iSCSI Questions from a reader

I received an email from Alvin from Asia with a couple questions regarding our EqualLogic iSCSI SAN implementation. Although, I feel a bit like Dear Abby; I'm always glad to share what I've learned.

From Alvin:

This is Alvin from Asia Pacific region. I enjoyed reading your blog on the Church IT section. And it is good to read the happy news on the new baby. Congratulation!!

One particular interest of mine is to read your successful IP SAN implementation. Me and my friends would like to learn more from you.

Would it be possible for you to share with us:

- The reasons you choose IP SAN? (other than cost, e.g. what are the existing pains in existing IT infrastructure)

- Do you have any network/infrastructure diagrams for the pre-SAN environment? If yes, can you share with us?

- Is you did update the network diagram with the post-SAN implementation, can you share with us as well?

- Last, what is your plan to make good use of your IP SAN? Can you share with us your next 6 months plan?

Hope this email doesn't cause you too much trouble. As you might not aware, IP SAN is very slow in Asia, it is hard for us to find a relevant experience on our side. Any help we can get is greatly appreciated.

I chose an IP SAN because of its flexibility, feature set and growth potential compared to Fibre Channel (FC) or traditional Direct Attached Storage (DAS). FC is really expensive and does not offer the growth potential of a Lefthand or EqualLogic system. DAS is inexpensive but offers no flexibility and it makes disaster recovery harder to implement. An EqualLogic iSCSI box is a good middle ground that allows me to centrally manage the storage, expand as needed, virtualize servers easily, and move data offsite easily.

I do not have any diagrams of before and after the iSCSI SAN but the implementation is pretty simple. I added two HP gigabit switches (for redundancy) to the server rack and created a new VLAN that supported Jumbo frames. I added two Intel Pro 1000/PT network cards to the servers that will use the SAN. I then connected the EqualLogic box and the server network cards to the switches. Basically, I created a separate storage network that will only handle storage I/Os.

My plan for the next 6+ months is to virtualize everything in the server rack and to solidify a backup strategy for the SAN.

Comments

[Beats by dr dre headphones]

Why would it take FOUR hours on the phone with Microsoft. Why does it always take so long???