Wednesday, January 12, 2011

EqualLogic wins an InfoWorlds 2011 tech award

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

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Rocking good reviews for EqualLogic

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

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

Thursday, August 26, 2010

two interesting LH posts

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/

Thursday, June 10, 2010

This is an interesting post from a LH user

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.

Thursday, April 22, 2010

how is equallogic fairing under dell

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

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

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Dell EqualLogic SAN experience and review

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

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.

Monday, March 8, 2010

Yet another happy EqualLogic thread

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.

Sunday, March 7, 2010

Important concept to understand with LH

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.

Thursday, March 4, 2010

Complexity of LH

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.

Monday, October 12, 2009

Lefthand Setup Description

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/

Monday, August 31, 2009

Interesting Post

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

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Recent LeftHand SAN post

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 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




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.



Thursday, August 13, 2009

Pro EqualLogic Blog posts

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.

Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Equallogic UI Take 2

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!

Monday, August 3, 2009

LeftHand UI, take 2

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.

Thursday, July 30, 2009

Just ran across this InfoTec document LeftHand Vs. EqualLogic

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

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

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

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.


Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Spiceworks EqualLogic versus LeftHand thread

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

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

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

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Support and simpleness, Equallogic is KISS

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

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)

Followers