[TriLUG] ISCSI SAN

[Matt Nash]

Matt Pusateri wrote:
> On Tue, July 18, 2006 11:35 am, Matt Nash wrote:
>   
>> Matt Pusateri wrote:
>>     
>>> Hello Triluger's,
>>>
>>>
>>> I've been tasked with finding our company a SAN.  Currently we've
>>> looked at EMC & Lefthandnetworks.  Were leaning towards ISCSI,
>>> corporate is a complete Windows shop, but we here in Raleigh are
>>> almost completely Linux.  So I need to find something that plays
>>> nice.
>>>  I thought about using openfiler(iscsi-target) and rolling my own,
>>> but
>>> I don't think corporate will buy into it.  Anyone have any
>>> suggestions/comments?  Direct experience comments appreciated, as
>>> opposed to why don't you just use "Samba" comments :) Also if anyone
>>> has a contact at Netapp let me know, I plan to look at them as well.
>>>
>>> Thanks
>>>
>>> Matt P.
>>>
>>>
>>>       
>> The company I work for bought 3 Left Hand units in January, and so far
>> they have worked fine without a hitch.  Even MS plays well with them!
>> My understanding from the installing technician is that the boxes
>> themselves are off-the-shelf servers running a specialized Linux OS.
>> The management console is multiplatform, written in Java, and is very
>> straightforward and easy to understand.
>>
>> I haven't tried mounting one of the iSCSI targets on a Linux machine,
>> but that is an experiment I have planned for when I have run out of
>> work
>> to do.
>>
>> Left Hand's technology is pretty interesting, and should be more
>> easily
>> scaled than EMC.  Not to mention MUCH MUCH cheaper.
>> --
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>>     
>
>
> Lefthand is in the running, but I saw issues I didn't like as much. 
> These issues may relate to all SAN's, as I'm not that SAN aware yet.
>
> Lefthand issues:
> 1. All access has to be via iSCSI.  I would prefer if I could NFS/SMB
> mount a share if I had to in a pinch.  I think NetApp does this  Yes I
> could mount to an iSCSI server and then mount off of there, but I like
> options.
>   
That is true, but be aware that other vendors will charge you a license 
fee for the ability to export CIFS or NFS shares.