Which option - SAN and server upgrade?

[idingsdale]

Hi All,

Was hoping for some opinions here. We are currently running our Foundation Acelleration Kit on 2 old HP DL380 G4s and a new Sun Fire x4440 (2 x 1.9 quad, 16gb RAM) with local storage. In the next few months I'm taking the plunge to a SAN, 2 new servers to replace the HPs and an upgrade to enterprise licensing. Total data size is about 500gb, approx 20VMs.

I've got several options and was wondering which you would choose

• 2 new Sun x4440s to match the existing one, Sun 2510 iSCSI array (12x146gb 15k) and HP gbit switches (on budget)

• 2 new Sun x4140s, same spec as existing but less expansion, EMC AX4 array (12x146gb 15k) and HP gbit switches (on budget)

• The x4140 servers with the Sun array (under budget)

• The x4140 servers with an HP MSA 2012i iSCSI array (10 x 146gb 15k) and HP gbit switches (again under budget, but not as much as before)

• The 4x140 servers with an HP MSA 2012fc (10 x 146gb 15k), HP FCAL switches and Sun FCAL HBAs (over budget)

I really dont think I need to go down the FC route, but would anyone disagree? Thanks for any suggestions!

[Lightbulb]

I would go with option 1

2 new Sun x4440s to match the existing one, Sun 2510 iSCSI array (12x146gb 15k) and HP gbit switches (on budget)

for two reasons

1. I have heard bad things about the MSA2000 series.

2. I have limited Sun hardware experience, but it has always been my experience that vendors provide better support when the solution is mostly "their" hardware.

[LarsLiljeroth]

Hi

I can see you compare both iScsi and FCP SAN's. I would choose technology first and then find different models.

But if i have to choose....

I don't have much expirience with SUN "san" Their servers are cool. In my mind i would take most "secure" san choise EMC.

So my vote goes for option 2.

Best regards

Lars Liljeroth

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[idingsdale]

The only thing putting me off option 2 is the expansion limitations of the 4140 server. If we want to add another 2 CPUs with the 4440 we just need another ESX license and the CPUs. to do that with the 4140 e need another server, ESX licenses and an upgrade of Virtualcenter (as we are on foundation)

[JasonVmware]

As for iSCSI or Fiber Channel, unless you have a Vm that needs the extra speed or you are currently saturating your iSCSI conneciton as is you could probably save the money on the pocket book and stay with iSCSI unless the need for FC rises. However if you can fit a better technology like fiber into your budget its always nice to have it in place incase the need for it in the future rises.

As for SAN choices as long as the SUN san's is on the HCL for Vmware you should be fine. With that in mind I have see great success / reviews from: EMC, NetApp, Dell Equallogic, some HP MSA models, the 2000 models seem a bit bothersome from what i've seen, and IBM Nseries which is a rebranding of Netapp essentially.

If you are looking for that extra expansion capabilty I would go with option 1: 2 new Sun x4440s to match the existing one, Sun 2510 iSCSI array (12x146gb 15k) and HP gbit switches (on budget) as long as the SUN 2510 iSCSI is on Vmware HCL. Another thing you could do is call your local VMware reseller / Consultant / Implemention expert and get there advice on the SAN issue.

Hope this helps

[idingsdale]

Thanks. We're actually still on local storage at the moment, so I have no way of knowing if iSCSI will be sufficient. Our usage is not heavy though, we have:

• A 100gb file server, about 80 users

• a 50gb Exchange server, about 80 users

• A 20gb Progress db server, about 20 users at any time

• A 25gb SQL server, about 30 users at any time

• And some other small VMs, like a secondary DC, a small MySQL db etc

So nothing really heavy at all. I'm looking at about £6500 for the Sun iSCSI option or close to £10,000 for the EMC option, so I'm struggling to find the justification for an extra £3500. We're a charity so I'd rather be as under budget as I can.

[JasonVmware]

I would check your current disk IO and network utatlization on your file server and see what the levels are at. If disk IO is high and your network utalization is over 15-20% you might want to look at putting the higher load of servers onto fiber. However iSCSI is very viable espically if your san can team the ports in an active/active session and your SAN is compatable with the trunking protocal your switch uses so you can can have essentially a 2GB iscsi connection to your SAN.

Another option is many SAN's have both iSCSI and Fiber on them allowing you to use the Fiber only on the servers that need it and iSCSI for the rest. I am unformilure with the Sun SAN so I couldn't really help you out there. You could also run Vmware's Consolidation tool to help you get good baselines from your servers.

If you search the communities there is many postings on how to best setup your SQL / Exchnage systems as VM. Typically most LUNs are a RAW LUN for heavy SQL or Exchange servers, however due to the limited use of your Exchange server and your SQL server you could probably get away without RAW luns, unless you need the extra perfomance.

Hope this helps.

[Rodos]

Be careful with using both iSCSI and FC off the same SAN. Often you can't use both protocols to the same LUNs at the same time. Also if you put some of your ESX hosts with FC and others with iSCSI you are effectively creating two clusters as you are creating a VMotion boundary. Depending on the size of the environment this may not be good use of resources. Just things to consider.

Rodos

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[JasonVmware]

Sorry I ment Vmware Capacity Planner, not Consolidation tool.