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beovax
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Falconstor IPStor

Unrealted to vmware really but this is a very helpful forum so I am sure someone out there can help Smiley Happy

Has anyone managed to use falconstors IPStor NSS running on HP hardware using local storage as the SAN resource?

Their certification matrix clearly says that HP servers are supported but they are now claiming the CCISS driver that as far as I am aware all HP raid cards use is not compatible and HP servers can only be used as gateway devices - again the matrix clearly says these are supported as stroage devices running IPStor locally.

Not best pleased with falconstor at present, buy maybe someone on here can save the day, before I try and send my HP DL185 storage server back

Cheers

Michael

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13 Replies
DSTAVERT
Immortal
Immortal

That would be question best directed to Falconstor directly.

-- David -- VMware Communities Moderator
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beovax
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

you would have thought so wouldn't you Smiley Happy I may have a solution there seems to be some vital missing information - I will update if I get it working

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athlon_crazy
Virtuoso
Virtuoso

Unrealted to vmware really but this is a very helpful forum so I am sure someone out there can help Smiley Happy

Has anyone managed to use falconstors IPStor NSS running on HP hardware using local storage as the SAN resource?

Their certification matrix clearly says that HP servers are supported but they are now claiming the CCISS driver that as far as I am aware all HP raid cards use is not compatible and HP servers can only be used as gateway devices - again the matrix clearly says these are supported as stroage devices running IPStor locally.

Not best pleased with falconstor at present, buy maybe someone on here can save the day, before I try and send my HP DL185 storage server back

Cheers

Michael

Supported and compatibility are two different things. Although I've had good experience with Falconstor (hot fix, webex & etc), I would not risk my environment with something which already been claimed not compatible especially when Falconstor NSS (inbound) will serve your production as primary storage. Based on my bad day with NSS and how hard we try to resolved it last time, I hope you will listen to their claimed (not compatible) .

vcbMC-1.0.6 Beta

vcbMC-1.0.7 Lite

http://www.no-x.org
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habibalby
Hot Shot
Hot Shot

Yes, I have and currently working in my Development Data Center on HP BL460G1 and DL380G5. I have managed to configure VMWare SRM using FalconStor NSS.

I also have thier CDP Appliance working with Replication between two CDPs, one on BL460 and the othe on DL380.

Best Regards,

Hussain Al Sayed

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Best Regards, Hussain Al Sayed Consider awarding points for "correct" or "helpful".
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beovax
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

The DL185 server is listed with L3 certification which is supported. But as you say running any production environments on unsupported equiptement is a bad plan.

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beovax
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Is the DL380 using local storage or are you suing it as a gateway to virtualise other SAN resources? if so which raid card are you using?

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habibalby
Hot Shot
Hot Shot






Hello,

I have used both Local DataStore as well as NSS Proxy, LUNs that are assigned to the ESX Host via hp MSA1000 SAN.

Raid Card: bl460 E200i

Raid Card: dl380 P400

Best Regards,

Hussain Al Sayed

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beovax
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Thank you for the quick reponse. Are you using the virtual appliance runnign as a virtual machine on ESX? or NSS installed directly on the DL380 as a physical appliance?

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habibalby
Hot Shot
Hot Shot

Hello,

It's a Virtual Appliance

Best Regards,

Hussain Al Sayed

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beovax
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Ahhh, ok this will work as the Virtual Appliance will be using the virtual scsi apapter and wont see the physical raid card in use.

Falconstor have indicated I can add an SC08GE cad, but I am not sure if this is a replacement for the P400/800 raid controller or it can run alongside the exisitng raid card.

The SC08GE card has limited Raid capabilites and no Cache that I can see on the quickspecs, so if it is a replacement device performance is going to be very poor.

I will post an update when I have one

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habibalby
Hot Shot
Hot Shot

Send your DL185 back, and replace it with two dl380, or dl585, install ESXi / ESX and have two NSS as Virtual Appliance and configure them o replicate eachother. Virtual Machine "Virtual Appliance" doesn't have to depend on any hardware unless you have physical hardware attached to it. So, you can maintain HA on any hardware.

Best Regards,

Hussain Al Sayed

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beovax
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

could be a possible option, but the main reason for the DL185 is it is a storage server with lots of internal disk drives. Also the virtual appliances are limited to 4TB but I guess you could run multiple instances

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habibalby
Hot Shot
Hot Shot

The free NSS maximum 2 TB and thier license based on the storage capacity starting from 6 TB i belive. If you need more storage, the DL380, or 585 comes with 1TB and 2TB SAS disk.

What i have heard from a friend of mine the hp Storage Server / Microsoft Storage Server they are not giving good performance. What i have seen in my environment also, the VMDK which are presented to the NSS and CDP from the local server are performing much better than hp MSA 1000 RDM:)

Best Regards,

Hussain Al Sayed

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Best Regards, Hussain Al Sayed Consider awarding points for "correct" or "helpful".
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