[s-x86] Re: Anyone used DiskSuite 4.2

[Simon Ferrett <simon@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Basically it is a piece of hardware that takes shelves of disks which it
runs RAID on, and it presents itself on the network as an NFS server.

It uses a propratery filesystem internal to the machine which is very fast
and can easily be expanded in size without the need to delete anything.  It
also has some handy backup features as well.

see: http://www.netapp.com for some more info.  (select 'Netapp Filers' for
information about the Filer product, which is what I'm referring to)

Cheers,


-----Original Message-----
From: Peter Mwaniki ~ [mailto:pmwaniki@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: None
To: simon@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Cc: solarisonintel@xxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [s-x86] Re: Anyone used DiskSuite 4.2


Simon Ferrett wrote:
|> 
|> I'd probably lean more in the direction of something dedicated like a
|> Network Appliance fileserver.. That way you decouple the drives from the
|> computers... it becomes simple to add more space and filesystem
limitations
|> dont get in your way.
|> 

Simon,

What is a network Applicance, and how does it work in a Unix environment?
wouldn't
mind a synopsis or a reference to a white paper.

The CLARiiON FC storage is quite flexible, I can add stacks and stacks of
disks enclosures
and the connection to the "driver" system is via an Emulex Fibre Channel
card LP8000.
The card connects to the FC storage via a fibre optic cable. The disks
enclosures also
can be daisy chained ...

-Peter Mwaniki

|> Cheers,
|> 
|> -----Original Message-----
|> From: Peter Mwaniki ~ [mailto:pmwaniki@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
|> Sent: None
|> To: Reinhold.Fischer@xxxxxxx
|> Cc: solarisonintel@xxxxxxxxxxx
|> Subject: [s-x86] Re: Anyone used DiskSuite 4.2
|> 
|> 
|> Reinhold,
|> 
|> I was hoping for something that will allow me to go to town right away.
It's
|> purely a bandwidth issue
|> 
|> For instance, I could get started with the disks on the "server" ie.
local
|> to the system vs on the Fibre
|> arrays, and create metadb, that way, I suppose I do not fragment the
disks
|> inside the arrays.  I have six
|> drives on the local system, so I could create  eight 10m slices there for
|> the metadb. The balance could be
|> put into good use by making raw swap partitions on all eight disks. I've
|> 4gig RAM. so, I'm looking for ~8gig.
|> min swap.
|> 
|> Once the above is done, I could use the "metadb" to create the replicas
of
|> metadevice state database as-
|> 
|> 	metadb  <options >  slice1 slice2 slice3 ... slicen
|> 
|> ? Any disadvantage in creating the database this way, should be they
inside
|> the high speed FC storage?
|> Any special option or hints?
|> 
|> After this, I have the FC disks as a single disk, would like to use the
|> whole disk ( all are same )
|> say, I use slice 7 and define it end to end, and take, for instance 50 of
|> them ( each ~10g ) to create
|> a single filesystem. Key cosiderations being performance and ability to
|> create large filesystems, as long
|> as I can pull out my results after my jobs complete, I do not care for
|> anything else.
|> 
|> Now, what is the best way to create these matadevices? stripped, concat
...
|> further, if I have a metadevice
|> md10 md20 md30 md40, can I at times make them a single large NFS? How do
I
|> do that?
|> 
|> I'm aware, I could do-  metainit ... slice1 slice2 slice3 ... slicen  to
|> create md10.  Could you provide me
|> a specific examples you have used in your experiences.  
|> 
|> A commandline like-
|> 
|> 1.  create metadb 
|>     example ...
|> 
|> 2.  create metadevice          
|>     example ...
|> 
|> 3. put a number of metadevices into a single NFS
|>     example ...
|> 
|> 4. newfs 
|>    example ...  ( what device ? )
|> 
|> Thanks once again.
|> 
|> -Peter Mwaniki
|> 
|> 
|> Reinhold Fischer wrote:
|> |> 
|> |> I would recommend the online documentation for disksuite on
|> |> 
|> |> http://docs.sun.com/ab2/coll.260.1
|> |> 
|> |> It worked very well for me.
|> |> 
|> |> hth
|> |> 
|> |> Reinhold Fischer
|> |> 
|> |> On Fri, 4 Feb 100, Peter Mwaniki ~ wrote:
|> |> 
|> |> > I'm building a research scratch server ~1 terabytes ( LP8000 FC,
with
|> CLARiiON enclosures) on a super high speed isolated network, with the
server
|> and a number of clients  ( ~40 ).
|> |> > 
|> |> > I would like to use DiskSuite 4.2 to build metadevices and
ultimately
|> create several large NFS to be mounted on the clients.  The NFS may vary
in
|> size from .4 tera ...
|> |> > 
|> |> > Question has anyone out there has a good working knowledge of
DiskSuite
|> 4.2 and  ( please do NOT point me to the GUI interface ) and might have a
|> good reference to commandline DiskSuite commands or a set they can mail
to
|> me.
|> |> > 
|> |> > TIA
|> |> > -Peter Mwaniki

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