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azn2kew
Champion
Champion
‎12-09-2009 05:57 PM

EMC vs. NetApp SAN solutions for large scale virtualization scenario!

For those storage gurus, I'm curious what's your opinions and knowledge/experiences regarding these two SAN vendors. I'm specifically focus on VMware virtualization (View, vSphere, SRM) as a whole. (assuming large scale)

I've seen great NetApp FAS6000 series but also looking at Clariion CX4 & DMX-4 series but I'm worries about price different, features built in, and high availability and flexibility/scalability.

Anyone are using EMC/NetApp at the moment, please provide some technical feedback and discussion should be greatly appreciated.






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Regards,

Stefan Nguyen

VMware vExpert 2009

iGeek Systems Inc.

VMware, Citrix, Microsoft Consultant

If you found this information useful, please consider awarding points for "Correct" or "Helpful". Thanks!!! Regards, Stefan Nguyen VMware vExpert 2009 iGeek Systems Inc. VMware vExpert, VCP 3 & 4, VSP, VTSP, CCA, CCEA, CCNA, MCSA, EMCSE, EMCISA
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8 Replies
meistermn
Expert
Expert
‎12-12-2009 09:22 AM

I did choose the netapp 6080 with the metrocluster functionalities and 4 PAM Cards per 6080 both.

The distance betbween the primary and seconday datacenter is 30 Kilometers.

The management feature of netapp is very easy.

As british telecom and deutsche telekom build their virtual datacenters with netapp storage, I expect that the scalabilty of netapp with several netboxes is very good.

http://www.netapp.com/uk/company/news/news-rel-20091008-uk.html

The next storage thing is fusionio + datacore/falconstore for heavy virtual sql servers.

www.fusionio.com ONe Fusioio card has more IOPS than a complete SAN.

ALthough interessting is ramcloud.

www.stanford.edu/~ouster/cgi-bin/papers/ramcloud.pdf

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ablej
Hot Shot
Hot Shot
‎12-15-2009 07:53 PM

This is just one of those arguments that could gone on forever. I know of a few big shops that use Netapp and I have also used it. I think their dedupe and snapmirror features are great. Netapp scales very well and their smaller footprint philosophy goes very well with virtualization.

David Strebel

www.holy-vm.com

If you find this information useful, please award points for "correct" or "helpful"

David Strebel www.david-strebel.com If you find this information useful, please award points for "correct" or "helpful"
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davidbarclay
Virtuoso
Virtuoso
‎12-15-2009 09:00 PM

These sorts of questions just attract vendor religion. I'd suggest you speak to the vendors/partners to get the low-down and make your own decision.

Dave

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rwdorman
Contributor
Contributor
‎12-17-2009 09:42 AM

While I am a NetApp customer I'd like to point our that I think you are asking also abut another philisophical question: NAS vs SAN. I come from a networking rather than storage background which is one of the reasons that I have chosen NAS but I also think it provides a lot of flexability that you dont nessecarily get from a SAN. NFS now supports the overwhelming majority of the advanced features and when configured correctly on a NetApp gives performance with virtually no difference from fiber (10Gb/sec Ethernet, Jumbo Frames, Tunables, aligned partitions etc). The ability to access datastores as fileshares from any Linux or Windows box along with no special client or other complications is very nice. It gives you the ability to have great flexability in hardware choices. The addition of 10Gb/sec Ethernet also has the potential to really clean up your cabling, port densities etc. The other NetApp features are fantastic as well.. and perhaps you were actually planning to run the NetApp as fiber or iSCSI anyway... I'm sure some fiber advocates out there may disagree with me on some minor points but NFS is really a very nice, very supported and very un-compicated way to get a robus VMWare environment up and running.

YMMV

My opinions are my own and not valid in AK, HI or PR.

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ablej
Hot Shot
Hot Shot
‎12-17-2009 07:52 PM

Anymore with the VMware advanced features being supported your protocol choice will be based on the business requiremnts and SLA's.

David Strebel

www.holy-vm.com

If you find this information useful, please award points for "correct" or "helpful"

David Strebel www.david-strebel.com If you find this information useful, please award points for "correct" or "helpful"
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sudiady
Contributor
Contributor
‎01-10-2010 05:31 AM

I'm using VI3 (8x host) and NetApp SAN with active-active pair of MetroCluster (FAS3040, Data ONTAP 7.2.x, Sync. mirrored, campus setup not more than 10km) for many years.

For your reference:

Tech Article: MetroCluster Design and Implementation Guide - http://media.netapp.com/documents/tr-3548.pdf

Online Blog:http://blogs.netapp.com/virtualization/2009/08/vmware-support-for-netapp-metrocluster-now-official.html

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malaysiavm
Expert
Expert
‎01-10-2010 08:03 AM

Hi Stefan,

I think you should look at the perspective and protocol you plan to utilize the storage. Metro Cluster is some great features which you may want to consider if the Primary and DR are within the distance. if you are purely use it on VMWare, I dun see much different within this 2 boxes,it just which protocol you want to run. But again, if you plan to use it for multi purpose and ERP environment, you should consider those box with unified protocol in place. EMC CX4 with celerra does deliver both, when Netapp are always combining everything into single box.

Craig

vExpert 2009

Malaysia VMware Communities -

Craig vExpert 2009 & 2010 Netapp NCIE, NCDA 8.0.1 Malaysia VMware Communities - http://www.malaysiavm.com
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