churchIT

SAN Update 4

I've spent the week checking references and weighing the different SAN options available. This has been a much tougher decision than I thought it would be a few weeks ago.

I did talk with Debi Cooper with M&A Technology, along with Jeff Horne of D-Link. We had a good conversation about their technology. The D-Link DSN-3200 has 15 storage bays for SATA drives and a whopping 8 1GB ports. Redundancy is provided by a second DSN-3200 whose replication is handled by Symantec VERITAS Storage Foundation. You can setup volumes on individual disks, place a volume on a single RAID array, or place multiple volumes on a RAID array; so it is fairly flexible. As I understood, the Veritas Storage Foundation could asynchronously and synchronously replicate data to a remote and/or local unit for data protection and disaster recovery. I am a little apprehensive about the Veritas software, which will run on another computer and perform the synchronizing. I did talk to a customer who implemented a DSN-3200 about 3 weeks ago. They also looked at a Siafu solution but chose this solution because of its overall value. They have only 7 of the drive bays populated with 750GB drives and love the solution. This will probably not be the solution that I choose for our implementation because of expandability concerns and concerns about Veritas Storage Foundation. The DSN-3200 is very economical and I would still recommend it be placed on your research list if looking for a SAN.

I also asked for references from EqualLogic and Left Hand. I talked with Justin Smith at Second Baptist Church in Houston and also talked with Jason Powell of Granger Community Church. Both had great things to say about EqualLogic and both have had great experiences with the product. Second is only using their PS300E for databases and Granger has moved most of their data and 20 virtual machines to their PS100E. Both have had great experiences with the product and will be expanding in the future. Jason also talked about EqualLogic's responsiveness to the drive problems they encountered several months ago.

I also talked with Patrick Trela of Prestonwood Baptist Church; they are running a 19TB total storage LeftHand solution. Most of their units are NSM160s and they are running in a Campus SAN environment for disaster recovery. Patrick had great things to say about Left Hand and we had a good conversation. I didn't think Prestonwood was an apple to apple comparison since they have 3 times everything that we have so I asked for another reference. I was directed to Bob Samson IT Director of UT – Arlington Campus Library. They have been a Left Hand customer for 3 years and have about 10TB raw storage. They have had a few problems over the years but have had a great impression of Left Hand's support.

Tomorrow's the decision day. I have received about 10 phone messages the last 2 days in regards to the RFP. I know which direction I am going but I'll wait until I have a PO in-hand before announcing the decision.

SAN Update 3

The bid due date has come and gone, and I have bids from 5 vendors, for 5 different manufacturers, and 4 software platforms. These are EqualLogic, Left Hand, MPC, Siafu, and D-Link. Actually I am waiting final pricing from 2 vendors but I pretty much know the general price range of their bids. Aside from the final pricing, I am now at T-minus 7 days for a decision.

I spent an hour with my Tech Depot reps, Dan Kalagher and several of his colleagues from Siafu Software. According to their company history, this a new company, with their first installation 9 months ago. It is based off of Windows Storage Server. Since it is a new platform, it looks like they are still building out the feature set but they have several features in the SAN that are interesting. The first is the ability to encrypt some or all of the volumes on the SAN. I can see this being useful in some scenarios but it brings about a 20% overhead. The next feature is the ability to backup snapshots directly to tape, this is possible since there is an accessible Windows OS running the SAN. Although, I would worry about the backup software crashing the SAN. Lastly, there is a PXE boot server available to boot your diskless servers directly from the SAN. As I pointed out my SAN Update 2 post, booting from a non-HBA adapter would require a separate PXE server with DAS. This adds a layer of complexity, but an integrated PXE boot server would reduce that complexity. The system Siafu and Tech Depot are quoting is a SWARM 3000-HA.

I also received the D-Link bid today. It is a combination of a D-Link DSN-3200 and Symantec VERITAS Storage Foundation Software. I don't really have much to say about this at this point. I think this might be an "old fashioned" iSCSI SAN and that would explain why it is a least $10K less expensive than the other bids. I am waiting on the vendor to provide an explanation of the bid, before further review.

Lastly, I talked with EqualLogic for a little while and followed up with them on a few details, about their system. I wanted to make sure that I had an accurate impression of the functionality, they provide.

SAN Update 2

Last Thursday was a busy and very productive day. I spent about 2 hours with Rick Bruder and Keith Kincer of EqualLogic, in the morning. We discussed our current and future needs, their technology, other technology and did some whiteboarding. They brought a PS100E and did a demo from power up to managing the unit. I must say that I am really impressed with the PS100E hardware and the ease of use, of the software. I came away mostly impressed by the overall package.

I spent about an hour on the phone with Mike Hanes and Bill Horton of Alacritech. Alacritech specializes in TCP Offload Engine (TOE) NIC and iSCSI adapters. It was made clear to me that, this is not an iSCSI HBA, which presents itself as an SCSI adapter to the system. These are pure TOE NICS and they say that they get much better performance than most internal NICs or HBAs. I am really looking at them because of their combination of performance and the ability to boot from their card. I would like most of my new servers to be diskless, so booting from the SAN is a must. The only downside is that there boot is PXE enabled and would require a PXE boot server, and that is another moving part that can fail. They've offered a 30 day live trial of one of their adapters, so when I get the SAN running, I'll take them up on the offer.

I also had a conference call with PC Mall and Left Hand. I had a few questions about their bid of two or three NSM160s. The three NSM160 solution was over budget and lacks a 3 year warranty, so it will not work. I had a concern about the two NSM160 solution only having 8 SATA spindles in the SAN and the quote wasn't clear on the warranty options. I found out during our conversation, the quoted SAN did not come with the a 3 year warranty but a 1 year warranty. I've done the math and adding the warranty will put the project over budget. Tony Lagera of Left Hand tried to address my performance question but I am sold not on 8 SATA spindles. Tony will be in Houston Wednesday, March 21 and will meet with me to discuss my concerns.

A note to SAN buyers, do your homework. I know that is one of those "Duh!" statements but be thorough in your research, before budgeting. When I budgeted this project a few months ago, I looked at iSCSI solutions, but I never fully grasped the available technologies. I was really set on an "old school" EMC, HP or IBM iSCSI solution. I've seen the Left Hand and EqualLogic solutions and either one, with their faults, is still light years ahead of, most of, the competition. This includes Fibre Channel.

Update: Windows Server 2003 SP2

Microsoft has updated the Windows Server 2003 SP2 page to include the links to SP2 gold. One thing they've included that I've never seen before is a downloadable ISO CD image for SP2, no not really a big deal but a change.

Windows Server SP2 has been released

Microsoft has released Windows Server 2003 SP2, which will also update Windows XP x64. At this time Microsoft has not updated the Server 2003 SP2 website but the 32-bit version can be found here and x64 here, for those who are interested. The SP2 FAQ has a pretty good overview of the changes in SP2. Happy testing and updating!

SAN Update 1.1

This is a quick mini update. MPC computer's regional sales representative coming out Wednesday morning to talk SAN and the new Micron. Thursday we have EqualLogic coming out to do an on-site demo of their product, with their regional sales representative and his engineer. I love when vendors make a good effort like EqualLogic is doing this week and it'll be fun talking technology with them.

Speaking of EqualLogic, Jason Powell reminded me of his posts detailing Granger's SAN research and deployment last year. He also has follow-up post about EqualLogic's excellent support. His excellent write-ups can be found here http://jpowell.blogs.com/jason_powell_church_it/san/index.html. I would recommend reviewing them if a SAN is in your future.

IT Overview - Hardware

I've always found it to be interesting to look at how other churches are doing IT. Here is a breakdown of our hardware. You will see that I've become a fan of HP Hardware. That's not always been that way but I keep trying new HP hardware and HP keeps delivering good product.

10 Servers – We're standardized on HP Proliant, but we've got 5 old Intel white boxes. All use DAS at this time.

134 Computers – 100 mostly clone Desktops, 16 HP T5520 Thin Clients, 11 Laptops (7 HP, 3 Fujitsu, and 1 Toshiba Tablet), and 7 Macs

45 Printers – This is a mix, mainly HP LaserJet. We're trying to consolidate and standardize to color and b/w LaserJets. Down to 8 InkJet$!

9 Networked Copiers – Savin Copiers 8 B/W & 1 Color

11 Switches – All HP ProCurve switches. This is a mix of 100/1000 switches linked by 1GB fiber.

1 Wireless Bridge – A Proxim Quickbridge II Wireless Bridge. This connects our main campus and our annex/youth campuses.

1 Access Point – HP Procure 420. This will be 3 soon.

Routers – Cisco (Managed by our ISP DataFoundry)

Main Rack – APC 42U NetShelter SX Lockable Enclosure

Main Rack UPS – APC Smart-UPS 5000VA Rack mount 208V with 2 battery packs (Right now we get above 1HR runtime)

Main Rack Power Distribution – APC Switched PDU

Main Rack Cooling – Mix of Building A/C and a APC NetworkAir PA1000

Main Rack Heat Removal – APC Rack Air Removal Unit. This has been a great investment. Pulls server's hot air out and sends it into the ceiling. No more re-circulated hot air!

Telco UPSs – APC and Tripplite Rack mount UPSs

Desktop UPSs – APC Back-UPS ES

Blogging with Word 2007

Being a computer geek, I like trying out new stuff. I've been using Microsoft Word 2007 for several months now and I really like the interface changes. There are times when I pull my hair out looking for a command that I don't use often, otherwise it's a good change, that gets better as you use it. I figured, I'd try publishing posts with Word's new blog feature. Well as you can tell, it doesn't do hyperlinks all that well. Other than that, I've found it to work fairly well. The next thing for me to try is inserting a picture and some other features.

UPDATE: It seems that my past trouble with hyperlinks as been fixed! I'll be looking into this a bit further. Inserted a Word 2007 formatted picture.

 

Microsoft Open Licensing

We got a Software Assurance letter reminding me that SA on several of our server products would be running out in the next 6 months. Two of the products are Windows Server Standard and Exchange Standard and I thought wouldn't it be great if I could upgrade those licenses to Enterprise versions.

The difference between products seems to become more critical between version upgrades of Microsoft products, since with each version there seems to be more differentiating factors between levels. Like standard and enterprise versions of Windows and Exchange. So, with more releases of a product, your business may grow and the feature set of the premium enterprise product will grow, making the enterprise product more appealing.

I called Microsoft Volume Sales at 800-426-9400, to see if there was a way to upgrade to the higher end version and keep some of my investment, without throwing out a whole license. I got a real helpful gentleman who told me that there was a "Step-Up" license, which allows us to upgrade certain products. He pointed me to the Product Use Rights (PUR) document and said that would give me the details. After researching this and the "Step-Up Licenses Brief" it turns out that the Step-Up program was only available if I had SA and I were under a "Enterprise Agreement, Select License, and Open License Value customers have the option to acquire a Step-up License on or after the renewal of their previous agreements." So I called Microsoft Volume Sales to verify my facts and make sure that I wasn't missing anything. Well, it turns out that this is true. Organizations that buy Open Business, Charity, Academic, or Government with Software Assurance, don't get some of the same benefits as other licensing programs. I asked who I could send an email to in regards to this situation and she told me that I could send an e-mail to mswish@microsoft.com for any kind of want or suggestion.

So I am composing an e-mail and will give Microsoft my 2 cents on this issue. It seems to me like Microsoft should make the Open License Program a perpetual license only and a Software Assurance less program for businesses, governments or charities. Meaning that like retail, if you buy a license for that product, you can use it as long as you want, but without upgrade assurance. If you want Software assurance then you will be directed to an expanded Microsoft Open Value program, which would be open to governments, academics, and charities, in addition to businesses. This would give organizations better value for their SA benefits, such as the ability to spread payments over the 3 year lifespan of MSOV agreement.

Sorry about the long post, but I thought it was worth mentioning.

SAN Update

I've been on the phone and seen more of WebEx than I ever thought possible.  I have been in communication with 5 different vendors.  So far, I have looked at solutions from LeftHand, EqualLogic, MPC Computers, and HP.  I have two other vendors that have not given me any information on their offerings and recommendations, just an "I'm Interested".

Of the offerings that I've seen, LeftHand has the best overall software package.  Their Campus SAN is first rate, because you can place synchronously redundant SANs in multiple places, for limited disaster recovery. For full disaster recovery, we could place another SAN in a remote data center and asynchronously replicate data and snapshots to it. If these snapshots are virtualized servers, then we could

EqualLogic has the better internal hardware redundancy inside the box and the easiest setup, by far.

MPC is a custom hardware box that is running LeftHand software.

With all of the options I really like the virtualization options that are available, like being to move a VM fairly easily between servers. I also like that our Media Macs will be able join the SAN and performance will scale up, as we add storage units.