do you have dedicated network switch fabric or shared?
2. What make/model?
3. Do you use bonding/etherchannel at the ESX end?

RE: Site Recovery Manager is a Hit!

Virtual_JTW — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 15:02:17 GMT

I don't use netapp but I'm always curious how different storage vendors have implemented the SRM integration part.
I'll take a look - thanks.

RE: Site Recovery Manager is a Hit!

tomas — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 11:45:08 GMT

you can see the results at www.tendam.info

RE: Site Recovery Manager is a Hit!

Tomas — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 11:44:15 GMT

I have just finished to setup a srm demo complete in workstation with the netapp simulator. just watch my site. i will publish the step by step guide in a few days

RE: The Big Plan: Business Continuity

sakacc — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 20:35:19 GMT

I hear you on the OVF - I did a export to OVF and it worked great, and will get the plink and Celerra crew to make it available that way going fwd. We're standardizing on it for our VM appliances going fwd.

RE: The Big Plan: Business Continuity

raining — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 20:21:48 GMT

I look forward to your posting. As soon as I download it, I will let you know so that you can take it off, if necessary.

RE: Who is John Galt?

Virtual_JTW — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 20:21:04 GMT

I just received the pricing from my sales rep. for SRM. Seems expensive for a new product, was about 3x higher than I was expecting.
The bundle pricing might be more in line, but that doesn't help if you don't really need the other products.
Now I will be reviewing Lifecycle Manager, Stage Manager and Lab Manager to determine if they make sense in this environment.

RE: The Big Plan: Business Continuity

Virtual_JTW — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 20:15:45 GMT

No problem - I pulled them down from Powerlink.
So I have a couple of comments thus far (all minor):
Would be easier if they were in the new OVF/OVA format.
Imported an ESX host - upgrading the VMware Tools failed. Would be nice to have a procedure for this in the install guide.

So far so good - I've just got it working so I'll post again with more feedback.

Thanks!
Jerry

RE: The Big Plan: Business Continuity

sakacc — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 17:27:28 GMT

Ah - LOL - we use the same tool for internal EMC social networking/forums as is used to host the VMware forums - so I just auto-responded to the email, thinking it was an EMC internal request!

I will repost, but if you are an EMC employee, an EMC partner, VMware, or (most importantly of all an EMC customer - you can download these from Powerlink - just search as noted above.

RE: The Big Plan: Business Continuity

sakacc — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 17:25:04 GMT

These are now officially available on Powerlink (and are newer than the ones posted earlier). Search for "Celerra Simulator" - it's one of the first hits.

RE: The Big Plan: Business Continuity

raining — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 17:23:22 GMT

Sakacc, looks like the files have been autodeleted. Can you please post them again?

RE: The Big Plan: Business Continuity

sakacc — Mon, 26 May 2008 04:37:11 GMT

Virtual_JTW - if you aren't an existing EMC customer, I've posted it here for you (and anyone else to download - warning - these auto-delete after a few days, so get 'em while they're hot. I've also put together a little document package. Configure the VM with 2GB of RAM (3GB if you want to really go to town with a replicated config).

ftp://ftp.emc.com/incoming/chad/Celerra_Simulator_OneDM_Workstation.zip
ftp://ftp.emc.com/incoming/chad/Celerra_Sim_Docs.zip

The only tricky part (and it's not tricky at all) is the initial networking config to get you to the point where you can open Celerra Manager. I think the docs do a good job of explaining that, but if you run into issues, let me know.

Conversely, if you think it's cake, let me know that too!

RE: The Big Plan: Business Continuity

Fri, 23 May 2008 20:36:14 GMT

Found it. Thanks for the tip!

RE: The Big Plan: Business Continuity

sakacc — Fri, 23 May 2008 19:25:04 GMT

okey-dokey, if you're an EMC customer, login to powerlink and search for "Celerra Simulator", and it's the first hit. If you aren't, give me a bit - will post to an FTP site for you.

RE: The Big Plan: Business Continuity

Virtual_JTW — Fri, 23 May 2008 18:02:40 GMT

Yes, I am very interested - I would love to get this working on test systems before implementing in production.

RE: The Big Plan: Business Continuity

sakacc — Fri, 23 May 2008 17:37:06 GMT

Disclosure - I'm an EMC employee...

A neat trick to help you get going, and learn how it will all work together..... There is a Celerra Virtual Machine (a full blown Celerra as a VM - it's one of about 10 EMC products we have as Virtual Appliances). Now, while some Virtual Appliances are supported as products (i.e. you buy it that way) - it's not the case with the Celerra. What is is REALLY useful for, however is to learn, play and test - since it is the SAME CODE.

I've got it up and running with SRM in my basement - and once you template the Celerra VM, you can make as many as you want.

Let me know if you're interested - I'm happy to help!!!

RE: Who is John Galt?

Virtual_JTW — Thu, 22 May 2008 20:28:00 GMT

I don't think many people will recognize it (he, he), but if only one takes the time and and Googles it then mission-accomplished!

I bet if you have a newer Celerra your experience will be even better than mine over-all.

I'm getting mixed reactions from peers on SRM - I don't make decisions based on fear so I'm pushing to at least evaluate it before purchasing it. I'll start testing it just as soon as I get the DART code upgraded which looks to be mid-June time-frame. I'll definitely post the results.

Thanks,
J