[TriLUG] Any NAS recommendations: Linux & Windows in harmony

[Kevin Flanagan]

There's only one thing that gives me pause, the Database you mentioned. 
Generally speaking, databases such as Oracle, MS SQL, etc, don't perform
well when they are on network mounted device.  If you have a server type
system that has the database, then users connect via JDBC, ODBC, etc,
it'll be a lot better.  If they are using this database for the kind of
money that you allude to then I would look at this part with a very
critical eye.   You say that you are using SMB now, no issues with it? 
What is the system, a Windows machine?  If you can use a server based
database, then the snapshots aren't as bad, because you control all of
the parts, shut down the database when you need to to snap it to another
set of disks. 

I know, many folks will say that they work just fine, and for many
instances they will, on a network device, but when things go south, many
a software vendor will tell you "it's the network".  You and I both know
that most of the time it isn't, but.....


I don't think that you will get out of this "on the cheap" if you want
the kind of performance and reliability that you talk about. 


On Sun, 2004-07-18 at 14:02, Glen Ford wrote:
> John Franklin wrote:
> 
> > A few questions about your installation:
> >
> > 1. How much space will they need?
> 
> 6TB
> 
> >   How many users will be connecting to it?
> 
> 10-30
> 
> > 2. What OSes are the client machines running
> 
> Windows XP
> 
> > and what is the role of the client machines/users?
> 
> Running specialty app that crunches large amounts of data
> 
> >   What I'm looking for here is how intensive will their use of the NAS 
> > boxes be?
> 
> Large amount of time with small updates and then large spikes in data 
> writes.
> 
> >   Solutions for video editor's rendering farms will be different from 
> > solutions for the secretarial pool.
> 
> This would be large specialized databases
> 
> > 3. Do they need backups?
> 
> YES
> 
> >   What level of backups?
> 
> FULL snapshot.  I.E. copy all data to seprate NAS .
> 
> >   Weekly?  Daily?  Do you need to be able to snapshot the NAS box 
> > every six hours?
> 
> Snap shot once a day and option for on demand snap shot
> 
> >   Is there a downtime where files aren't being actively modified when 
> > a (potentially long) backup can occur?
> 
> Not sure. Need to talk to D/B folks about quescing
> 
> > 4. How critical is their availability/accessibility need?
> 
> Very, as in lots O'money depends on it.
> 
> >   That is, how important is it that the system not be down for a day.  
> > Everyone says "critical", but there's a difference between "used while 
> > tracking the 101st into Falujah" critical, "Air traffic controllers 
> > are using this" critical, and "my dentist can't bill clients without 
> > it" critical.
> >
> > I know, it'd be nice if it were all OS agnostic, but SMB is good for 
> > Windows and NFS is good for *NIX.  There are NFS clients for Windows 
> > and SMB clients for *NIX, but SMB was built targeting Windows and NFS 
> > was built targeting *NIX.
> 
> Current solution is SMB. See no reason to change
> 
> >
> > On Jul 17, 2004, at 1:37 PM, Glen Ford wrote:
> >
> >>
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