Equallogic Versus Lefthand

Why they like EqualLogic

2012-02-11T21:17:00.001-08:00

http://www.itogether.co.uk/2012/02/dell-equallogic-why-we-like-it-and-why-we-think-it-is-easier-to-use-than-competitors-like-emc-and-hp/

If you are looking at Netapp, EMC, or HP or IBM and want to consider Dell EqualLogic – even if you’re not a fan of Dell, try to ignore the badge (or just remove it from the bezel like we can do)

Enable VASA on HP P4000 Lefthand SAN with vSphere 5

2012-02-09T07:19:00.001-08:00

http://boerlowie.wordpress.com/2012/02/09/enable-vasa-on-hp-p4000-lefthand-san-with-vsphere-5/

This allows vSphere to read the capabilities of your underlying SAN storage. With this information, you can do all kinds of fancy stuff afterwards (Profile-Driven Storage, …)

For HP, it is supported on P4000 (Lefthand), P6000 (EVA) and P9000 (XP). For VASA to function, you will need to install an additional component from HP called HP Insight Control Storage Module for vCenter. The current version at moment of writing is 6.3.1. And yeah, it’s free

In case you need to gather equallogic logs using the CLI

2012-02-06T07:27:00.000-08:00

http://www.interweb.org.uk/2012/02/03/equallogic-ps-series-array-gathering-diagnostic-logs-using-cli/

Abysmal Performance on New CSV

2012-02-06T07:22:00.001-08:00

Below might be solution

From

http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/storage/f/3775/p/19434433/20042992.aspx

After some more testing with directly attached LUNs, I consulted this document again http://www.equallogic.com/WorkArea/DownloadAsset.aspx?id=10771 and I think I may have resolved my problems.

As recommended:

I have disabled autotune on the interfaces in my R710 with:

netsh int tcp set blobal autotuninglevel=disabled

On the switches I've re-enabled iSCSI optomizations, flow control, and Port Fast on all interfaces.
I've also renabled Jumbo Frame support on the Broadcom NICs, Switches, and SAN after disabling it for testing.

Before making the switch changes all three LUN types were performing horribly.

discussing hp400 remote copy

2012-02-03T09:07:00.000-08:00

P4000 Remote Copy

http://community.spiceworks.com/topic/195723-p4000-remote-copy

Thanks John. We're on 9.0 still so can't do the VMware quiescing. We do "proper" backups using Commvault which does quiesce VM's - this is just a last resort "get up and running with something as we have nothing" box we're putting in an off-site location.

another HP gotcha maybe

2012-01-31T15:27:00.000-08:00

http://www.v-strange.de/index.php/hp-hardware/19-p4000/72-vsphere-and-p4500-g2

Thinking a bit about it, we realized that we had installed the HP Lefthand MPIO DSM on the backup server. Normally we do not install any MPIO DSM on the backupserver because most of the VMware backup products do not work well with MPIO drivers. But this time, we do not plan to use such kind of products and therefore installed the DSM to get proper failover and loadbalancing.

Searching on the internet I found the blog from Rhys Goodwin and he suffered the same problem. He figured out that installing the DSM can cause severe problems on VMware datastores because of locking mechanism used by the DSM.

TO FIX:

1.Uninstall HP Lefthand DSM for MPIO from Windows hosts (We still want to try to present the VMFS LUNs back to the backup server at some stage)
2.Shutdown all VMs
3.Shutdown all the ESX hosts
4.Shutdown Lefthand (Shut down the management group, not the nodes individually)
5.Power up the Lefthand and make sure all the nodes are up and volumes are all online
6.Power up the ESX hosts and VMs

HP Lefthand DSMs for MPIO can cause locking and LUN accessibility issues on LeftHand arrays

2012-01-31T15:25:00.001-08:00

Something to be aware of with HP Lefthand and VMWare

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1030129

Showing how the EqualLogic Block size is 15MB

2012-01-24T12:48:00.001-08:00

http://vimeo.com/35285493

Showing how the EqualLogic Block size is 15MB

how-to using the HP P4000 LeftHand VSA

2012-01-24T12:47:00.000-08:00

http://www.shogan.co.uk/?p=1029

Interesting post on the ease of use of setting up the HP P4000 LeftHand VSA

Upgrading Firmware of EqualLogic

2012-01-09T14:34:00.000-08:00

Something to watch out for

http://www.interweb.org.uk/2012/01/06/equallogic-kernel-panic-on-a-netbsd-processor/

During the upgrade I recieved a Kernel Panic and subsequent Panic Recovery, looks like the controller crashed during the update this resulted in the iSCSI targets being unavailable for a couple of minutes, the controllers did not fail over and I now have a Firmware mismatch.

He recommends using the CLI

http://www.interweb.org.uk/2012/01/06/equallogic-ps-series-firmware-update-using-the-cli/

Lefthand P4000 and SRA

2011-12-19T07:28:00.001-08:00

http://h30499.www3.hp.com/t5/HP-LeftHand-P4000/HP-P4000-VSA-amp-SRA-for-Vmware-SRM-5/m-p/5420215

Equallogic, disappointing yet still awesome

2011-12-17T21:51:00.000-08:00

http://www.krystalmods.com/index.php/2011/12/17/equallogic-and-xenserver-6-0-disapointing-yet-still-awesome

Comment to Dell:

Get your act together! This array is not cheap by any means. I expect that proper testing and documentation is done for all supported solutions! I don't blame the support personnels in this case. They had as much information as I did so how can they help me properly?

Texas school chooses Lefthand

2011-12-17T21:40:00.001-08:00

http://informationweek.com/news/storage/disaster_recovery/232300673

delete a LUN from a lefthand (just interesting)

2011-12-15T14:29:00.001-08:00

http://glazenbakje.wordpress.com/2011/12/15/vmware-delete-lun-from-esx-and-lefthand/

HP P4000 SAN Solutions - Issue While an Upgrade Is Interrupted

2011-12-14T08:09:00.000-08:00

Something to look out for with the P4000

Issue

Sometimes when an upgrade is interrupted or a node is restarted during the upgrade, the upgrade process may still run. When trying to run the upgrade again, the following message may appear:

Solution

Use the backend to check the process running on that node. Rebooting the node is not a solution. Some process can start running again after the restart. Kill any upgrade process found using the command kill .

This guy loves his P4500 and p4300 Lefthand SAN

2011-12-13T21:30:00.000-08:00

http://anticipationofaloversreturn.wordpress.com/tag/p4500-p4300-san-hp-lefthand-iscsi-hosted-call-recording-storage/

Horrible iSCSI performance with Lefthand

2011-12-13T21:29:00.000-08:00

He thinks this is probably just a misconfiguration....

http://communities.vmware.com/message/1877156#1877156

I'm only testing with 1 nic as it also should be able to give 900mbit performance on the vmware enviroment.

Though I tried making 2 vmkernel NICs with different IP's on the same vswitch and bound them to iSCSI... then enabled Round-robin.

Has made no difference.

I don't think that the issue is related to load balancing tasks, but rather a communication issue between the vmware and the lefthand. The storage works perfectly when testet on a Windows 2008 server using MS iSCSI Initiator.

So it should be software related like a driver problem, misconfiguration or missing iSCSI tweaks. I just don't have a clue where the problem is.

HP P4000 SAN SANiQ 9.0 Kernel Panic Issue

2011-11-30T08:52:00.000-08:00

http://jpaul.me/?p=2684

At some point after 208.5 days of continuous runtime, a counter in the SAN/iQ Linux kernel may incur a divide–by–zero error that leads to a kernel panic, which causes HP P4000 storage systems running SAN/iQ software version 9.0 or 9.0.01 to go offline immediately.

After ten minutes, the HP P4300 G2, HP P4500 G2, HP P4800 G2 and HP LeftHand DL320s storage systems will perform an Automatic Server Recovery (ASR) followed by resumed operations. Other storage systems running SAN/iQ version 9.0 or 9.0.01 will hang indefinitely until manually rebooted.

I would definitively be upgrading if it were me!

Post about the Equallogic MEM plugin for vsphere 5.0

2011-11-29T07:41:00.001-08:00

http://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/2011/11/dells-multipath-extension-module-for-equallogic-now-supports-vsphere-50.html

I spoke with Andrew McDaniel, one of DELL's Lead Architects for VMware based in Ireland, and he was able to supply me with some additional information about this MEM. Firstly, since the MEM is essentially a PSP, devices from the EqualLogic array continue to use the Native Multipath Plugin (NMP) from VMware. This handles basic tasks like loading and unloading of MEMs, path discovery and removal, device bandwidth sharing between VMs, etc.

whip up a Cloud in a 17-inch box with 8 pinches of HP P4000 Virtual SAN Appliance

2011-11-18T08:38:00.000-08:00

http://h30507.www3.hp.com/t5/Around-the-Storage-Block-Blog/New-Converged-Storage-recipe-Cloud-in-a-box/ba-p/102465

Favorite quote

With licenses installed on all servers, what should you do with the server’s available drives? Take that pool of virtual machine-ready resources, which is currently DAS, and whip it into shared storage, with 8 pinches of HP P4000 Virtual SAN Appliance. These licenses will be installed in a VM on each server and the entire pool of disks can be turned into a clustered, highly available SAN.

Quick little post on EqualLogic and upgrading for upgrading for vsphere5

2011-11-17T07:32:00.000-08:00

http://vinfrastructure.it/en/2011/11/upgrade-path-to-vsphere-5-the-storage-part/

Lefthand, HP StorageWorks P4000 Virtual SAN Appliance

2011-11-17T07:29:00.000-08:00

Interesting security bulletin on the P4000

http://seclists.org/bugtraq/2011/Nov/72

SUPPORT COMMUNICATION - SECURITY BULLETIN

Document ID: c03082086
Version: 1

HPSBST02722 SSRT100279 rev.1 - HP StorageWorks P4000 Virtual SAN Appliance, Execution of Arbitrary Code

NOTICE: The information in this Security Bulletin should be acted upon as soon as possible.

Interesting post about Equallogic

2011-11-08T12:53:00.000-08:00

Some of my favorite quotes are

http://community.spiceworks.com/topic/167573-equallogic-ps6100xv-s

I really came to find their products dead simple to use, with a uniform interface across models that made it simple to work with.

...

I love it. It is easy to setup and manage. I only had to make a couple of calls to support during the setup process and those calls went very smooth.

....

With some of the Cons being:

My experience with Equallogics is that generally the hardware is ok but the software and firmware of late have left a lot to be desired.

The current firmware seems to be stable but all the version 5 stuff up to now has had bugs that caused some big issues. I am not a fan of the HIT kit, it slow and flaky and may stop working if you upgrade it, which is blow if you rely on it to drive your replication. Also you have to ensure you are on the right hard drive firmware as some of them are buggy as well.

Replication works quite well, best if you send multiple streams up a your pipe, with Jumbo frames we get almost a full 1Gb to our replication site.

....

Quorum best pratices on 4 node cluster

2011-10-26T08:19:00.001-07:00

Question about setting up quorum for LH

http://h30499.www3.hp.com/t5/HP-LeftHand-P4000/Quorum-best-pratices-on-4-node-cluster/m-p/5372499

HP LH 4000 versus Equallogic forum response

2011-07-15T10:52:00.000-07:00

From

http://community.spiceworks.com/topic/72924-gah-lefthand-san-or-equallogic-any-thoughts?page=2#entry-830476

When my company looked into getting a SAN appliance we were basically on the fence between equalogic and lefthand. We eventually settled on LeftHand. I think our deciding factor was the cost to a virtual san appliance for another office of ours. I'm not sure if equalogic has that feature and the sales reps were much worse than the sales rep for lefthand.

After about a year of use though, and the fact that we use Dell products for pretty much everything else, every time i have to call LeftHand/HP support I deeply regret our decision. I don't think I've spent any less time than 3 hours on the phone with them with 2.5 of those hours being hold. Once I get a tech they are knowledgeable and helpful which is good though. I am much happier with Dell support in general though.

vmware's new VSA

2011-07-14T10:32:00.000-07:00

http://h30507.www3.hp.com/t5/Around-the-Storage-Block-Blog/VMware-s-new-VSA-and-the-HP-P4000-LeftHand-VSA/ba-p/95461

Looks like HP\lefthand's VSA is still best

Interesting post, mainly people raving about equallogic

2011-06-29T07:15:00.000-07:00

http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/archive/1723470

I have 4x PS5000's (older model with 6x 1Gb Ethernet)

There fantastic, very easy to manage and perform well. Provisioning, growing and migrating LUNs to other nodes can all be done on the fly, makes life easy.

---

we got an Equallogic 5000X love it. nearly purchased new 10GbE one but need to wait a little longer to some $$$

highly recommneded. Feature packed and fully intergatable with other Equallogic models.

---

Equallogic chosen by First DataBank in the UK

2011-06-28T08:25:00.000-07:00

http://www.softcat.com/news/article/softcatthe-perfect-partner-for-first-databank

“EqualLogic systems are simple to deploy, manage, and grow,” explained Ian Jones

LeftHand and storage manager, how to get it to work together

2011-06-28T08:18:00.000-07:00

http://thwack.com/forums/63/storage-management/185/storage-manager-storage-profiler/32736/hp-p4000-lefthand-devices-do-n/

Hi There, We recently purchased Storage Manger specifically to monitor our HP 4000 LeftHand devices, but have since found out that the devices do not populate the required tables to storage manager for us to view the storage overview within the main console on storage manager.

A case for VSA, lefthand or maybe someone elses?

2011-06-17T08:24:00.000-07:00

http://www.networkcomputing.com/deduplication/230800077

Of course, using vMotion requires shared storage, and there we hit a snag. My first choice, EqualLogic arrays, are just too expensive for this environment. Even a low-end disk array like an HP MSA or Dell MD3200 would cost more than $10,000 with six 300-GByte SAS drives, and that’s for a single controller model. Going to a dual controller system, which of course the enterprise storage guy inside me says is required, would add another $3,500 or so.

But if I installed a VSA with synchronous mirroring, like HP’s P4000 (Lefthand), StoreMagic, Falconstor NSS or Starwind HA, in each server, I could leverage the built-in RAID controllers, eliminate the storage controller as a single point of failure and theoretically improve reliability by storing two copies of all the data.

On the down side, I’ll give up some performance and host resources to the replication, but Dr. George’s I/O requirements are pretty light, and we have CPU to burn in the new config. Now I just have to choose a solution.

EqualLogic simplicity

2011-06-16T07:07:00.001-07:00

http://freeversing.com/?tag=dell-equallogic

Today is an excellent example of the Equallogic platform handling an event failure, dispatching notifications and self-healing.

LeftHand, how to write to a snapshot

2011-06-15T09:21:00.000-07:00

http://forums13.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?admit=109447627+1307632541976+28353475&threadId=1482976

I'm a relative newbie to working with the P4000s so I am cutting my teeth with the VSA appliance.

I am testing how snaphots work, and I have successfully taken and connected to the snapshot by adding in the new ISCSI name of the snapshotted volume in the windows iscsi initiator. I have assigned the server read/write access as well, and the disk is available in computer management etc. All good, however when i try to write a file to the snapshotted disk, I get an access denied error. I've done a google, and some folk say snapshots are read only, but I am confused by the fact that I can assign a server read/write to access to the snapshot, this implies that I should be able to write to it!

Have I done something wrong or is this the way it works. And if so, is there a sneaky way I can get write access to the snapshot?

LH a question on how to setup

2011-06-15T09:20:00.000-07:00

http://forums.citrix.com/thread.jspa?threadID=288695&tstart=120

So my question is ... how can I make my P4000 available on the normal network for monitoring and management purposes while storage traffic remains on the separate storage network ?

I've tried using the built-in 1GBit NIC's in the Storage nodes, connecting them to the normal network, but then I start loosing connectivity to the storage cluster as it doesn't seem to like working on two different sub-nets.

Has anyone got experience with this kind of scenario ?

Any help is really appreciated.

An White paper commisioned by HP for the P4000 (left hand) SAN

2011-06-03T08:37:00.000-07:00

http://www.scribd.com/doc/57020729/4AA2-7788ENW

Value of Adding Nodes Online via Storage Clustering
Eighty percent of the users interviewed were actively using this ability with extremely good—and impressive—results that garnered much positive commentary:
 “Prior to the P4000, this took 3-4 days of effort, now it’s just 2 minutes (this happens 4-5 times per year).”
 “We had 2 FTEs before—so this alone saves us one of those and contributes probably $100,000 in cost savings in terms of the uptime; not to mention the 60 or so hours of administration time saved. Our prior approach took at least a month to upgrade, plus overtime, plus downtime … and we were managing a far smaller capacity than now.”
 A slightly more conservative user employs the feature, but “only after-hours, to be ultra safe;” it used to take 4 hours before the P4000 and now takes “minutes.”
 Although only done twice in four years, the approach without the P4000 capability took three weekends of 1 FTE to migrate 5 TB (11 volumes) “and of course, that was just moving the data; the device would be down.” Now it “can be migrated in minutes with a simple point and click—it’s never offline and there’s no overtime.”
White Paper: Business and Operational Benefits Achieved with HP P4000 SANs 9
© 2010, Enterprise Strategy Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
 “Before it took at least a day and now it’s minutes.”
 One user spoke of the social convenience (staff “not having to pull all-nighters”) and “extreme confidence” with the online upgrades; saving the overtime was nice, but the improved reliability for customers was excellent. The user also pointed out that the online upgrade saved not just the time of the upgrade itself, but also the three or four days of planning it used to need beforehand.

Value of Thin Provisioning
The use of thin provisioning fell into two distinct camps:
1) Those few users that either barely or did not use thin provisioning at all.
a. One user said it was “not comfortable” and “feels that it’s even less management effort to not try to use it.”
2) The majority, however, do use thin provisioning extensively; on average for around 80% of their volumes. Some examples of individual experiences are:
a. Saving 25% capacity (lower than might be expected because they used to manually over-provision in any case).
b. Saves or reclaims about 40% of capacity; while readers will need to figure their own dollar value, for this user it equated to $50-60,000 per annum.
c. Two users estimated saving a week’s worth of FTE time per year.
d. Saving 50% capacity through reclamation and deferring purchases, said one user, while another estimated 30-40% savings.
e. “Really easy and really quick” was the succinct summary from one customer.

An interesting possible development for LH vars

2011-06-02T09:46:00.000-07:00

http://www.thevarguy.com/2011/06/02/scale-computing-looking-for-a-few-good-unhappy-hp-vars/

Scale Computing is questioning HP’s commitment to smaller VARs, since it believes the new changes could cause unnecessary problems or hurdles.

A fairly unhappy LH customer

2011-05-25T08:00:00.001-07:00

From

http://community.spiceworks.com/topic/140475-iscsi-virtual-appliances?page=1#entry-768652

HP P4000 is technically a software SAN (you can buy it as a license, and install it yourself). While they are the only VSA that supports VAAI, I would never deploy one again. Crazy things like it automatically creates a new target for every LUN, use of a single virtual IP for all targets, makes management a pain in the ass. GUI is slow as hell, and its an overpriced linux system that isn't that well built or supported (8 hours after I logged a critical ticket I got a voicemail at 10pm saying "hey we're kinda busy today, give us a call back tomr if your still down").

Interesting post on setting up HP p4000 VSA

2011-05-24T09:51:00.001-07:00

http://www.vladan.fr/vmware-srm-hp-p4000-vsa-intricacies/

It sounds like he got his cluster up in a snap!

An interesting LH back and forth

2011-03-04T14:58:00.000-08:00

http://forums.citrix.com/message.jspa?messageID=1533492

Try creating a junction instead of copying the files. This worked for me.

Delete the folder that you copied and then:
From Command Line:
C:\>mklink /j "C:\Program Files\Lefthand Networks\CLI" "C:\Program Files\HP\P4000\HP P4000 CLI"
Junction created for C:\Program Files\Lefthand Networks\CLI <<===>> C:\Program Files\HP\P4000\HP P4000 CLI

Ronnie Munn

Posts: 12

Re: HP LeftHand P4300
Posted: Feb 17, 2011 8:49 AM in response to: Chris Markovic

0 users found this post useful

I have also upgraded my SanIQ to 9.0

Once i did this, it broke my Storage Link Configuration.

The problem was the CLIQ. Just Uninstall the 9.0 version of the CLIQ and reinstall 8.x version.

The problem is because HP changed the folder path to the executable.

Storage Link is looking in the wrong place for the files it needs.

8.x works great with Storage Link

jason cobb

Posts: 61

Re: HP LeftHand P4300
Posted: Mar 4, 2011 12:01 PM in response to: Ronnie Munn

0 users found this post useful

The engineering team is currently working on CLiQ/SANiQ 9.0 support and have it mostly working. We are just waiting on XenServer product management to decide if we should release this support or not.

I apologize for the delay.

Thank you,
Jason Cobb

Quick LH question

2011-03-02T14:27:00.001-08:00

http://communities.vmware.com/message/1707808

Another EQL award

2011-02-14T09:43:00.001-08:00

http://searchstorage.techtarget.com/productsOfTheYearCategory/0,294802,sid5_tax317275_ayr2010,00.html

Lefthand SAN question

2011-02-09T14:30:00.000-08:00

http://forums11.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?admit=109447626+1297290362316+28353475&threadId=1467601

Copied From:

Hi experts and colleagues,
I have a few quick questions i hope you can help me. I am new to HP/Lefthand. I have a 4 nodes Lefthand p4300 configured in two different clusters ( 2 nodes per clusters) but in the same management group. I have a Virtul manager ip address configured for the first cluster and have all my esx VM hosts connect to the virtual manager ip address. I dont have a virtual manager ip address configured for my second cluster, I connect to the storage in the 2nd cluster via the same virtual manager ip address from the first cluster. should I configure a 2nd virtual manager? I was told the virtual manager should be shut down for failover purpose, is that true?

The SAN storage is in production now but I want to add FOM for seamless failover. Can I add FOM without interruption to normal operation?

I am not able to find any documentation on configuring FOM and I only see an option to install FOM with a VM image. Can FOM be installed in a physical server?

Thanks in advance. Sorry for so many questions.

Thanks.

*****

The answers

http://bizsupport1.austin.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c01744737/c01744737.pdf

http://bizsupport1.austin.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c01800000/c01800000.pdf

EqualLogic wins an InfoWorlds 2011 tech award

2011-01-12T11:42:00.001-08:00

http://www.infoworld.com/d/infoworld/infoworlds-2011-technology-the-year-award-winners-285&current=5&last=21#slideshowTop

Interesting LH & citrix configuration

2011-01-10T15:12:00.001-08:00

http://forums.citrix.com/thread.jspa?threadID=280062&tstart=0

An interesting thread between some storage vendors LH & EQL included

2011-01-04T14:30:00.001-08:00

http://arstechnica.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=1132286

Lefthand support forum versus EqualLogic support forum

2011-01-04T14:26:00.000-08:00

http://h30499.www3.hp.com/t5/Storage-Area-Networks-SAN/bd-p/bsc-257

http://www.delltechcenter.com/page/Dell+Storage+Forum+-+EqualLogic+User+Group

Rocking good reviews for EqualLogic

2010-10-20T15:26:00.000-07:00

http://www.infoworld.com/d/storage/infoworld-review-dell-iscsi-san-sizzles-ssd-dynamic-storage-tiering-625?page=0,0

And

http://www.infoworld.com/t/server-virtualization/lab-test-new-equallogic-firmware-takes-load-vmware-856?page=0,0

A question about how to configure LeftHand SAN

2010-10-20T15:22:00.000-07:00

http://www.experts-exchange.com/Software/VMWare/Q_26556427.html

I inherited a Lefthand SAN installation and have been working to figure out how it works and configure it correctly. I hope that someone here can assist me with the configuration for our VMWare configuration. We are running VMWare 3.5 and we need to sort out this storage solution before we upgrade to the latest version.

We need a single volume or two that can be seen by the two existing hosts we have in a VMWare cluster. We need to add another machine to the cluster eventually, but right now we have the problem where there is not enough disk space to do anything until we expand one existing volume that is connected to the two hosts. Also, there is a second volume that should span two hosts but doesn’t. I can’t quite understand why because it looks like it should be configured correctly.

I have attached screen shots from the Lefthand and VMWare configurations with the hope that someone can quickly tell why this isn’t set up right and tell me the errors that prevent the two hosts don’t both see the two volumes.

Additionally, I need to know if I can simply expand one or both of the volumes (I do have space on the SAN) and also how to connect a future VMWare host to the two existing volumes.
I would be grateful if you could point me towards the best sections of documentation to read, or any other good sources of instruction.

Thanks in advance for your help.

http://filedb.experts-exchange.com/incoming/2010/10_w43/360791/LefthandSAN-Configuration.pdf

Interesting post question about configuring LH

2010-09-29T13:28:00.001-07:00

http://www.experts-exchange.com/Software/System_Utilities/Remote_Access/VPN/Q_26501967.html

two interesting LH posts

2010-08-26T12:44:00.000-07:00

Some difficulties with a LH cluster and fix

https://forums11.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?admit=109447626+1282083918853+28353475&threadId=1443755

And a not-so-obviously documented fluke in the combination of a HP LeftHand (P4000) Multi-Site Cluster and VMware vSphere hosts on multiple sites.

http://www.virtuallifestyle.nl/2010/08/hp-lefthand-multi-site-san-vmware-vsphere/

An interesting post about setting up monitoring for a LH unit

2010-08-16T07:13:00.001-07:00

Setting it up with cacti

http://forums.cacti.net/post-197560.html

This is an interesting post from a LH user

2010-06-10T10:00:00.001-07:00

http://itsdrivingmenuts.blogspot.com/2010/04/lefthand-san-hp.html

Don't know what his final decision was, but it shows his decision making process.

And EqualLogic comes back by growing EqualLogic engineering team by 50 per cent

2010-04-29T10:11:00.000-07:00

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/04/22/dell_eqlc_eng_head/

how is equallogic fairing under dell

2010-04-22T08:10:00.001-07:00

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/04/21/dell_paula_long/

With paula long leaving some are worried about how EqualLogic will be handled.

Dell EqualLogic SAN experience and review

2010-04-14T09:24:00.000-07:00

http://www.spoonapedia.com/2010/04/dell-equallogic-san-experience-review.html

Pro's

* Easy to use

* Great performance

* Lots of useful features

* No hidden feature costs

* Excellent support

* Snapshot integration with VMware/Exchange/SQL is a nice touch

* Regular firmware updates

Con's

* No WAN optimisation for replication

* Replication can be a little fiddly to maintain

Left Hand, New network RAID features

2010-04-14T09:22:00.000-07:00

http://vstorage.wordpress.com/2010/04/05/the-new-networkraidfeatures-of-saniq-8-5/
Interesting new features, although seems complex

Prior to 8.5 you had the choice of Network RAID-10 with 2-way replica, 3-way replica or 4-way replica. i.e 2, 3 or 4 copies of your volumes distributed across the nodes for redundancy – the downside of this; decreased usable capacity.

8.5 introduces Network RAID-5 and RAID-6.

Network RAID-5 needs three data and one parity as a minimum configuration i.e 3+1 , meaning four nodes as a starting point.

Network RAID-6 needs four data and two parity as a minimum configuration i.e 4+2 , meaning six nodes are required initially.

Unlike Network RAID-10 which creates mirror replica(s) of a volume, the documentation states the new RAID levels stripe parity across all nodes in the cluster.

Network RAID–5 and and Network RAID–6 volumes require snapshots in order to achieve space utilization benefits.

This means that deleting the last snapshot of a Network RAID–5 volume causes its space requirement to be the same as a Network RAID–10 (2-Way Mirror) volume.

Similarly deleting the last snapshot of a Network RAID–6 volume causes its space requirement to be the same as a Network RAID–10+1 (3-Way Mirror) volume.

It is possible, therefore, for the storage cluster not to have enough space to accommodate the snapshot deletion.

Deleting the last snapshot of a Network RAID-5 or Network RAID-6 volume is not recommended.

Yet another happy EqualLogic thread

2010-03-08T13:08:00.000-08:00

http://episteme.arstechnica.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/833003030931/m/679006453041

Highlights

I've been playing the last couple of days.

The HIT kit and "Auto Snapshot Manager" tools seem to make it ridiculously easy to get hosts connected to the EQL and to take both LUN level and application (SQL/Exchange) aware snapshots of databases.

For example I'm not a SQL admin/expert but I put SQL on a test VM, created a DB and Log LUN on the EQL, created a test DB, took a DB aware snapshot of it, deleted the original, and from within the ASM tools restored it and watched it appear in real-time.

Maybe I'm easily impressed but I really do find this thing impressive given the cost/all-in licensing nature.

***

I've had EQ units for 5 years and was always happy with the improved functionality that came out with subsequent firmware updates. Even when Dell bought them the SANHQ program moved light years ahead of the beta I had tested for almost a year.

***

The EqualLogic gear is super-easy to setup. I have a pair of them racked--just waiting for the switches to come i and I am golden.

Important concept to understand with LH

2010-03-07T16:40:00.000-08:00

http://forums11.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?admit=109447626+1268007997457+28353475&threadId=1411427

Hello, we just purchased a lefthand P4500 10.8 TB SAN.We created a network raid 1 volume (spanned across the two lefthand nodes)We configured MPIO as documented and it discovered well 4 paths.However, we started to do failover tests by scheduling a power off of one of the nodes (the node on which the virtual manager was running)Of course quorum is lost and access to the volume is lost, but we cannot manage to restore quorum by restarting the virtual manager on the other node. The CMC console asks us to delete first the VM, and to stop it beforehand, but it is marked as offline already.Could you please give me some advice about regaining quorum or some documentations ?Thanks.

Fran Garcia
Mar 2, 2010 09:10:24 GMT Unassigned
Hola Rodrigo :-)You need to configure a FailOver Manager to achieve a resilent cluster. In order to have cluster quorum you need to have at least (n/2)+1 active nodes, and of course that cannot be done with a 2-node cluster.There is a FOM VMWare appliance included in the Lefthand installation CD.
Mark...
Mar 2, 2010 09:53:31 GMT Unassigned
Hi,HP/LHN recommend a failover manager (FOM) at a third site as mentioned above. With the FOM then your cluster should stay up with no disruptionYou can use the Virtual Manager (VM)but the thing with the VM is NOT to start it on a node -just create it. Then, in your config of two nodes, should one of the nodes fail then you start the VM on the remaining node. This keeps disruption to a minimum. If, as in you case, you have the VM started and it is on the node that crashes you will not be able to start a new VM - as you have found out! Only one VM or FOM allowed per management group.

Complexity of LH

2010-03-04T14:38:00.001-08:00

This post (although take with a grain of salt) points to possible more complexity and lock ups for LH.

Sorry, you will have to http://www.avivadirectory.com/bethebot/ in order to view it

http://www.experts-exchange.com/Hardware/Servers/Q_25200410.html

A couple of out takes

Theire units work well for the most part, but we've had far more issues over the past years with the units locking up than you'd expect, almost always due to an incompatabilities to their OS and the underlyring RAID controller - I belive at this point we've had to upgrade the controller on 3 different occasions in 2 years. The feature set from Lefthand is quite nice for the price, but its missing a couple things, like being able to manually move the cluster VIP between boxes (its an automatic thing, so iy only does it when you down a box).

Performance on the units is fairly good, but make sure you calculate what IOPS you'll get from the units versus what you'll need to run your servers and VMs off of it. Both vendros can give estimates on what the units will give you, and what sort of number they'd expect in your environment.

OR

Not a ton (we're still using them), but more than I feel we should have. The units don't failover as gracefully as they should when one has a problem, and so we've had to do do a fair number of manual work when there's an issue to get things back running.

Example: at our HQ, we're using 2 mirrored units to host a number of mid to high importance servers - a couple VMs, data store to a couple important but low use linux servers, and a fileserver that hosts the folder redirection to laptops. When one unit hands/locks up, its supposed to gracefully fail over to the other unit, with no loss or connection drops. What actually happens is the fileserver dismounts the drive, and both the VMs and the data store file systems go to a read only state. It's all fixable, but causes significant scrambling to fix the problem.

squigit, there are two ways to set up network RAID on LeftHand., in one mode it stops if a node goes down for a high level of data protection, in the other mode it keeps going. You can also migrate a LUN to another set of nodes by jiggling about with cluster membership. Maybe you just to install the failover manager on a 3rd box to maintain quorum. Sounds like you need to go on the install/config course.

Lefthand Setup Description

2009-10-12T07:30:00.000-07:00

This is a good post that lays out the steps and thought processes required to install a lefthand SAN.

http://frankdenneman.wordpress.com/2009/10/11/lefthand-san-lessons-learned/

Good back and forth between LH and EQ

2009-09-28T10:34:00.000-07:00

http://communities.vmware.com/message/1091622#1091622

This one makes me a little leary of LeftHand

2009-09-28T10:27:00.000-07:00

http://lewanps.wordpress.com/2009/09/23/hp-lefthand-networks-new-patch-to-address-raid-controller-issues/

http://lewanps.wordpress.com/2009/09/14/easy-ftp-links-to-hp-lefthand-networks-software-and-code/

Small blip about equallogic

2009-09-14T07:25:00.000-07:00

This post mentions EqualLogic as a storage company that is fairing well

http://www.enterprisestorageforum.com/technology/features/article.php/3838781

I really liked this post, using 7 generations of EqualLogic all together!

2009-09-14T07:24:00.001-07:00

http://www.delltechcenter.com/page/EqualLogic+Investment+Protection:+7+Generation+Group

Another post on the ease of use of EqualLogic

2009-09-14T07:10:00.000-07:00

http://1zero1.net/node/18

Thought this was a funny post about equallogic

2009-09-11T10:07:00.001-07:00

http://jpowell.posterous.com/equallogic-destroy-wording-when-deleting-volu

Good post on the ease of use of Lefthand

2009-09-08T11:14:00.001-07:00

http://didyourestart.blogspot.com/2009/09/restore-xenserver-with-hp-lefthand.html

Interesting Post

2009-08-31T07:14:00.000-07:00

I liked this post, it refers to Equallogic and Lefthand as two rival players being drafted to two rival NFL teams. These two teams really seem to go neck and neck a lot!

http://thesantechnologist.com/?p=198

Recent LeftHand SAN post

2009-08-19T08:11:00.000-07:00

I find it very interesting that both these posts mentioned the console crashing

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Data-Storage/HP-LeftHand-P4300-48TB-SAS-Starter-SAN-Solution-Builds-a-Strong-iSCSI-SAN-Foundation-804648/1/

The centralized management console announced that it was executing my tasks, the access lights started flashing on the drives, and then the console (and Java) crashed. After I rebooted the server, I was pleasantly surprised that there was no lasting damage from the crash. I launched the centralized management console and created a new iSCSI server. I was immediately able to access it from the Microsoft iSCSI Initiator on my Windows server.

(I can't believe he was happy with this!!!! )

This post had a similar expereince

http://windowsitpro.com/Windows/article/articleid/102478/hp-lefthand-p4300-48tb-sas-starter-san-solution.html

The only problem I ran into was that occasionally the console wouldn't start and I needed to terminate the javaw.exe process in Task Manager before restarting the console.

Anyways, in the Eweek article he liked the Idea of the architecture of the LeftHand SAN. He also received a dud of a unit, this is what he wrote.

The second server started, but failed to recognize the array controller and therefore didn’t boot completely.

Of course, the first thing I did then was take the server apart, at which point I noticed that the board containing the SAN/iQ software had fallen off of the P400 RAID controller—obviously a casualty of rough handling during shipping. Popping it back on did not solve the problem, but after an e-mail and a quick call, a new controller and a third server were on their way. After I installed the new controller, the server booted up smoothly.

Later on he ended up having a little bit of a support problem, he wrote

The only unpleasantness that I have to report is that it took tech support more than 48 hours to respond to an e-mail requesting access to the support Website. I think it is fair to say that any company that shells out $30K for storage will want access to the documentation within 48 minutes rather than 48 hours.

He was also unable to set up the SMTP for sending alerts to his email address.

He was impressed by the performance and by the management of the device.

Pro EqualLogic Blog posts

2009-08-13T10:38:00.000-07:00

Maybe my favorite quote is this from the Blog

We are currently supporting a ton of users, a large campus, Windows servers, Mac OS, Web Development, VMware ESX, etc. The last thing I need to worry about is allocating hours of time to support our storage solution. That’s where EqualLogic has been a huge win for us.

From here http://watermarkgeeks.com/2009/08/12/why-i-love-our-equallogic-san/

This post at the bottom of this forum is also good

I have customers with Equallogic ps5000e using Dell R805 Servers and Xenserver 5.0. One customer is using ps for serving up progress db application for multiple locations using Windows 2008 TS. Another is serving up multiple locations using Web App and SQL 2005 db. Both the places have Raid 10 for equallogic array. Performance is great with no usr complaints about response times. Hosting approximately 10+ servers on a single xen host connected to shared equallogic SR. Host has dual quad core processors, 32 gb of ram and multiple gigabit nics. All the guests are on the equallogic array. Equallogic is a good choice. you will not regret it,

-Pavan

From here http://forums.citrix.com/thread.jspa?messageID=1398650&tstart=0

Once again I see the simplicity of EqualLogic shine through.

Equallogic growth looks good

2009-08-06T07:44:00.000-07:00

According to this register article Equallogic growth looks pretty good!

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/07/30/compellent_q209_results/

Equallogic UI Take 2

2009-08-05T14:07:00.000-07:00

As mentioned in one of the comments below, you can see how to do most any task on an equallogic box here

http://psonlinehelp.equallogic.com/v4.0/groupmanager.htm

Really nice!

LeftHand UI, take 2

2009-08-03T09:15:00.000-07:00

As featured on WindowsITPro

http://windowsitpro.com/Windows/article/articleid/102478/hp-lefthand-p4300-48tb-sas-starter-san-solution.html

His take on the UI

The SAN/iQ software really sets this product in a class by itself and is the easiest SAN management software I've ever used. You don't need to be a storage expert or have to look up confusing storage terms like LUN Masking to configure the SAN. Instead, you use a series of easy-to-use wizards to perform the initial setup and configuration. You can rerun the wizards at any time.

That is the sort of UI I am looking for! Someone should get him an EqualLogic box and see which he likes better :)

He actually attached a rare screen shot of the SAN/iQ software :)

His only complaint

The only problem I ran into was that occasionally the console wouldn't start and I needed to terminate the javaw.exe process in Task Manager before restarting the console.

Just ran across this InfoTec document LeftHand Vs. EqualLogic

2009-07-30T14:22:00.000-07:00

This is one of their sample reports but has some interesting points.

http://www.infotech.com/samples/LeftHand_vs_EqualLogic.pdf

Or here

Here are a couple of call outs.

Info-Tech has found that for those enterprises looking to acquire a clustered iSCSI solution, EqualLogic and LeftHand Networks are often in a dead heat. Both have similar price ranges and features. Both have benefitted from x86 server virtualization and continue to partner with VMware and others to enhance virtual infrastructures.
What usually tips the decision toward one or the other is a preference for how each implements storage clustering. EqualLogic’s storage units are more comprehensive while LeftHand Networks’ approach is more hardware agnostic and granular.

Then here is the crux

EqualLogic’s PS arrays have larger capacities as well as full hardware redundancy in each box. An enterprise can start with a single PS array and have a complete storage solution including capacity, management features, and hardware redundancy. EqualLogic often wins in a showdown with LeftHand because the buyers feel more comfortable with a full featured hardware solution ready to go out of the box.

LeftHand’s SAN/iQ makes an individual server into a building block for a storage solution. A single “brick” can serve as a storage target, but to achieve hardware redundancy at least two bricks are required. This increases the upfront cost of the entry level. On the plus side, SAN/iQ can run on a variety of industry standard servers as well as a virtual machine – entry level SAN functionality can be provided to a virtual infrastructure without buying additional hardware.

EqualLogic

With a year head start, Dell is further along in integrating EqualLogic into its products. Dell is making iSCSI a centerpiece of its storage offerings for mid-sized enterprises and EqualLogic PS-series products are the flagship. For example, when Dell rolled out new products for supporting virtual infrastructures in September 2008, the processing component was Dell server blades while the storage component was EqualLogic PS-series arrays. Dell also continues to sell more traditional storage arrays co-branded with EMC.

LeftHand

HP will be integrating LeftHand into its StorageWorks products. How LeftHand will fit into the overall strategy for HP is still a question mark. How will HP balance this new option – a server based clustered storage approach – against its existing traditional storage array business?

And the conclusion

Both vendors share in common a scalable clustered architecture, ease of installation and management, and a robust feature set. However, EqualLogic’s appeal is in providing a comprehensive solution in a hardware appliance. LeftHand’s strength is in providing a more agnostic basic building block for creating robust storage clusters. The software can even run on a VM to turn direct attached storage into a virtual SAN.

What does Information World think of EqualLogic and LeftHand

2009-07-30T11:47:00.000-07:00

http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2008/12/450_lbs_of_love.html;jsessionid=05AYVKJQXXCC0QSNDLRSKH0CJUNN2JVN?queryText=lefthand

They wrote:

Long-time readers know that a Dell (Dell) iSCSI array currently lies at the heart of our virt lab. Our December wishes came true when Dell offered us not one, but two updated arrays just in time for the holidays.

And then he wrote

We were able to add the two new devices to our existing EqualLogic SAN in a few minutes via the array management web interface. Dell's tools detected the new arrays, I entered IP and iSCSI info, and we ware ready to allocate the new raw storage in no time at all.
The hardest part of adding 52.8 terabytes of storage to the lab? Unpacking the crates.

The most laborious? Inserting the 48 SATA drives and re-installing the 16 SAS drives.

I remember when setting up robust, complex storage solution used to be a multi-day exercise in masocism. Now it's an afternoon of straightforward, honest work.

Once again another plug for the simplicity and elegance of EqualLogic!

In another post he talks about the coolness of using LeftHands VSA
http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2008/02/no_free_lunch.html;jsessionid=05AYVKJQXXCC0QSNDLRSKH0CJUNN2JVN?queryText=lefthand

The pitch: no physical SAN required 'cause the VSA reclaims 'unused' storage in ESX boxes as a SAN. I still think this is a novel approach for smaller shops to benefit from ESX; external storage arrays (Fibre Channel or iSCSI) can be scary to the uninitiated. Build up a couple ESX hosts, load them up with internal storage and let the SAN/IQ software magically create a virtual storage area network. I can't imagine you'd want to run the dataset for a large transactional system on the same box as your hosted VMs, but it would probably address an SMB's needs (the target market) with no fuss.

LeftHand Awards

2009-07-30T10:41:00.000-07:00

I did find a page with some LeftHand awards, unfortunately because of the HP purchase none of the links still work :(

http://vmblog.com/archive/2008/08/12/lefthand-networks-surpasses-3-000-customers-strong-demand-drives-110-percent-year-over-year-revenue-growth.aspx

EqualLogic a good buy for Dell

2009-07-30T10:35:00.000-07:00

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/05/29/dell_equallogic_excels/

EqualLogic sales are up 71% versus overall storage revenues down 17 % year on year (for dell)

Dell said that the EqualLogic storage business is now four times larger than when it was acquired in November 2007 for $1.4bn. At that time, EqualLogic was looking like a $100m/year revenue company, implying a $400m/year revenue run rate now.

I haven't seen a similar post from HP but I have been searching for how the purchase of LH has gone for them.

This post kind of echoes my findings

With all the talk about FCoE and NFS it seems that iSCSI has become the odd man out. All reports indicate that Dell continues to do well with the EqualLogic acquisition but what Hewlett-Packard is doing with its LeftHand Networks purchase remains unclear. Don’t count iSCSI out yet, though -- companies are planning iSCSI storage solutions aimed right at the SME market.

Spiceworks EqualLogic versus LeftHand thread

2009-07-29T14:59:00.001-07:00

This is a thread where I asked for whether people would choose EqualLogic or LeftHand

http://community.spiceworks.com/topic/72924

It's pretty interesting!

ESRP Equallogic Versus Lefthand

2009-07-29T14:15:00.000-07:00

Not a completely Apples to Apples comparison and I haven't had time to dive in but here is a LeftHand ESRP document

http://sites.google.com/site/mellerbeck/Home/ESRPLeftHand_saniq_50000_user_exchange2007_091707.pdf?attredirects=0

And an equallogic ESRP doc

http://sites.google.com/site/mellerbeck/Home/ESRP-EqualLogic-PS5000XV-90000-Users..pdf?attredirects=0

Of course as this post mentions, ESRP reports are not really meant to compare systems.

http://blogs.netapp.com/shadeofblue/2008/10/lumpy-dell-and.html

What I like about LeftHand SAN's

2009-07-29T07:34:00.000-07:00

I am really enamored by LeftHands Virtual Appliance

http://h20392.www2.hp.com/portal/swdepot/displayProductInfo.do?productNumber=LHNSW8.1

This is what Hp defines it as

Provides shared storage for VMware ESX environments leveraging current disk storage on the server
Enables VMware advanced features: HA, VMotion, DRS, SRM
Scalable without disruption
VMware certified compatible SAN/storage device

It seems to be an interesting way to convert the local disk on an ESX server into usable SAN space. It also seems like a great option for DR. You could get a virtual server spun up and then replicate your data to that remote site!

I started thinking about this and I am convinced that LeftHand should start giving away this virtual appliance for free! Now I know that I sound like a heretic, but I think this would a great way for LeftHand to get out in the market, and let people become familiar and used to their products. This would be a similar move that VMware took when they started giving away their vm products.

I have noticed this post though, that talks about

One issue with using a VSA as iSCSI storage on the same ESX server hosting the VSA is that rebooting the ESX server can take a long time, and may not complete, since the VSA has to shutdown first taking some storage offline before ESX is done shutting down.
Also on bootup the VSA is not online when ESX is first looking for iSCSI.
All this is avoided usually since VSA are meant to me clustered together to provide redundancy. But if using just one VSA, or a power event takes the whole cluster offline you would run into this issue.

If you go here you can download the scripts that address this
http://forums11.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=1333605

Support and simpleness, Equallogic is KISS

2009-07-28T08:53:00.000-07:00

I hear it time and time again, using Equallogic is about as easy as it gets!

From the survey below, from the article is 'When asked to respond to the statement 'This product is easy to use', a remarkable 19 out of 22 rated it a perfect 8.0, yielding an average score of 7.64.

From the blog post All things being Equal(logic) below.

'I don't think I've ever installed a storage system that is easier than the Equallogic boxes to get up and running'

And then three years later

To say that administering an Equallogic array is easy is almost an understatement, this thing takes virtually no time to administer.

From the InfoWorld article

As I mentioned, configuring the PS3800XV is a blindingly simple task.

Gartner 2008,

Its PS Series is among the easiest to install in the industry, and most of its customers install the storage systems themselves.

Its EqualLogic series is among the easiest to install in the industry and offers automatic load balancing among multiple nodes.

And now onto the topic of support.

This post rates their support as excellent.

http://layer3.wordpress.com/2009/03/04/esx-boot-hangs-at-restoring-sw-iscsi-volumes/

This post states that he didn't choose EqualLogic but he would choose it again because of support!

http://mikerichardson.com.au/2009/07/08/disaster-recovery-without-going-broke/

Here are two nice reviews as well

http://community.spiceworks.com/product/8000

Overall it looks like EqualLogic passes the KISS test.

The Awards, Equallogic Vs LeftHand

2009-07-28T07:38:00.000-07:00

For what they are worth, awards are sometimes useful for judging products. This site lists quite a few of the awards that Equallogic has won.

http://www.scaledatacom.com/equallogic/

2008 Best iSCSI SAN - InfoWorld
2007 SAN Product of the Year - TechWorld.com
2007 Best iSCSI SAN - eWeek
2007 Virtualization Product of the Year - Storage Awards
2006 Best Midrange SAN Array - Storage Magazine
2006 Best Private Company - Byte & Switch
2006 Best MidMarket Storage Product - VARbusiness
2006 SAN Product of the Year - Storage Awards
2006 Technology of the Year - InfoWorld
2006 Best iSCSI Array - Network Computing
2005 Editors Choice - iSCSI SAN Product - Storage Pipeline Awards
2005 iSCSI Array of the Year - Network Computing Magazine

Also of equal interest are these graphs from the Diogenes Labs-Storage magazine Quality Awards.

2006

2007

2008

And here is a link to the 2008 magazine article.

http://www.equallogic.com/uploadedFiles/Resources/Community_Center/Awards_and_Recognitions/2009_Storage%20Magazine%20-%20Dell%20Wins%20Quality%20Awards.pdf

An interesting pull out from the article is 'When asked to respond to the statement 'This product is easy to use', a remarkable 19 out of 22 rated it a perfect 8.0, yielding an average score of 7.64.

Unfortunately, LeftHand was not included in this survey. Hopefully next year they will be included (because of not enough respondents)

My searching did not bring up nearly as many LeftHand SAN awards (It seems Dell\Equallogic is better at playing that game)

Influential posts Equallogic Versus Lefthand

2009-07-27T12:06:00.000-07:00

This post http://www.tuxyturvy.com/blog/index.php?/archives/49-All-things-being-Equallogic.html

and this followup post

http://www.tuxyturvy.com/blog/index.php?/archives/61-Three-Years-of-Equallogic.html

Even though they point out some possible flaws for equallogic are actually quite comforting in that they bring things down to earth.

What I take from the posts are

Install is dead simple (I get this from everyone and everywhere)
Performance is good

In his first post he mentions how it is easy to delete a volume, and in the second he mentions that equallogic took some of there UI suggestions! (I love to hear a company that is listening!!)

Takes virtually no time to administer.
Added improved replication, RAID 6, and thin provisioning.
Reliability - ZERO service issues from 4 storage arrays. Compared to EMC which had multiple

What he doesn't like is how space hungry the snapshots are. Equallogic apparently allocates snapshots in 16MB pages.

This is a place that I think LeftHand is ahead, you don't have to preallocate space for the snapshots instead they are thin provisioned.

At the end of the post he says that come next year he is not sure if he will stick with Equallogic, so he is definitely looking for something else.

It is nice to see a post from an Equallogic person at least trying to address his concerns.

Of interest, Riverbed and Equallogic and LeftHand

2009-07-27T11:58:00.000-07:00

It seems that Riverbed probably works equally well with either solution.

LeftHand

http://www.riverbed.com/docs/PerformanceBrief-Riverbed-LeftHand-WDS-Remote-DR-Solution.pdf

Equallogic

http://www.riverbed.com/docs/PerformanceBrief-Riverbed-EqualLogic.pdf

What does InfoWorld think

2009-07-27T11:15:00.000-07:00

I just thought these posts were interesting. Written by two different authors, the first on EqualLogic (In 2007) scored

Article here http://www.infoworld.com/t/storage/equallogics-iscsi-san-hits-storage-management-high-notes-567?page=0,1
The author highlights the speed of the box some of the speed coming from the high performance SAS drives and the rest coming from the 'enormous 2GB battery-backed cache'

Also highlights the extreme ease of use.

The other article (written in 2007) scored

Article is here http://www.infoworld.com/t/hardware/lefthand-boosts-its-saniq-563

Author points out that lefthand is a clustered storage that can run proprietary hardware as well as HP servers (I'm pretty sure other servers as well)

Flexibility jumped as a clear differentiator.

LeftHands thin provisioning of snapshots (only copying the delta)

Checking out what Gartner thinks Equallogic vs Lefthand

2009-07-27T07:37:00.000-07:00

So the first mention I can find of equallogic from Gartner is in this 2006 report.
http://www.dell.com/downloads/global/corporate/iar/20061213_Magic_Quadrant_Midrange_Enterprise_Disk_Arrays.pdf

The graph places them here.

The Text reads: The PS series is a modular block storage system with iSCSI connectivity and a peer-to-peer topology that enables capacity, performance and connectivity to scale linearly. Controller-based snapshot, remote copy and automatic load-balancing features are included at no additional charge. The EqualLogic PS400E, with dual controllers and 10.5 B of SATA disk in a 3U high package, makes it an attractive in situations where space and power consumption are important considerations. EqualLogic's early support of 15K rpm SAS disks in its PS3800XV increases performance relative to SATA disks and, compared with FC disks, reduces costs while simplifying the back-end design. Messaging emphasizes performance, ease of installation, ease of management, a rich feature set, easy scalability and low cost. Not charging for value-added features and a three-year return policy on failed disks lowers storage TCOs.

The first mention of LeftHand is in the 2H07 report here.
http://mediaproducts.gartner.com/reprints/hds/article8/article8.html

Equallogic has increased in the visionaries quadrant, and increased in its ability to execute. This is the year the Equallogic was purchased by Dell, so it kind of makes things fuzzy.

Here are the listed strengths and cautions.

EqualLogic was the pure-play iSCSI market leader in 2006 in terms of vendor revenue. It continued to grow fast in 2007, has an installed base of more than 3,500 users and has about 500 active value-added resellers (VARs).
Its PS Series is among the easiest to install in the industry, and most of its customers install the storage systems themselves. It offers a scale-out, pay-as-you-grow architecture and automatic load balancing among multiple nodes, and its standard pricing includes many features, such as thin provisioning, snapshots, remote replication and automated Multipath I/O management.
The pending acquisition by Dell will remove company viability issue in customers' minds.

Cautions

Although EqualLogic has made progress in penetrating large accounts, its success story has been mainly confined to small and midsize environments.
Productwise, the PS Series doesn't natively support the FC protocol or file access protocols and cannot be leveraged by customers who prefer unified storage.
Although EqualLogic sells in 30 countries, international revenue contribution remained small at 18% at the end of September 2007.
Its relatively heavy reliance on its top-10 channel partners (about 40% of its revenue) may be problematic in the future after Dell completes the acquisition, because Dell's historical direct sales model has strained its relationship with the distribution channel.

Lefthand is placed as more visionary but not executing as much.

LeftHand Networks

Strengths

LeftHand Networks is an emerging disk storage company that sells its branded Network Storage Module (NSM) iSCSI disk storage system and packages its SAN/iQ software with IBM, HP and Dell industry standard servers to build physical iSCSI storage SANs.
As an alternative to building physical iSCSI SANs, LeftHand Networks will license its software to run in an ESX virtual machine, enabling customers to build virtual SANs.
SAN/iQ functionality is the same whether running on a physical server or in a virtual machine. It includes centralized management, snapshots, asynchronous remote copy, thin provisioning and online volume migration. SAN/iQ clusters can include physical and virtual NSMs in a single logical shared storage pool, implement software RAID and support geoclusters.
LeftHand Networks claims linear performance scalability of SAN/iQ clusters, because they grow from three to 30 nodes and notes that customers have built SAN/iQ clusters of more than 100 nodes.
Running on Dell, HP or IBM server hardware enables LeftHand Networks customers to take advantage of these companies' hardware support and LeftHand Networks for software support.

Cautions

The growth of LeftHand Networks' revenue and the iSCSI market have put the vendor on the radar screens of its larger and more established competitors.
Dell, with its recent acquisition of EqualLogic, is the most obvious strategic threat to LeftHand because it owns competitive technology, has low-cost sales and support models, and has EqualLogic's channel partners if it can keep them and a direct sales model if it cannot keep them.
LeftHand Networks needs to keep its SAN/iQ competitive and its hardware and software products complementary.
LeftHand Networks needs to maintain its revenue growth to remain relevant.
Keeping its channel productive and its installed base loyal as it grows will present major challenges for LeftHand Networks.

And finally the 2H08 report here
http://mediaproducts.gartner.com/reprints/hds/article11/article11.html

In this chart it does not yet show the acquisition of LeftHand by HP. Dell has greatly improved its visionaryness by the acquisition of Equallogic and still has very high execution.

Here are the comments on DELL (EqualLogic):

Strengths

Dell was the third-largest worldwide midrange block disk array vendor in revenue market share for the period of 3Q07 through 2Q08. The newly acquired EqualLogic has provided Dell with innovative storage technology, as well as the leading position in the iSCSI SAN market with a 34% revenue market share in 1H08. The EqualLogic business grew more than 70% in 1H08, representing almost 16% of Dell's total midrange disk storage revenue.
Dell is reaching out to the distribution channels to broaden its market beyond its server installed base by offering more-aggressive pricing. It has added storage specialists and increased its investment in professional storage services.
Its EqualLogic series is among the easiest to install in the industry and offers automatic load balancing among multiple nodes. Dell continues the all-inclusive pricing model to drive the affordability of storage for small and midsize businesses (SMBs). New enhancements in 2008 include application-aware data protection support for Microsoft Exchange, SQL, SharePoint and Virtual Servers, as well as VMware Site Recovery Manager.

Cautions

Dell/EMC-branded storage declined almost 7% in 1H08, partly because of customers waiting for the summer launch of CX4 series. It is likely, but not conclusive at this point, that it was also impacted by EqualLogic storage.
Dell will face increased iSCSI competition, especially from HP, which announced its pending acquisition of LeftHand Networks. Dell offers five iSCSI platforms with some overlapping markets. This could be confusing for potential customers.
Although Dell was able to keep 50% of the EqualLogic business through the channels, it has lost some previous EqualLogic channel partners and will have to continue its efforts to gain channel's trust and avoid conflicts.

And then for LeftHand (It appears to have remained stable in the visionary and execution)

Strengths

HP on 1 October 2008 announced its intention to acquire LeftHand Networks for $360 million in cash, thereby removing any questions about company viability.
LeftHand Networks has a large and growing installed base that in 4Q08 includes more than 3,000 customers and 11,000 installations. The high double-digit percentage of revenue growth attributable to repeat business suggests a high level of customer satisfaction within the LeftHand Networks installed base.
The SAN/IQ software implements a scale-out iSCSI disk storage infrastructure that can include a mix of physical and virtual servers and includes such high-value-added functionality as thin provisioning, snapshots and asynchronous remote copy.

Cautions

HP's acquisition of LeftHand Networks will create management, development, marketing and sales instabilities that will take time to resolve. During this transition period, maintaining sales momentum could be a challenge.
Dell's success with EqualLogic will put further pressure on HP as it assimilates LeftHand Networks.
Retaining LeftHand Networks channel partners that compete against HP in the server, storage or professional services marketplaces could prove difficult.

Size of company comparison and other triva facts

2009-07-24T15:02:00.000-07:00

Lefthand was founded in 1999 and had 200 some employees located in bolder CO, before it was acquired by HP on December 1,2008 for $360 million in cash, subject to certain purchase price adjustments. It had 215 employees and more than 500 resellers and distributors worldwide. The company had more than 11,000 installations across 3,000 different customers.

Equallogic on the other company was incorporated in 2001 and is headquartered in Nashua, New Hampshire. Had 384 employees and as of January 25, 2008, EqualLogic, Inc. operates as a subsidiary of Dell Inc. it was purchased for 1.4 billion.

This post questions how many customers lefthand really had

http://thesantechnologist.com/?p=41

But if you were to base your decision on purchase price alone, Equallogic was valued much higher than Lefthand. It makes you wonder....

First up Equallogic UI Versus Lefthand UI

2009-07-24T13:03:00.000-07:00

The first thing that I noticed is that it is very difficult to find examples of the SAN/iQ UI. On the other hand Equallogic screenshots are all over the place. I stole this equallogic pic from here
http://www.derekschwab.com/2008/08/equallogic-san-expansion.html

There is an image here

http://www.cupfighter.net/index.php/2009/06/dell-equallogic-improvements/
And here http://thelowedown.wordpress.com/2008/05/23/exchange-hosting-data-on-iscsi/
And here http://sysadmincookbok.blogspot.com/2008/12/virtualization-solution-using-dell_16.html
And youtube videos http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYm96gKOfOE
Now I realize that most of these are user generated web pages. But it is interesting to note that it seems to be a lot more difficult to find out what the UI of the LeftHand SAN will be.

So in the search to find out what the lefthand SAN will look like this is the first hit on youtube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4BJtTZx8z4 I could not make this up if I tried, ok don't watch that it actually doesn't show the interface. That presentation puts me to sleep (not produced by lefthand to be fair) I wish both of these vendors had more information out for what their stuff looked like.

Ok, after some heavy googling I ran across some screen shots for the LeftHand SAN
(From the spiceworks user limey, go spiceworks!)
http://community.spiceworks.com/attachments/post/0000/4594/1-15-2009_14-49-36.png

Here is another http://www.eweek.com/images/slide/195931_5.jpg

I also found a couple of pics inside a book from here http://www.rtfm-ed.co.uk/docs/vmwdocs/srmbookchapter2-vsainstallandconfig.pdf

I hope that can sort of give you a taste of what the different UI's look like. Maybe some Equallogic or Lefthand people will reply with screenshots of common interface tasks. (To be fair I should probably download the LeftHand virtual machine and get some screen shots from it, maybe in a future post)

This blog will be a series of posts documenting the differences between Equallogic and Lefthand

2009-07-24T12:58:00.000-07:00

I don't work for either company. I am just trying to wrap my brain around what would be a good decision for the middle sized enterprise I work at.