Downsouth, Thanks for your thoughts on GG. I have posted it in other storage networking threads (Q/A) as many are interested in the overall landscape. I am one of many who are waiting for the switched fabric age to come around. GG is fairly vocal in his overlal disdain for replacing switches with dumb bandwith, but the evidence so far suggests that expactly the opposite will happen as far as storage with FC switched fabric or, Iband....this interesting chat was posted on EMC thread by Gus...the highlighting is my own.
From: Gus Tuesday, Jun 27, 2000 7:34 PM ET
Reply # of 10559
NAS Q&A sponsored by EMC
Network Attached Storage Chat
When:Thursday, June 22 at 3:00pm (EDT).
Speaker: Steve Duplessie, Senior Analyst and founder of The Enterprise Storage Group
Sponsor: EMC Corporation
dcote721955 : How does one decide between NAS and SAN?
Steve_Duplessie : If you need block data, it's SAN, if you want files, it's NAS. Of course, now that you know that, all the rules will be changing over the next year (SCSI over IP, DAFS, etc.) Just when you thought it was safe to leave the computer room...
kkomiega884971 : Who are the Enterprise NAS players?
Steve_Duplessie : NetApp is king right now, and only really competes with EMC on the high end. Compaq, Sun, and HP have recently announced entry into the game.
mlewis872532 : Why is NAS getting so popular?
Steve_Duplessie : It's easy, and it works. Plug in a box, type an IP Address, and presto, all the other nodes know how to communicate with it. SAN is still confusing, difficult technology. NAS is simple.
jpanker240409 : Where does HP fit?
Steve_Duplessie : For their high end storage offering (XP256) they provide EMC Celera like function by putting an HP/UX server in front of the array. They also did a deal with Procom to OEM a midrange box, which we hate and think the deal will fall apart eventually. HP is better of sticking with HP/UX.
brama375191 : What Do You think of Sun's new N8000?
Steve_Duplessie : I like the line. Sun's enterprise series is an awsome, scaleable platform, so taking advantage of that makes a lot of sense. The question is going to be is Sun capable of marketing the products effectively?
lhunt421761 : With disk vendors like Maxtor and Quantum directly entering the market, what will happen to the integrators?
Steve_Duplessie : The low end of the market is going to be controlled by the disk manufacturers. Since 90% of the cost is the disk at that level, they are the only ones who will be able to survive. I expect a lot of the mid-tier integrators to evaporate because of these types. There just won't be any money in it. Leave it to a disk guy to take all the margin out of a perfectly good market.
bsheets537970 : Who is CrosStor?
Steve_Duplessie : CrosStor is a file system developer, who got tired of getting killed by Veritas and renamed themselves (Used to be Programmed Logic Corp.) and repositioned their product by wrapping their file system into the Wind River RT OS to create a NAS OS.
vkaplo296405 : What are good NAS applications?
Steve_Duplessie : If you need to share files, NAS is it. another way to look at is from where does your application execute? If you execute on your desktop (office type apps), storing them on a network drive in a NAS box is very logical.
spatterson236725 : What is the future of NAS?
Steve_Duplessie : I think it's very rosy. With Gigabit Ethernet coming out and rapid advances in getting TCP into hardware (software TCP causes most of the performance problems associated with network data fetches), let alone 10Gb ethernet on the horizon, NAS and SANs boundries will get even fuzzier.
dcote855476 : What don't you like about Sun's N8000 offering?
Steve_Duplessie : I don't like the fact that they used UFS instead of Veritas' VxFS file system. They also should have come out with the T3 array supported on day one. Other than that, they look like real contenders.
mlewis806629 : What is DAFS?
Steve_Duplessie : Network Appliance has proposed a new standard for a network storage device transport to basically replace NFS under VI. Without being incredibly boring (too late?) Direct Access File System is a way for VI (virtual interface) applications to move data directly from a NAS device into application buffer space - which eliminates a ton of performance issues associated with how NFS deals with things (it loads data into kernel buffers and moves it multiple times to get it to application buffers). I like the concept. I question VI adoption rates, however. Seems like the app vendors will love it for portability reasons, but we haven't seen a lot of acceptance as of yet.
brama654743 : Can you use NAS devices for database applications?
Steve_Duplessie : Yes, and no. (hows that for helpful!) If you have an internet based app set then a common NAS box to house Volume Data (non relational, or personal data - which represents the lionshare of the growth in database storage) makes total sense. If you are doing true OLTP, you still need to do direct access storage. We see more an more applicable instances of NAS for database applications.
spatterson951335 : Where does EMC fit?
Steve_Duplessie : they front end their giant Symmetrix box with Celera, another big old box that houses up to 14 independent NAS systems. Celera is high end, scaleable, and has N+1 everything. I'm hoping they will compliment this effort with a lower end midrange product, but don't expect it this year. No one knows it, but EMC is shipping lots of Celera (we think a billion dollars over the next 12 months is entirely doable.). People question thier accounting practices, i.e. do they count the symmetrix twice? but the bottom line is, they are formidable.
Moderator : Please submit questions in the box below.
cbernero12395 : Who truly has a NAS solution out there for mid to enterprise range purposes? I monitor this space, and I see many GPOS bundled with networking and calling it a NAS device!
Steve_Duplessie : THere are a lot of general purpose os' that are acting as NAS boxes - which is no longer bad, by the way (i.e. don't let that be the reason not to consider a gp box). Problem is, other than NetApp, the other guys who make a microkernel don't make hardware - CrosStor is an OEM product, for example, that some folks use.
eng_christopher287710 : Given increased bandwidth on IP networks, and vendors, such as CISCO, talking about doing SCSI over IP, why not run ALL I/O over IP networks, rather than a dedicated SAN?
Steve_Duplessie : THat may be possible, but not yet. Lot's of things still have to happen, and of course, in this business we can't agree on lunch, let alone standards. I agree that life as we know it will change, but I'm not ready to tell the world to throw out all their fibre arrays just yet.
Moderator : Please submit questions in the box below.
richardn799214 : What is status and what is happening with the Dell/Convergenet acquisition?
Steve_Duplessie : Dead as a doornail. Expect Dell to announce another relationship soon, however, and have working product within a month.ANyone know what Dell IS doing
tomschmit725576 : What are the limitations with NAS?
Steve_Duplessie : today, servers like block data calls to be direct to a device. thinkgs like OLTP dbase apps do best in this environment. If you want to share files, NAS is king. San still has a long life ahead of it. Matter of fact, stop calling it NAS or SAN, let's just call it networked storage.
Moderator : Please submit questions in the box below.
cbernero12395 : Does NetApp have a SAN solution? The reason I ask is for technologies like D-Bases with large block I/O, wouldn't NAS have to compete with network contention, thereby not providing the ideal implementation for this environment? Who offers this type of mixed bag solution (SAN + NAS)?
Steve_Duplessie : NetApp actually uses SAN technology on their back end, but only presents file systems to clients. EMC, MTI, Sun, Compaq can all put together quasi hybrids where SAN and NAS coexist at the same time.
dschoffelman398211 : How do you see the NAS products converging with SAN file systems like SANergy and ADIC's CVFS?
Steve_Duplessie : they don't really. SANergy type products let hosts within a SAN share files, a la NAS, directly from a fibre bus. Unless you need to share ridiculously large files, you probably better off with NAS, in that case.
dbye11735 : What advantages or feature set does NAS offer over SAN?
Steve_Duplessie : the biggest is it's easy. plug it in, give it an IP address, and all your heterogeneous hosts know how to deal with it. it works with what you already have. SAN is new architecture, new gear, new problems, etc. (note: I am not saying SAN is bad - which is a point I have to make every now and then before I start a riot.)
luis.escobar26971 : What do you think of Procom?
Steve_Duplessie : Not much.
sansoucy_keith546877 : Doesn't the Sun N8000 lack scalability?
Steve_Duplessie : actually, it's incredibly scaleable. It will go up to the E4500 (the N8600) which has up to 8 CPUs and a billion megs of memory.
Moderator : Please submit questions in the box below.
dschoffelman398211 : How are smaller/newer NAS suppliers like Connex doing in the market?
Steve_Duplessie : we don't focus on the low end, but my feeling is that if you don't make the disk itself, there will be no room for ya.
richardn799214 : Are there other vendors that compete with CrosStor? What are the alternatives to CrosStor?
Steve_Duplessie : No one I would recommend. Not that I know them all (I'm sure somebody out there has got cool stuff), but those I do have not proven to be enterprise capable. At least to me. Who did you have in mind?
villeneg766614 : Are mainframe vendors supporting NAS, and who are they?
Steve_Duplessie : not sure what you mean. if it's "does IBM do NAS" yes, matter of fact, the 390 is the worlds best file server. Does Ahmdahl, yep. they just call it Sun.
msquinn59092 : Can a DBMS be run on a NAS? Or will there have to be a server between the desktop PCs and the NAS?
Steve_Duplessie : something has to run the dbase executables - NAS is just the data repository, so yes, you need a dbase server(s) still.
knewton471196 : What are the benefits associated with the simplicity of NAS?
Steve_Duplessie : obviously a vendor! A: plug it in, B: see a.
squesnel255864 : Is there a possibility of increased data security issues when using an NAS?
Steve_Duplessie : yes, and no. bottom line, if you have networked computers, you have a security risk. specific to NAS, I'd say you have no more or less than general purpose computers, perhaps less since they don't typically support rlogin and such.
tmc70267660 : How would you compare the Celera with the Netapp's filer?
Steve_Duplessie : NetApp has stand alone, share nothign systems (except in their HA clusters) where each filer has it's own physical disks associated with it.
david.mcbride798791 : Is there a place for NAS in a shop with an established SAN?
Steve_Duplessie : sure. most SAN shops already run some form of NAS implementation, maybe only generic file serving, but it's still NAS. NAS boxes can use SAN on the back end, and happily co-exist. The point is there is no universal right answer - look at your application set and decide.
kolota_ted628741 : How about managing large NAS installations? Does anyone have a good solution?
Steve_Duplessie : not sure I get the question - if you mean does anyone make giant NAS boxes so you consolidate multiples, yes - EMC, Netapps are getting big (I think 6TB this year, but don't quote me), and Sun and HP can theoretically scale to lot's of TB. If you mean how do I manage large numbers of boxes, you need to see your NAS vendor for thier tools.
cbernero12395 : Who has the best performing and highest available NAS solution out there today and who will in the future?
Steve_Duplessie : watch the nifty tightrope walking here - it depends. HA is tough to define, since all of you vendors do it to one degree or another. EMC has a nice many to one HA story, but NetApp would argue that 1 to 1 HA is better. With Veritas or LEgato clusteringI can build large scale clusters ad infinitum. No way I hop on the performance question - since all can do great numbers in benchmarks - reality has different rules. AT any rate, the fact that EMC has 14 independent NAS engines doesn't mean they are 14 times faster than a single silly little Maxtor box - apples to apples means we look at each individual server to make comparitives.
eng_christopher287710 : What would the emergence of infiniband mean for NAS?
Steve_Duplessie : In theory (very, very "in theory") it could be a very disruptive technology for fibre channel, and could be great for NAS. Via VI (virtual interface), infinband could offer a great direct access methodology for moving file data right into the infiniband host channel adapter. I think we're several years away from this, and remember, nothing is real yet.
luis.escobar26971 : Is there a NAS device out there that supports multiplatforms incuding AS/400 and S/390?
Steve_Duplessie : assuming you put an NFS agent on the mainframe or the 400, it will work with any of them. don't know of any that speak to MVS native, however.
Moderator : The chat will end shortly. Please submit any final questions now. A transcript of the chat will be available on SearchStorage.com on Friday, June 23.
tchen881714 : How do you compare NAS with file servers?
Steve_Duplessie : well, NAS is a file server. It serves files. Traditional NAS definition simply implies that it serves files using a specialized appliance/microkernel as opposed to a general purpose system. To me, they are both file servers.
sleck_bill105796 : How large can current NAS implementations scale? Are there limitations that prevent them from multi-TB applications?
Steve_Duplessie : EMC, Netapp, Sun, HP, etc. all scale to multi terabyte configs today.
winedrinker42161 : Isn't Sun's product just a bundle of existing products and not really an appliance at all?
Steve_Duplessie : never said it was an "appliance". yes it's a bundle, but so what? they wrap a GUI around Solaris so as an admin you can deal with a few buttons to get that appliance look, and as long as it's cheap, fast, simple - what's the problem? I'm just saying don't preclude any of the system vendors just because they provide complete systems!
luis.escobar26971 : Regarding Procom, do you mean, not much, you don't know, or not much, you don't think they are a player?
Steve_Duplessie : Alas, I know much too much. So, not much would be what I think.
dpaulson2944371 : Is there a particular architecture using NAS that can serve as an interim (and improved over the typical server backup) step to SAN-coordinated backups? Or do the backup/restore/disaster recovery performance gains of a SAN have nothing to do with NAS?
Steve_Duplessie : not sure I get this one. NAS systems and SAN attached systems are somewhat mutually exclusive, but if you have data on either, you need to back it up. MOst enterprise class backup software can deal with both (direct for SAN attached, NDMP for NAS attached). Either way, get the data off the network (for backup) and use a dedicated path.
msquinn59092 : Re: DBMS on a server: My university runs WinNT servers. How well does Microsoft SQL DBMS work with NAS?
Steve_Duplessie : NT uses CIFS as the protocol for file serving. As long as your NAS box speaks CIFS, the NT machines will think it's another NT box. If you have lots' of NT SQL machines, using a single NAS box to feed them data may make your life far more manageable. Make sure you use switches.
richardn799214 : Followup on question 195: How about Veritas V3 on Linux as an alternative to CrosStor?
Steve_Duplessie : good point - except V3 isn't a product, it's an architecture. you could put veritas VM on Linux, add volume manager and off you go - however, now you are general purpose OS, not technically a microkernel.
villeneg766614 : Other than ease of implementation, does NAS have any advantages over SANs in the area of business continuity?
Steve_Duplessie : well, if you are implying wide area replication, NAS is IP based so you do have that. However, it's just as easy to replicate data over a wide area on a standard host, which happens to have a SAN back end. NAS or SAN doesn't matter - you can accomplish biz continuity in any number of ways, like file replication, volume replication, disk array replication, database replication, Fibre to IP to Fibre SAN extension, etc.
winedrinker42161 : It seems only Netapp submits benchmarks without a large number of file systems in the configuration, why is that? For example, Sun has a benchmarks on SFS that has 249 disks, and 245 filesystem, and no RAID! why?
Steve_Duplessie : people submit benchmarks under the best possible case scenerio for themselves, with very limited real world applicability. I hate benchmarks.
eng_christopher287710 : Does SAN go away in the future in your opinion?
Steve_Duplessie : No, but it may change to include little things like IP, or ethernet. STorage Networks will continue. Might some peices of what we think of as SAN go away, sure it's possible, fibre being the most obvious. However, fibre channel is here, it works, and the other stuff is all smoke and mirrors for now. I could show you an arguement that wipes out any technology, if you give me five minutes and a glass of wine.Very good one!
winedrinker42161 : Amdahl also resells Netapp.
Steve_Duplessie : Thanks all!
Moderator : That concludes our chat. We would like to thank Steve Duplessie for his time. And thanks to all of you for joining us.
Moderator : The chat room will remain open for members who would like to discuss today's topic on their own. Feel free to stay and chat!
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DownSouth, others, any comments? |
