Sorry for the huge delay.
Thank you to everyone who responded. I got great feedback. I am attaching
the
responses to this SUMMARY.
Cheers,
Kelvin
_______________________________
Kelvin White
mailto:kelvin.white@pobox.com
mailto:kwhite@talisman-energy.com
mailto:kelvin.white@xwave.com
(403) 237-1047 direct
(403) 237-1674 fax
-----Original Message-----
From: White, Kelvin
Sent: Tuesday, June 13, 2000 6:35 PM
To: 'Sun Managers Mailing List'
Subject: To EMC or not to EMC? That is the question...
Would anyone care to share their hard won experience in choosing between a
Sun storage solution and an EMC storage solution? What criteria did you use?
Checklists? Pro's/Con's of either?
Send me your laundry lists...and opinions...and examples of past decision
making on storage...thanks...Kelvin
___________________________________
Kelvin White
mailto:kelvin.white@pobox.com
(403) 237-1047 direct
(403) 237-1674 fax
-----
Message-ID: <200006272345.QAA13815@parsley.cisco.com>
From: Jesse Adam <jaa@cisco.com>
To: "White, Kelvin" <KWhite@talisman-energy.com>
Subject: Re: To EMC or not to EMC? That is the question...
Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2000 17:45:52 -0600
X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21)
have you got a response to this?
> Would anyone care to share their hard won experience in choosing between a
> Sun storage solution and an EMC storage solution? What criteria did you
use?
> Checklists? Pro's/Con's of either?
>
> Send me your laundry lists...and opinions...and examples of past decision
> making on storage...thanks...Kelvin
-----
Message-ID: <DF7E4441E178D1119C1E0000F86AF53605BD6381@appsrv1>
From: Robert Hill <Robert_Hill@cch.com>
To: "White, Kelvin" <KWhite@talisman-energy.com>
Subject: Re: To EMC or not to EMC? That is the question...
Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2000 18:49:01 -0600
X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21)
We went with EMC, and at first I wasn't that impressed due to their
prices, but
I'm sold. Their service and support are first rate, and their
software tools are simple
yet powerful. Their list prices are outrageous --I've seen over 70%
discounts, so if you
do go with them, be prepared to play hardball...
Downside, you can't use Sun's Clustering software- we went with
Veritas...
Just an opinion...
Rob
From: "White, Kelvin" <KWhite@talisman-energy.com> on 06/13/2000
07:35 PM
To: Sun Managers Mailing List
<sun-managers@sunmanagers.ececs.uc.edu>@SMTP@cchntmsd
cc:
Subject: To EMC or not to EMC? That is the question...
Would anyone care to share their hard won experience in choosing
between a
Sun storage solution and an EMC storage solution? What criteria did
you use?
Checklists? Pro's/Con's of either?
Send me your laundry lists...and opinions...and examples of past
decision
making on storage...thanks...Kelvin
___________________________________
Kelvin White
mailto:kelvin.white@pobox.com
(403) 237-1047 direct
(403) 237-1674 fax
-----
Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.4.10.10006131953570.20574-100000@logical.logical-approach.com>
From: Al Hopper <al@logical-approach.com>
To: "White, Kelvin" <KWhite@talisman-energy.com>
Subject: Re: To EMC or not to EMC? That is the question...
Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2000 19:04:19 -0600
X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21)
On Tue, 13 Jun 2000, White, Kelvin wrote:
> Would anyone care to share their hard won experience in choosing between a
> Sun storage solution and an EMC storage solution? What criteria did you
use?
> Checklists? Pro's/Con's of either?
>
> Send me your laundry lists...and opinions...and examples of past decision
> making on storage...thanks...Kelvin
I have no first hand experience of EMC solutions, but I know that they are
way overpriced for what they offer. Before you spend any $s with EMC, take
a look at Hitachi (Hitachi Data Systems) who offer the same kind of box as
EMC but with much better cost/Mb.
Other than that your options are:
o JBOD using Emulex PCI based controllers and FC-AL disk drives with
Veritas software (RAID mirroring, striping, striping/mirroring etc).
o Network Appliances box. Problem here is their pricing model really
sucks. Or really their business model really sucks: you can't even get a
list price without talking to a sales droid. And they are really
overpriced. But if you want to write a large number of small files (in a
hurry), there are very few alternatives.
o You may very well need a combination of both technologies:
a) Large striped/mirrored filesystems for RDBMS data files (one example)
b) Small high write activity filesystems like email, news, messaging, RDBMS
transaction logs etc.
IMHO there is no "one solution fits every problem space" silver bullet.
You are much better off spending your $s on a "mixed" solution - especially
since you may be buying a "box" to solve todays application mix, but you
really cannot determine what tomorrows application mix might be!!!
Comments welcome.
Al Hopper Logical Approach Inc, Plano, TX. al@logical-approach.com
Voice: 972.379.2133 Fax: 972.379.2134
MicroSoft "ILOVEYOU". Thanks for engineering a 100% Virus Enabled platform!
-----
Message-ID: <200006140109.VAA18826@alpha.fdu.edu>
From: Greg Obremski <obremski@alpha.fdu.edu>
To: "White, Kelvin" <KWhite@talisman-energy.com>
Subject: Re: To EMC or not to EMC? That is the question...
Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2000 19:09:26 -0600
X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21)
I used to work for Goldman Sachs...they're a very large emc shop.
Pros for using EMC over Standalone disks:
Ease/Peace of mind. (disk dies, the emc boxes call home, and replace the
disk.
you never have to worry about bad disks or replacing them again. And they
pretty much *never ever* go down. You won't have to worry about losing disks
or data ever again. It's roughly as save and error-free as you can get these
days.)
Multiple connects (machine A in building 1 is attached to an EMC array. You
can
put machine B in building 2, as a backup for machine A, connected to the
same
disks, but sitting at a prom prompt. if machine A goes down, just type boot
on machine B...and its up where A left off.) (assuming you're on sun or
other *nix boxes anyway..still applies to pc's tho i guess)
Almost unlimited configurability. No more needing to tack on more arrays,
unless
you happen to max out the emc box..
Distance. You can have the computer in one building, its backup counterpart
in
another, and the EMC disks in a 3rd. It dosent get much more redundant than
that.
Cons:
Expensive. Very expensive. If I recall correctly, you rent the disks from
them,
per month. It can get pricy...but see Ease/Peace of mind above.
A little time consuming at the start. Depending on how long it'll take to
run cables, set up the disks, etc, it may be a little while initially before
you can plug in a machine and get it all going. Little while as in days or
so.
However, if you're not droppign machines in in a "must have it up and
production
by 3pm today with no planning" kind of basis, this is fine.
Basically..the main drawback is expense. On one hand, it's damne xpensive
and
hard to justify. On the other...once you have it, you'll never go back.
It's worth it, if you'r ein an enviornment where you have neither the time,
resources, or ability to deal with gobs of disk issues.
The NYSE uses EMC for all its storage for a reason....I, for one, would
recommend EMC if you can afford it, and justify it. (If you're talking like
20 machines or somethign small like that..it'd be cheaper and more
cost-effective to stick a bunch of A1000's on. But, ifg you're dealign with
several hundred or thousand, like I did...EMC's the way to go. You can even
boot from them, which is a total bonus.)
Hope that helps...
Greg
>
> Would anyone care to share their hard won experience in choosing between a
> Sun storage solution and an EMC storage solution? What criteria did you
use?
> Checklists? Pro's/Con's of either?
>
> Send me your laundry lists...and opinions...and examples of past decision
> making on storage...thanks...Kelvin
>
> ___________________________________
> Kelvin White
> mailto:kelvin.white@pobox.com
> (403) 237-1047 direct
> (403) 237-1674 fax
>
>
>
>
-----
Message-ID: <20000614111325.A6879@uow.edu.au>
From: "Peter D. Gray" <pdg@uow.edu.au>
To: "White, Kelvin" <KWhite@talisman-energy.com>
Subject: Re: To EMC or not to EMC? That is the question...
Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2000 19:13:25 -0600
X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21)
On Tue, Jun 13, 2000 at 06:35:06PM -0600, White, Kelvin wrote:
> Would anyone care to share their hard won experience in choosing between a
> Sun storage solution and an EMC storage solution? What criteria did you
use?
> Checklists? Pro's/Con's of either?
>
> Send me your laundry lists...and opinions...and examples of past decision
> making on storage...thanks...Kelvin
>
I assume there is some reason for not considering a network appliance?
We have a netapp and are VERY happy.
Regards,
pdg
-----
Message-ID: <D36AF5FAE7CED311A4BE009027E33ED06957BA@CLAVENEXCH>
From: Grant Lowe <glowe@skydesk.com>
To: "White, Kelvin" <KWhite@talisman-energy.com>
Subject: RE: To EMC or not to EMC? That is the question...
Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2000 19:45:59 -0600
X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21)
We're using an EMC right now. We have a lower end one. Pretty soon we'll
be getting they're top of the line, something they nick name the Big Ben. I
think the model number is 3900 something. We've had pretty good luck with
the one we have so far. It has a "dial-home" feature (a modem attached)
that is pretty cool. Helps them to help us. Plus they have VERY good tech
support. 7/24 toll-free and easy to reach when I've had questions. One
thing they do have is their RAID S, which only uses half the normal RAID
0+1, so you 50 percent more storage.
The only beef I really have with them is that I found out I needed some
patches and I thought they would tell me what I needed, but they didn't.
Fortunately, nothing critical, but still when you spend that kind of
money...
grant
-----Original Message-----
From: White, Kelvin
To: 'Sun Managers Mailing List'
Sent: 6/13/00 5:35 PM
Subject: To EMC or not to EMC? That is the question...
Would anyone care to share their hard won experience in choosing between
a
Sun storage solution and an EMC storage solution? What criteria did you
use?
Checklists? Pro's/Con's of either?
Send me your laundry lists...and opinions...and examples of past
decision
making on storage...thanks...Kelvin
___________________________________
Kelvin White
mailto:kelvin.white@pobox.com
(403) 237-1047 direct
(403) 237-1674 fax
-----
Message-ID: <20000614154341.A7375@uow.edu.au>
From: "Peter D. Gray" <pdg@uow.edu.au>
To: "White, Kelvin" <KWhite@talisman-energy.com>
Subject: Re: To EMC or not to EMC? That is the question...
Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2000 23:43:41 -0600
X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21)
On Tue, Jun 13, 2000 at 07:12:50PM -0600, White, Kelvin wrote:
>
>
> netapp is not considered due to Oracle and clustering requirements...
>
Errrrr... but netapp are certified for oracle (see netapp web site,
you need to set a single option on the netapp to be supported
by oracle, i think they were the first NFS appliance
ever certified by oracle) and they do clustering?
Regards,
pdg
-----
Message-ID: <862568FE.00239B7D.00@notessmtp.forsythesolutions.com>
From: mjohnson@forsythemca.com
To: "White, Kelvin" <KWhite@talisman-energy.com>
Subject: Re: To EMC or not to EMC? That is the question...
Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2000 00:15:18 -0600
X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21)
Kevin,
I do not have a formal checklist, but I can speak to the issue at hand. You
have a choice that many must face when transitioning data management
strategies
from decentralization to centralization, etc. You must address the
following
issues:
Direct connect to the host
Direct connect to multiple hosts
Data Sharing amongst hosts
SAN, strategic direction now or in the near future
Enterprise functionality, a necessity
Network attached
Backups
Disaster Recovery
Fibre Channel
SCSI attached
Application usage
Database usage
Database in use
Availability required
Data criticality
Budget
These issues are most of the initial issues that must be addressed before
you
can truly start looking at one player or another. If you are looking for an
enterprise solution with enterprise connectivity and functionality, EMC is
the
enterprise player which you have mentioned. SUN has good disk products and
many
well functioning software packages in conjunction with those products;
however,
SUN does not have the full enterprise package. EMC has a SAN solution (ESN
if
you talk with them). You can direct attach to both SUN and EMC products;
however the question remains, are you going to attach one or multiple hosts
(heterogeneous or homogenous). Are you going to share data amongst systems?
How do you plan to do that? Do you want to attach to the storage through
the
network? How do you envision doing your backups? Do you have detailed
disaster
recovery plans? How will you fit this solution into those disaster recovery
plans? To boil it down... If it is enterprise storage, then your answer is
EMC. If it is isolated to a particular project, localized application,
relatively small foot print (>250GB), and budget is an issue, then SUN is
the
answer. Beyond those basic points, things get complicated beyond a quick
response.
Happy hunting,
Marc Johnson
"White, Kelvin" <KWhite@talisman-energy.com> on 06/13/2000 07:35:06 PM
To: 'Sun Managers Mailing List' <sun-managers@sunmanagers.ececs.uc.edu>
cc: (bcc: Marc Johnson/Forsythe)
Subject: To EMC or not to EMC? That is the question...
Would anyone care to share their hard won experience in choosing between a
Sun storage solution and an EMC storage solution? What criteria did you use?
Checklists? Pro's/Con's of either?
Send me your laundry lists...and opinions...and examples of past decision
making on storage...thanks...Kelvin
___________________________________
Kelvin White
mailto:kelvin.white@pobox.com
(403) 237-1047 direct
(403) 237-1674 fax
-----
Message-ID: <39473D0C.BF6A9520@de.origin-it.com>
From: Dieter Wurm <dieter.wurm@de.origin-it.com>
To: "White, Kelvin" <KWhite@talisman-energy.com>
Subject: Re: To EMC or not to EMC? That is the question...
Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2000 02:06:37 -0600
X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21)
hye there,
if you search realy high availability, than EMC is the only
Solution with Trust...
we have Cellera and Symetrix conneted for NFS-File-Service
and the Performance and Availability is that what we expected, even
more. The next Step will be Integration in heavy heterogeneous World
with MPFS (Beta-Site will start soon) and Connectivity with
SAN-Components.
If you whatch only to the Price, than your Decision is going the wrong
way, believe
me!
Any Questions? Don't hesitate...
Dieter Wurm
begin 600 dieter.wurm.vcf
M8F5G:6XZ=F-A<F0@#0IN.E=U<FT[2VQA=7,M1&EE=&5R#0IX+6UO>FEL;&$M
M:'1M;#I&04Q310T*;W)G.D]224=)3B!';6)(#0IA9'(Z.SL[.SL[#0IV97)S
M:6]N.C(N,0T*96UA:6P[:6YT97)N970Z9&EE=&5R+G=U<FU`9&4N;W)I9VEN
M+6ET+F-O;0T*=&ET;&4Z4WES=&5M<RU-86YA9V5R#0IN;W1E.W%U;W1E9"UP
M<FEN=&%B;&4Z4&AO;F4],T0K-#D@.3$Q(#DW,#(@,30Y,3TP1#TP049A>#TS
M1"`@*S0Y(#DQ,2`Y-S`R(#$Q-S$-"G@M;6]Z:6QL82UC<'0Z.RTX-C$V#0IF
@;CI+;&%U<RU$:65T97(@5W5R;0T*96YD.G9C87)D#0H=
`
end
-----
Message-ID: <200006140811.KAA28119@duna80.danubius>
From: Imre.Kolos@eth.ericsson.se
To: "White, Kelvin" <KWhite@talisman-energy.com>
Subject: Re: To EMC or not to EMC? That is the question...
Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2000 02:11:46 -0600
X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21)
Hi Kelvin,
Is your choice restricted to EMC and Sun intentionally ?
Do you know of comparable storage products of IBM, Compaq and
NetworkAppliance ?
We are just about finishing our Enterprise Storage vendor
selection process, for us (for our needs) IBM and Compaq is
on top, beating HP, EMC and Sun. NetApp is a very exciting
alternative with some restrictions.
So I can't comprehensively compare EMC and Sun, but let me
know if the others interest you.
regards,
Imre
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Imre Kolos e-mail: Imre.Kolos@eth.ericsson.se
UNIX support mgr. tel: +36 1 4377322
Ericsson Ltd. Hungary fax: +36 1 4377374
------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----
Message-ID: <577838B2F7F7D211913100805FFECEB9FDE05D@exlpseu005.ldn.bzwint.com>
From: carl.staroscik@barclayscapital.com
To: "White, Kelvin" <KWhite@talisman-energy.com>
Subject: RE: To EMC or not to EMC? That is the question...
Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2000 02:30:58 -0600
X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21)
If you can afford it go for EMC, it can`t be beaten for reliability and
support. Otherise the A3500FC solution is fast and pretty good, although I
would wait until the T300 is out.
Regards,
Carl Staroscik
Unix SA
Global Technical Services
Direct Line 44 (0)20 7773 6374
Mobile 44 (0)78 9906 5346
Fax 44 (0)20 7773 4819
Pager 44 (0)15 2393 1277
Email carl.staroscik@barcap.com
----Original Message-----
From: White, Kelvin [SMTP:KWhite@talisman-energy.com]
Sent: Wednesday, June 14, 2000 1:35 AM
To: 'Sun Managers Mailing List'
Subject: To EMC or not to EMC? That is the question...
Would anyone care to share their hard won experience in choosing
between a
Sun storage solution and an EMC storage solution? What criteria did
you use?
Checklists? Pro's/Con's of either?
Send me your laundry lists...and opinions...and examples of past
decision
making on storage...thanks...Kelvin
___________________________________
Kelvin White
mailto:kelvin.white@pobox.com
(403) 237-1047 direct
(403) 237-1674 fax
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----------
For more information about Barclays Capital, please
visit our web site at http://www.barcap.com.
Internet communications are not secure and therefore the Barclays Group
does not accept legal responsibility for the contents of this message.
Any views or opinions presented are solely those of the author and do
not necessarily represent those of the Barclays Group unless otherwise
specifically stated.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
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-----
Message-ID: <1129AD89384CD011B0B000001D2730F701F3ED40@UKHXZCMSX001>
From: Hurst Mark ME <Mark.Hurst@astrazeneca.com>
To: "White, Kelvin" <KWhite@talisman-energy.com>
Subject: RE: To EMC or not to EMC? That is the question...
Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2000 02:46:03 -0600
X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21)
Hi Kelvin,
We've been burned really badly going down the multi-vendor root so
I'd suggest going for Sun storage unless there are very good reasons not
to. We have a number of servers we manage for different projects in
different countries using Sun storage (both SCSI and FC-AL) and they give us
very few problems. When we do have problems Sun support is normally
very fast and helpful.
We have a cluster of E6500s using StorageTek rebadged Clariion (now
owned by EMC) storage over FC-AL. We seem to have more
problems with this cluster than everything else put together. Each
vendor then starts pointing the finger at the others or third parties and
everything drags on and on.
We are using EMC storage with HP servers, but until recently HP and
EMC had a good relationship, we'll have to see how things go from here.
Cheers,
Mark
----------
> From: White, Kelvin[SMTP:KWhite@talisman-energy.com]
> Sent: 14 June 2000 01:35
> To: 'Sun Managers Mailing List'
> Subject: To EMC or not to EMC? That is the question...
>
> Would anyone care to share their hard won experience in choosing between a
> Sun storage solution and an EMC storage solution? What criteria did you
> use?
> Checklists? Pro's/Con's of either?
>
> Send me your laundry lists...and opinions...and examples of past decision
> making on storage...thanks...Kelvin
>
> ___________________________________
> Kelvin White
> mailto:kelvin.white@pobox.com
> (403) 237-1047 direct
> (403) 237-1674 fax
>
>
>
-----
Message-ID: <JA8AAAAAAFcqiQABYQABrV0dAcxU@swift.stoke.gov.uk>
From: Steve Boronski <steve.boronski@swift.stoke.gov.uk>
To: "White, Kelvin" <KWhite@talisman-energy.com>
Subject: Re:To EMC or not to EMC? That is the question...
Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2000 04:53:00 -0600
X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21)
Kelvin
We have just installed some EMC, the decision was forced on us by our
mainframe supplier, however we will be hooking them up to Sun. Our main
problem with EMC has been the lack of suitable training facilities in th UK
we are heavily reliant on EMC engineer to make every change for us and are
not happy.
The EMC hardware is excellent but I would just make sure you get your
training sessions arranged before signing any contracts.
Steve B.
White, Kelvin (6/14/00 12:35 AM):
>Would anyone care to share their hard won experience in choosing between a
>Sun storage solution and an EMC storage solution? What criteria did you
use?
>Checklists? Pro's/Con's of either?
>
>Send me your laundry lists...and opinions...and examples of past decision
>making on storage...thanks...Kelvin
>
>___________________________________
>Kelvin White
>mailto:kelvin.white@pobox.com
>(403) 237-1047 direct
>(403) 237-1674 fax
>
>
>
-- Steve.Boronski@stoke.gov.uk Senior Systems Programmer Unix Technical Support Stoke-on-Trent City Council----- Message-ID: <3947801C.68AC5CF7@fnc.fujitsu.com> From: Steve Williams <steve.williams@fnc.fujitsu.com> To: "White, Kelvin" <KWhite@talisman-energy.com> Subject: Re: To EMC or not to EMC? That is the question... Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2000 06:52:44 -0600 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21)
We just went through this over the last few months. We ended up chosing Sun storage in this instance for a variety of reasons. One of the biggest problems we had with the EMC solution is that it cost so much more than comparable Sun storage. And given Sun's near term future in the storage arena we didn't want to be tied to EMC. Sun is having a webcast today to announce some of there upcoming storage products that you should watch it will probably have a lot of the information your looking for.
Steve
"White, Kelvin" wrote:
> Would anyone care to share their hard won experience in choosing between a > Sun storage solution and an EMC storage solution? What criteria did you use? > Checklists? Pro's/Con's of either? > > Send me your laundry lists...and opinions...and examples of past decision > making on storage...thanks...Kelvin > > ___________________________________ > Kelvin White > mailto:kelvin.white@pobox.com > (403) 237-1047 direct > (403) 237-1674 fax
-- Steven Williams, Systems Administrator Fujitsu Network Communications mailto:steve.williams@fnc.fujitsu.com PH:972-479-2180
perl -e 'print $i=pack(c5,(41*2),sqrt(7056),(unpack(c,H)-2),oct(115),10);'
----- Message-ID: <4FFB381C0259D21180080001FA7EFE94BF9BE2@ewfd37.exchange.ml.com> From: "Sirisena, Navi (USSM - Debt Markets)" <navis@exchange.ml.com> To: "White, Kelvin" <KWhite@talisman-energy.com> Subject: RE: To EMC or not to EMC? That is the question... Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2000 06:58:18 -0600 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21)
Sun EMC Cheap Expensive somewaht reliable Very reliable don't use much cache Use extensive amount of cache ( 8GB the latest ones ) Fiber- read ( not very stable ) Stable Fiber ready Can do RAID 5 ALways hardware Mirror?
I personally have got Sun A3500 ( 2x7 config ) to work using 4 channels and have extremly good throuhg put also we are not using SAN base EMC storage as well.
These are my opinios Navi
> -----Original Message----- > From: White, Kelvin [SMTP:KWhite@talisman-energy.com] > Sent: Tuesday, June 13, 2000 8:35 PM > To: 'Sun Managers Mailing List' > Subject: To EMC or not to EMC? That is the question... > > Would anyone care to share their hard won experience in choosing between a > Sun storage solution and an EMC storage solution? What criteria did you > use? > Checklists? Pro's/Con's of either? > > Send me your laundry lists...and opinions...and examples of past decision > making on storage...thanks...Kelvin > > ___________________________________ > Kelvin White > mailto:kelvin.white@pobox.com > (403) 237-1047 direct > (403) 237-1674 fax > >
----- Message-ID: <834B92CB0E4CD21184A400A0C9D180BD0190ADC7@NTEXC0001> From: "Graff, Tracy" <Tracy-Graff@forum-financial.com> To: "White, Kelvin" <KWhite@talisman-energy.com> Subject: RE: To EMC or not to EMC? That is the question... Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2000 07:07:01 -0600 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21)
Kelvin,
I don't have suggestions, but am in the same place your are right now. If you get anything useful, I would appreciate it if you would forward it on to me.
Thanks, Tracy
-----Original Message----- From: White, Kelvin [mailto:KWhite@talisman-energy.com] Sent: Tuesday, June 13, 2000 8:35 PM To: 'Sun Managers Mailing List' Subject: To EMC or not to EMC? That is the question...
Would anyone care to share their hard won experience in choosing between a Sun storage solution and an EMC storage solution? What criteria did you use? Checklists? Pro's/Con's of either?
Send me your laundry lists...and opinions...and examples of past decision making on storage...thanks...Kelvin
___________________________________ Kelvin White mailto:kelvin.white@pobox.com (403) 237-1047 direct (403) 237-1674 fax
----- Message-ID: <s94751a2.026@gw5smtp.montefiore.org> From: Seth Rothenberg <SROTHENB@montefiore.org> To: "White, Kelvin" <KWhite@talisman-energy.com> Subject: Re: To EMC or not to EMC? That is the question... Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2000 07:34:01 -0600 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21)
Kelvin, One factor is, whether your organization already owns the EMC. An initial EMC install costs about 8 times as much as A3500. However, if you have the EMC on-site already, I believe that additional disk for EMC is cheaper than a new A3500.
Along with that is, who manages the EMC? Our EMC is managed by another group in our organization. We had some concerns about being bound to their understanding of the storage and their schedules for downtime.
One concern with EMC - and even with Sun A3500 - is that one of anything is not completely fault-tolerant. We realized this when EMC said "Firmware upgrades take just 20 minutes, but the whole array is down".
Having 2 disk systems and mirroring between them would be, but it might be expensive.
You did not mention a lot of details, but you might want to look at Purple. I think Purple has now been released as the T300. It is a Fibre storage array that holds 20-odd disks and has a cache.
We happen to be planning on the economical-but-mostly-fault-tolerant A3500Lite. It is a 1x2 configuration. The controller module seems to have only one limitation - if a memory module needs maintenance, the whole array will be down. I intend to work around this by maintaining a 1-way mirror, and installing temporary disk if it is ever necessary to do this kind maintenance.
Seth
----- Message-ID: <39478BE9.636E6FF@cam.ra.rockwell.com> From: Peter Jankowiak <pjjankow@cam.ra.rockwell.com> To: kelvin.white@pobox.com Subject: Re: To EMC or not to EMC? That is the question... Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2000 07:43:05 -0600 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21)
Kelvin, we just made three frame purchases. Our primary concerns were availability, support and a price/performance balance. Two EMC frames and one Hitachi/HP frame were purchased. Looking at our experiences with both companies I would strongly consider looking at the Hitachi frame. At the time of our purchase the Sun product was too new to look at so they as well as IBM were not an option.
If you would like to discuss feel free to e-mail me or call me at 414-382-0650 with any questions.
----- Message-ID: <yhaln08uz5t.fsf@claymore.core.afcc.com> From: Johnie Stafford <stafforj@core.afcc.com> To: "White, Kelvin" <KWhite@talisman-energy.com> Subject: Re: To EMC or not to EMC? That is the question... Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2000 08:15:26 -0600 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21)
>>> On Tue, 13 Jun 2000 18:35:06 -0600, "White, Kelvin" <KWhite@talisman-energy.com> said:
wk> Would anyone care to share their hard won experience in choosing between a wk> Sun storage solution and an EMC storage solution? What criteria did you use? wk> Checklists? Pro's/Con's of either?
wk> Send me your laundry lists...and opinions...and examples of past decision wk> making on storage...thanks...Kelvin
We use EMC storage extensively. Do NOT use arbitrated loop. That has been the source of almost all of our problems with EMC storage. Go with the switched fabric. I would recommend the Brocade swithces that EMC sells.
Johnie
-- Johnie Stafford The Associates Core UNIX Engineering johnie_stafford@afcc.com stafforj@core.afcc.com (unix) 972/652-2822
----- Message-ID: <0006149609.AA960993551@memc.com> From: Thomas Carter <tcarter@memc.com> To: "White, Kelvin" <KWhite@talisman-energy.com> Subject: Re: To EMC or not to EMC? That is the question... Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2000 08:34:07 -0600 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21)
Decision was made when I got here, but we currently use a 4 year old EMC Symmetrix for our 24x7 mission-critical databases (Oracle). In those 4 years, there has not been a single second of unplanned downtime on this box. It's fast and extremely reliable. EMC support is very proactive in preventing problems. We've had their support guys show up on site to replace a drive because "it recorded a couple of SCSI retries". Of course the drive replacement was invisible to us, it just kept working.
One of our biggest benefits from the EMC solution is their integration and "extras". We also use their EDM backup unit, with automatically backs up all our Solaris and NT servers. It has direct SCSI connections to the Symmetrix, so backups of data contained on the Symmetrix are much faster and don't require any network bandwidth. We also use what they call BCVs (Business Continuance Volumes) which are spare drives designed to be attached as 3rd mirrors. With the integration between the Symmetrix and the EDM backup unit and Oracle running on our Sun servers, these BCVs can be syncronized with a set of drives, Oracle "notified" (not a DBA, so I don't know the details), the BCVs split off, and then consistant backups of our databases can be made off these BCV drives with almost no impact on the performance of the production database (normal hot backups can cause a noticeable slow-down in the database). EMC also sells other extras we don't use, like software that does load balancing and automatic redundancy across mutiple SCSI or FC connections, so a connection failure doesn't affect processing.
EMC likes to keep firmwares up to date, which requires a long down (~4-6 hours) on our old box; the connection between the service processor (embedded laptop) and the system itself is serial. We schedule these around our 1 or 2 scheduled factory downs we have each year. I believe the newer boxes either have a much shorter time (their connection is 10T ethernet), or a down is not necessary at all. EMC sales weasel should be able to put you in touch with an engineer who can tell you these kind of things. Also, their newest boxes have faster internal busses, allow for more on-board cache (ours maxes out at 4 GB cache for the whole box), etc than our dinosaur.
The down side to EMC - $$$$$$$$$$$. Big dollars for the hardware and big dollars for support. But you get what you pay for.
I'm not attached in any way to EMC, just extremely happy with the box we have. A recent project to implement SAP at our company (I wasn't involved) looked at all the major storage vendors, and EMC was far and away the best (and the one chosen), even when IBM was willing to 1/2 the EMC price on their large storage ("Shark"? something like that). If you want the Rolls-Royce of storage, get EMC; if you don't want to pay for (or can't afford) a Rolls-Royce, look elsewhere.
Thomas Carter MEMC Southwest
Would anyone care to share their hard won experience in choosing between a Sun storage solution and an EMC storage solution? What criteria did you use? Checklists? Pro's/Con's of either?
Send me your laundry lists...and opinions...and examples of past decision making on storage...thanks...Kelvin
___________________________________ Kelvin White mailto:kelvin.white@pobox.com (403) 237-1047 direct (403) 237-1674 fax
----- Message-ID: <31AD119AEF91D21188DC0008C7092B2E50205B@gpi_pdc> From: "Hswe, Barbara" <b.hswe@genaissance.com> To: "White, Kelvin" <KWhite@talisman-energy.com> Subject: RE: To EMC or not to EMC? That is the question... Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2000 08:55:31 -0600 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21)
We are also evaluating EMC Vs. Sun Vs. Western Scientific. Have you heard from anyone about this?
-----Original Message----- From: White, Kelvin [ mailto:KWhite@talisman-energy.com <mailto:KWhite@talisman-energy.com> ] Sent: Tuesday, June 13, 2000 8:35 PM To: 'Sun Managers Mailing List' Subject: To EMC or not to EMC? That is the question...
Would anyone care to share their hard won experience in choosing between a Sun storage solution and an EMC storage solution? What criteria did you use?
Checklists? Pro's/Con's of either?
Send me your laundry lists...and opinions...and examples of past decision making on storage...thanks...Kelvin
___________________________________ Kelvin White mailto:kelvin.white@pobox.com <mailto:kelvin.white@pobox.com> (403) 237-1047 direct (403) 237-1674 fax
----- Message-ID: <5158D0536A2AD4119F3B00D0B7600A32D3F6@KNEMAIL2> From: Brent Killion <Brent.Killion@knowledgenet.com> To: "White, Kelvin" <KWhite@talisman-energy.com> Subject: RE: To EMC or not to EMC? That is the question... Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2000 09:11:17 -0600 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21)
Kelvin-
The only criteria I used when choosing between EMC, Sun Storage, and Network Applicance was the $$. I went with Network Applicance because it afforded me the best price per mb and it works.
I know this is vague but I don't have the time to put together all of the data I used. Just some input for you.
Brent
-----Original Message----- From: White, Kelvin [mailto:KWhite@talisman-energy.com] Sent: Tuesday, June 13, 2000 5:35 PM To: 'Sun Managers Mailing List' Subject: To EMC or not to EMC? That is the question...
Would anyone care to share their hard won experience in choosing between a Sun storage solution and an EMC storage solution? What criteria did you use? Checklists? Pro's/Con's of either?
Send me your laundry lists...and opinions...and examples of past decision making on storage...thanks...Kelvin
___________________________________ Kelvin White mailto:kelvin.white@pobox.com (403) 237-1047 direct (403) 237-1674 fax
----- Message-ID: <3947B525.42890AFF@encc.com> From: Gregory Peters <gpeters@encc.com> To: "White, Kelvin" <KWhite@talisman-energy.com> Subject: Re: To EMC or not to EMC? That is the question... Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2000 10:39:01 -0600 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21)
I wouldn't mind hearing any such stories as well. We're currently in the process of evaluating both....
"White, Kelvin" wrote:
> Would anyone care to share their hard won experience in choosing between a > Sun storage solution and an EMC storage solution? What criteria did you use? > Checklists? Pro's/Con's of either? > > Send me your laundry lists...and opinions...and examples of past decision > making on storage...thanks...Kelvin > > ___________________________________ > Kelvin White > mailto:kelvin.white@pobox.com > (403) 237-1047 direct > (403) 237-1674 fax
-- Gregory Peters IT Manager EdgeNet Communications Corporation 1350 Bayshore Highway Ste.380 Burlingame, CA 94010 650.347.1260 x109 650.347.1214 fax gpeters@encc.com http://www.encc.com
Making the Connection - Edge to Edge
----- Message-ID: <200006141654.JAA06831@dim.ucsd.edu> From: David Foster <foster@dim.ucsd.edu> To: "White, Kelvin" <KWhite@talisman-energy.com> Subject: Re: To EMC or not to EMC? That is the question... Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2000 10:54:46 -0600 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21)
Check the archives. I just asked a similar question about Network Appliances and Sun storage...the overwhelming response was NetApps!
If you can't find the summary then let me know and I'll forward it to you.
Dave Foster
> From owner-sun-managers@sunmanagers.ececs.uc.edu Tue Jun 13 17:50:54 2000 > Delivered-To: sun-managers-list@sunmanagers.ececs.uc.edu > Delivered-To: sun-managers@sunmanagers.ececs.uc.edu > From: "White, Kelvin" <KWhite@talisman-energy.com> > To: "'Sun Managers Mailing List'" <sun-managers@sunmanagers.ececs.uc.edu> > Subject: To EMC or not to EMC? That is the question... > Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2000 18:35:06 -0600 > > Would anyone care to share their hard won experience in choosing between a > Sun storage solution and an EMC storage solution? What criteria did you use? > Checklists? Pro's/Con's of either? > > Send me your laundry lists...and opinions...and examples of past decision > making on storage...thanks...Kelvin > > ___________________________________ > Kelvin White > mailto:kelvin.white@pobox.com > (403) 237-1047 direct > (403) 237-1674 fax > > >
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ David Foster National Center for Microscopy and Imaging Research Programmer/Analyst University of California, San Diego dfoster@ucsd.edu Department of Neuroscience (858) 534-7968 http://www-ncmir.ucsd.edu/ [All opinions expressed are mine -- duh] ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
----- Message-ID: <3947E007.CDF140E6@encc.com> From: Gregory Peters <gpeters@encc.com> To: "White, Kelvin" <KWhite@talisman-energy.com> Subject: Re: To EMC or not to EMC? That is the question... Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2000 13:41:59 -0600 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21)
Thank you Kelvin, I look forward to plowing through this. I'll let you know how it turns out!
"White, Kelvin" wrote:
> Gregory...this is everything I have so far...just a bunch of unedited > attachments plus some internal email...please don't forward in this raw > format...hope this is of some help to you...would be interested in your > outcome...Cheers, > > Kelvin > > > > ___________________________________ > Kelvin White > mailto:kelvin.white@pobox.com > mailto:kwhite@talisman-energy.com > mailto:kelvinwhite@xwavesolutions.com > (403) 237-1047 direct > (403) 237-1674 fax > > -----Original Message----- > From: Gregory Peters [mailto:gpeters@encc.com] > Sent: Wednesday, June 14, 2000 10:39 AM > To: White, Kelvin > Subject: Re: To EMC or not to EMC? That is the question... > > I wouldn't mind hearing any such stories as well. We're currently in the > process > of evaluating both.... > > "White, Kelvin" wrote: > > > Would anyone care to share their hard won experience in choosing between a > > Sun storage solution and an EMC storage solution? What criteria did you > use? > > Checklists? Pro's/Con's of either? > > > > Send me your laundry lists...and opinions...and examples of past decision > > making on storage...thanks...Kelvin > > > > ___________________________________ > > Kelvin White > > mailto:kelvin.white@pobox.com > > (403) 237-1047 direct > > (403) 237-1674 fax > > -- > Gregory Peters > IT Manager > EdgeNet Communications Corporation > 1350 Bayshore Highway Ste.380 > Burlingame, CA 94010 > 650.347.1260 x109 > 650.347.1214 fax > gpeters@encc.com > http://www.encc.com > > Making the Connection - Edge to Edge > > ----- > Message-ID: <DF7E4441E178D1119C1E0000F86AF53605719442@appsrv1> > From: "White, Kelvin" <KWhite@talisman-energy.com> > To: ssa-managers@Eng.Auburn.EDU > Subject: To EMC or not to EMC? That is the question... > Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2000 12:48:11 -0600 > X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21) > > > Would anyone care to share their hard won experience in choosing between a > > Sun storage solution and an EMC storage solution? What criteria did you > > use? Checklists? Pro's/Con's of either? > > > > Send me your laundry lists...and opinions...and examples of past decision > > making on storage...thanks...Kelvin > > > > ___________________________________ > > Kelvin White > > mailto:kelvin.white@pobox.com > > (403) 237-1047 direct > > (403) 237-1674 fax > > > > > > ----- > Message-ID: <3146AABE97CED311953B009027C34C6B01CEB67C@calex001.mcc.net> > From: "Paquette, Trevor" <Trevor.Paquette@attcanada.com> > To: "White, Kelvin" <KWhite@talisman-energy.com> > Subject: RE: To EMC or not to EMC? That is the question... > Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2000 09:35:30 -0600 > X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21) > > what do you want to know? we have one. > > -- > The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.. > > Trevor Paquette | AT&T Canada |Work:(403)705-6390 > Trevor.Paquette@attcanada.com|600, 205 5th Ave SW | Fax:(403)705-9601 > http://www.attcanada.com |Calgary, AB, Canada |ICBM:51'03"N/114'05"W > Senior Unix Network Architect| T2P 2V7 |Mind:In the Rockies > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: White, Kelvin [SMTP:KWhite@talisman-energy.com] > > Sent: Tuesday, June 13, 2000 6:35 PM > > To: 'Sun Managers Mailing List' > > Subject: To EMC or not to EMC? That is the question... > > > > Would anyone care to share their hard won experience in choosing between a > > Sun storage solution and an EMC storage solution? What criteria did you > > use? > > Checklists? Pro's/Con's of either? > > > > Send me your laundry lists...and opinions...and examples of past decision > > making on storage...thanks...Kelvin > > > > ___________________________________ > > Kelvin White > > mailto:kelvin.white@pobox.com > > (403) 237-1047 direct > > (403) 237-1674 fax > > > > > > ----- > Message-ID: <5158D0536A2AD4119F3B00D0B7600A32D3F6@KNEMAIL2> > From: Brent Killion <Brent.Killion@knowledgenet.com> > To: "White, Kelvin" <KWhite@talisman-energy.com> > Subject: RE: To EMC or not to EMC? That is the question... > Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2000 09:11:17 -0600 > X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21) > > Kelvin- > > The only criteria I used when choosing between EMC, Sun Storage, and > Network Applicance was the $$. I went with Network Applicance because > it afforded me the best price per mb and it works. > > I know this is vague but I don't have the time to put together all of > the data I used. Just some input for you. > > Brent > > -----Original Message----- > From: White, Kelvin [mailto:KWhite@talisman-energy.com] > Sent: Tuesday, June 13, 2000 5:35 PM > To: 'Sun Managers Mailing List' > Subject: To EMC or not to EMC? That is the question... > > Would anyone care to share their hard won experience in choosing between > a > Sun storage solution and an EMC storage solution? What criteria did you > use? > Checklists? Pro's/Con's of either? > > Send me your laundry lists...and opinions...and examples of past > decision > making on storage...thanks...Kelvin > > ___________________________________ > Kelvin White > mailto:kelvin.white@pobox.com > (403) 237-1047 direct > (403) 237-1674 fax > > ----- > Message-ID: <DF7E4441E178D1119C1E0000F86AF5360304781D@appsrv1> > From: "Hoehnke, Rick" <RHoehnke@talisman-energy.com> > To: "White, Kelvin" <KWhite@talisman-energy.com> > Subject: RE: To EMC or not to EMC? That is the question... > Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2000 09:01:49 -0600 > Importance: high > X-Priority: 1 > X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21) > > Hmmmmm .... > > Taking everything at face value (very dangerous in this situation I'm sure) > and based on the numbers we've seen from GE/Sun and EMC (Steve's quick > highball on the 8430) they seem competitive. Based on everything you've > found thus far on public opinion EMC should be orders of magnitude more > expensive. > > so ... > > - Steve/EMC's lowballing with an entry offering to get in the door, then > hammer us later. > - GE/Sun's been ripping us off for a long time ..... > - business dynamics are different in the Canadian market vs the American one > (product pricing/ etc.). > - any/all the above. > > I'll get specifics on exactly how much storage and host connections we need > and open this up to a formal quote. > > other thoughts ??? > > rh > > -----Original Message----- > From: White, Kelvin > Sent: Wednesday, June 14, 2000 7:59 AM > To: Hoehnke, Rick > Subject: FW: To EMC or not to EMC? That is the question... > > we definitely need to talk to Sun...Dan Keiran is their storage guy here I > believe...will send a note to Preston...Kelvin > > ___________________________________ > Kelvin White > mailto:kelvin.white@pobox.com > mailto:kwhite@talisman-energy.com > mailto:kelvinwhite@xwavesolutions.com > (403) 237-1047 direct > (403) 237-1674 fax > > -----Original Message----- > From: Steve Williams [mailto:steve.williams@fnc.fujitsu.com] > Sent: Wednesday, June 14, 2000 6:53 AM > To: White, Kelvin > Subject: Re: To EMC or not to EMC? That is the question... > > We just went through this over the last few months. We ended up chosing Sun > storage in this instance for a variety of reasons. One of the biggest > problems > we had with the EMC solution is that it cost so much more than comparable > Sun > storage. And given Sun's near term future in the storage arena we didn't > want > to be tied to EMC. Sun is having a webcast today to announce some of there > upcoming storage products that you should watch it will probably have a lot > of > the information your looking for. > > Steve > > "White, Kelvin" wrote: > > > Would anyone care to share their hard won experience in choosing between a > > Sun storage solution and an EMC storage solution? What criteria did you > use? > > Checklists? Pro's/Con's of either? > > > > Send me your laundry lists...and opinions...and examples of past decision > > making on storage...thanks...Kelvin > > > > ___________________________________ > > Kelvin White > > mailto:kelvin.white@pobox.com > > (403) 237-1047 direct > > (403) 237-1674 fax > > -- > Steven Williams, Systems Administrator > Fujitsu Network Communications > mailto:steve.williams@fnc.fujitsu.com > PH:972-479-2180 > > perl -e 'print $i=pack(c5,(41*2),sqrt(7056),(unpack(c,H)-2),oct(115),10);' > > ----- > Message-ID: <31AD119AEF91D21188DC0008C7092B2E50205B@gpi_pdc> > From: "Hswe, Barbara" <b.hswe@genaissance.com> > To: "White, Kelvin" <KWhite@talisman-energy.com> > Subject: RE: To EMC or not to EMC? That is the question... > Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2000 08:55:31 -0600 > X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21) > > We are also evaluating EMC Vs. Sun Vs. Western Scientific. Have you heard > from anyone about this? > > -----Original Message----- > From: White, Kelvin [ mailto:KWhite@talisman-energy.com > <mailto:KWhite@talisman-energy.com> ] > Sent: Tuesday, June 13, 2000 8:35 PM > To: 'Sun Managers Mailing List' > Subject: To EMC or not to EMC? That is the question... > > Would anyone care to share their hard won experience in choosing between a > Sun storage solution and an EMC storage solution? What criteria did you use? > > Checklists? Pro's/Con's of either? > > Send me your laundry lists...and opinions...and examples of past decision > making on storage...thanks...Kelvin > > ___________________________________ > Kelvin White > mailto:kelvin.white@pobox.com <mailto:kelvin.white@pobox.com> > (403) 237-1047 direct > (403) 237-1674 fax > > ----- > Message-ID: <0006149609.AA960993551@memc.com> > From: Thomas Carter <tcarter@memc.com> > To: "White, Kelvin" <KWhite@talisman-energy.com> > Subject: Re: To EMC or not to EMC? That is the question... > Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2000 08:34:07 -0600 > X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21) > > Decision was made when I got here, but we currently use a 4 > year old EMC Symmetrix for our 24x7 mission-critical databases > (Oracle). In those 4 years, there has not been a single second > of unplanned downtime on this box. It's fast and extremely > reliable. EMC support is very proactive in preventing problems. > We've had their support guys show up on site to replace a drive > because "it recorded a couple of SCSI retries". Of course the > drive replacement was invisible to us, it just kept working. > > One of our biggest benefits from the EMC solution is their > integration and "extras". We also use their EDM backup unit, > with automatically backs up all our Solaris and NT servers. It > has direct SCSI connections to the Symmetrix, so backups of > data contained on the Symmetrix are much faster and don't > require any network bandwidth. We also use what they call BCVs > (Business Continuance Volumes) which are spare drives designed > to be attached as 3rd mirrors. With the integration between the > Symmetrix and the EDM backup unit and Oracle running on our Sun > servers, these BCVs can be syncronized with a set of drives, > Oracle "notified" (not a DBA, so I don't know the details), the > BCVs split off, and then consistant backups of our databases > can be made off these BCV drives with almost no impact on the > performance of the production database (normal hot backups can > cause a noticeable slow-down in the database). EMC also sells > other extras we don't use, like software that does load > balancing and automatic redundancy across mutiple SCSI or FC > connections, so a connection failure doesn't affect processing. > > EMC likes to keep firmwares up to date, which requires a long > down (~4-6 hours) on our old box; the connection between the > service processor (embedded laptop) and the system itself is > serial. We schedule these around our 1 or 2 scheduled factory > downs we have each year. I believe the newer boxes either have > a much shorter time (their connection is 10T ethernet), or a > down is not necessary at all. EMC sales weasel should be able > to put you in touch with an engineer who can tell you these > kind of things. Also, their newest boxes have faster internal > busses, allow for more on-board cache (ours maxes out at 4 GB > cache for the whole box), etc than our dinosaur. > > The down side to EMC - $$$$$$$$$$$. Big dollars for the > hardware and big dollars for support. But you get what you pay > for. > > I'm not attached in any way to EMC, just extremely happy with > the box we have. A recent project to implement SAP at our > company (I wasn't involved) looked at all the major storage > vendors, and EMC was far and away the best (and the one > chosen), even when IBM was willing to 1/2 the EMC price on > their large storage ("Shark"? something like that). If you > want the Rolls-Royce of storage, get EMC; if you don't want to > pay for (or can't afford) a Rolls-Royce, look elsewhere. > > Thomas Carter > MEMC Southwest > > Would anyone care to share their hard won experience in > choosing between a Sun storage solution and an EMC storage > solution? What criteria did you use? Checklists? Pro's/Con's of > either? > > Send me your laundry lists...and opinions...and examples of > past decision making on storage...thanks...Kelvin > > ___________________________________ > Kelvin White > mailto:kelvin.white@pobox.com > (403) 237-1047 direct > (403) 237-1674 fax > > ----- > Message-ID: <yhaln08uz5t.fsf@claymore.core.afcc.com> > From: Johnie Stafford <stafforj@core.afcc.com> > To: "White, Kelvin" <KWhite@talisman-energy.com> > Subject: Re: To EMC or not to EMC? That is the question... > Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2000 08:15:26 -0600 > X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21) > > >>> On Tue, 13 Jun 2000 18:35:06 -0600, "White, Kelvin" > <KWhite@talisman-energy.com> said: > > wk> Would anyone care to share their hard won experience in choosing > between a > wk> Sun storage solution and an EMC storage solution? What criteria did you > use? > wk> Checklists? Pro's/Con's of either? > > wk> Send me your laundry lists...and opinions...and examples of past > decision > wk> making on storage...thanks...Kelvin > > We use EMC storage extensively. Do NOT use arbitrated loop. That has > been the source of almost all of our problems with EMC storage. Go > with the switched fabric. I would recommend the Brocade swithces that > EMC sells. > > Johnie > > -- > Johnie Stafford > The Associates > Core UNIX Engineering > johnie_stafford@afcc.com > stafforj@core.afcc.com (unix) > 972/652-2822 > > ----- > Message-ID: <39478BE9.636E6FF@cam.ra.rockwell.com> > From: Peter Jankowiak <pjjankow@cam.ra.rockwell.com> > To: kelvin.white@pobox.com > Subject: Re: To EMC or not to EMC? That is the question... > Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2000 07:43:05 -0600 > X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21) > > Kelvin, we just made three frame purchases. Our primary concerns were > availability, support and a price/performance balance. Two EMC frames > and one Hitachi/HP frame were purchased. Looking at our experiences with > both companies I would strongly consider looking at the Hitachi frame. > At the time of our purchase the Sun product was too new to look at so > they as well as IBM were not an option. > > If you would like to discuss feel free to e-mail me or call me at > 414-382-0650 with any questions. > > ----- > Message-ID: <s94751a2.026@gw5smtp.montefiore.org> > From: Seth Rothenberg <SROTHENB@montefiore.org> > To: "White, Kelvin" <KWhite@talisman-energy.com> > Subject: Re: To EMC or not to EMC? That is the question... > Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2000 07:34:01 -0600 > X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21) > > Kelvin, > One factor is, whether your organization already owns the EMC. > An initial EMC install costs about 8 times as much as A3500. > However, if you have the EMC on-site already, > I believe that additional disk for EMC is cheaper than a new A3500. > > Along with that is, who manages the EMC? > Our EMC is managed by another group in our organization. > We had some concerns about being bound to their > understanding of the storage and their schedules for downtime. > > One concern with EMC - and even with Sun A3500 - is that one of > anything is not completely fault-tolerant. We realized this when EMC > said "Firmware upgrades take just 20 minutes, but the whole array is down". > > Having 2 disk systems and mirroring between them would be, but it might be > expensive. > > You did not mention a lot of details, but you might want to look at Purple. > I think Purple has now been released as the T300. > It is a Fibre storage array that holds 20-odd disks and has a cache. > > We happen to be planning on the economical-but-mostly-fault-tolerant > A3500Lite. > It is a 1x2 configuration. The controller module seems to have only one > limitation - if a memory module needs maintenance, the whole array will be > down. > I intend to work around this by maintaining a 1-way mirror, and installing > temporary disk if it is ever necessary to do this kind maintenance. > > Seth > > ----- > Message-ID: <834B92CB0E4CD21184A400A0C9D180BD0190ADC7@NTEXC0001> > From: "Graff, Tracy" <Tracy-Graff@forum-financial.com> > To: "White, Kelvin" <KWhite@talisman-energy.com> > Subject: RE: To EMC or not to EMC? That is the question... > Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2000 07:07:01 -0600 > X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21) > > Kelvin, > > I don't have suggestions, but am in the same place your are right now. If > you get anything useful, I would appreciate it if you would forward it on to > me. > > Thanks, Tracy > > -----Original Message----- > From: White, Kelvin [mailto:KWhite@talisman-energy.com] > Sent: Tuesday, June 13, 2000 8:35 PM > To: 'Sun Managers Mailing List' > Subject: To EMC or not to EMC? That is the question... > > Would anyone care to share their hard won experience in choosing between a > Sun storage solution and an EMC storage solution? What criteria did you use? > Checklists? Pro's/Con's of either? > > Send me your laundry lists...and opinions...and examples of past decision > making on storage...thanks...Kelvin > > ___________________________________ > Kelvin White > mailto:kelvin.white@pobox.com > (403) 237-1047 direct > (403) 237-1674 fax > > ----- > Message-ID: <4FFB381C0259D21180080001FA7EFE94BF9BE2@ewfd37.exchange.ml.com> > From: "Sirisena, Navi (USSM - Debt Markets)" <navis@exchange.ml.com> > To: "White, Kelvin" <KWhite@talisman-energy.com> > Subject: RE: To EMC or not to EMC? That is the question... > Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2000 06:58:18 -0600 > X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21) > > Sun EMC > Cheap Expensive > somewaht reliable Very reliable > don't use much cache Use extensive amount of cache ( 8GB the > latest ones ) > Fiber- read ( not very stable ) Stable Fiber ready > Can do RAID 5 ALways hardware Mirror? > > I personally have got Sun A3500 ( 2x7 config ) to work using 4 channels and > have extremly good throuhg put also we are not using SAN base EMC storage as > well. > > These are my opinios > Navi > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: White, Kelvin [SMTP:KWhite@talisman-energy.com] > > Sent: Tuesday, June 13, 2000 8:35 PM > > To: 'Sun Managers Mailing List' > > Subject: To EMC or not to EMC? That is the question... > > > > Would anyone care to share their hard won experience in choosing between a > > Sun storage solution and an EMC storage solution? What criteria did you > > use? > > Checklists? Pro's/Con's of either? > > > > Send me your laundry lists...and opinions...and examples of past decision > > making on storage...thanks...Kelvin > > > > ___________________________________ > > Kelvin White > > mailto:kelvin.white@pobox.com > > (403) 237-1047 direct > > (403) 237-1674 fax > > > > > > ----- > Message-ID: <DF7E4441E178D1119C1E0000F86AF53603047819@appsrv1> > From: "Hoehnke, Rick" <RHoehnke@talisman-energy.com> > To: "White, Kelvin" <KWhite@talisman-energy.com> > Subject: RE: DMP and Volume Manager (http://www.eng.auburn.edu/pub/mail-l > ists/veritas-users > Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2000 06:53:34 -0600 > X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21) > > our 3 "I/O fault tolerant" options are > > - Sun's AP > - Veritas' DMP > - EMC PowerPath > > Sun provides something called AP (alternate pathing) bundled with Solaris. > This feature is meant to support dynamic reconfiguration so I/O's (and > system board data paths for that matter) can be re-routed in case of > failure, service work, etc. > > The DMP feature with Veritas (DMP and AP are mutually exclusive) is similar > (I/O wise anyway), meant to re-route I/O's around failed components. > > EMC's PowerPath sound like something similar but with more functionality and > a better GUI. > > Since Veritas' DMP costs nothing which I'm sure cant be said about the > PowerPath product i'm sure it's the way to go. > > -----Original Message----- > From: White, Kelvin > Sent: Tuesday, June 13, 2000 6:43 PM > To: Hoehnke, Rick > Subject: DMP and Volume Manager > (http://www.eng.auburn.edu/pub/mail-lists/veritas-users > > > > ----- > Message-ID: <3947801C.68AC5CF7@fnc.fujitsu.com> > From: Steve Williams <steve.williams@fnc.fujitsu.com> > To: "White, Kelvin" <KWhite@talisman-energy.com> > Subject: Re: To EMC or not to EMC? That is the question... > Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2000 06:52:44 -0600 > X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21) > > We just went through this over the last few months. We ended up chosing Sun > storage in this instance for a variety of reasons. One of the biggest > problems > we had with the EMC solution is that it cost so much more than comparable > Sun > storage. And given Sun's near term future in the storage arena we didn't > want > to be tied to EMC. Sun is having a webcast today to announce some of there > upcoming storage products that you should watch it will probably have a lot > of > the information your looking for. > > Steve > > "White, Kelvin" wrote: > > > Would anyone care to share their hard won experience in choosing between a > > Sun storage solution and an EMC storage solution? What criteria did you > use? > > Checklists? Pro's/Con's of either? > > > > Send me your laundry lists...and opinions...and examples of past decision > > making on storage...thanks...Kelvin > > > > ___________________________________ > > Kelvin White > > mailto:kelvin.white@pobox.com > > (403) 237-1047 direct > > (403) 237-1674 fax > > -- > Steven Williams, Systems Administrator > Fujitsu Network Communications > mailto:steve.williams@fnc.fujitsu.com > PH:972-479-2180 > > perl -e 'print $i=pack(c5,(41*2),sqrt(7056),(unpack(c,H)-2),oct(115),10);' > > ----- > Message-ID: <DF7E4441E178D1119C1E0000F86AF53603047818@appsrv1> > From: "Hoehnke, Rick" <RHoehnke@talisman-energy.com> > To: "White, Kelvin" <KWhite@talisman-energy.com> > Subject: RE: To EMC or not to EMC? That is the question... > Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2000 06:42:35 -0600 > Importance: high > X-Priority: 1 > X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21) > > to summarize the previous tidbits, EMC's expensive and they work ... > > I can live with that, unless they are so overpriced that we cant possibly > justify they're use. > > One of the blurbs mentions a problem someone had with the EMC and Sun > Cluster software. The Sun Cluster 2.2 white paper I have explicitly mentions > EMC / Clariion as being supported. > > Here's some unofficial quickie numbers for storage: > > some recent Sun quotes: > > - Sun D1000 (with 8 x 36G disks (maxed JBOD tray): $35,000 or $122/Gb > raw. > - Sun A3500 FC (dual controller, 12x5x18=1080Gb): $236,724 (net new) > or $220/Gb raw. > > EMC > > - The EMC 8430 maxed with 50G disks (4.7Tb) with Steve's quickie highside > $750,000 price works out to $158/Gb raw. > > Seems competitive to me .... > > Obviously things like cache, host connections, support, etc. still need to > be worked into the price but it does'nt seem all that unreasonable. > > rh > > -----Original Message----- > From: White, Kelvin > Sent: Tuesday, June 13, 2000 9:09 PM > To: Hoehnke, Rick > Subject: FW: To EMC or not to EMC? That is the question... > > ___________________________________ > Kelvin White > (403) 237-1047 direct > (403) 237-1674 fax > mailto:kelvin.white@pobox.com <mailto:kelvin.white@pobox.com> > mailto:kwhite@talisman-energy.com <mailto:kwhite@talisman-energy.com> > mailto:kelvinwhite@xwavesolutions.com > <mailto:kelvinwhite@xwavesolutions.com> > > -----Original Message----- > From: Grant Lowe [ mailto:glowe@skydesk.com <mailto:glowe@skydesk.com> ] > Sent: Tuesday, June 13, 2000 7:46 PM > To: White, Kelvin > Subject: RE: To EMC or not to EMC? That is the question... > > We're using an EMC right now. We have a lower end one. Pretty soon we'll > be getting they're top of the line, something they nick name the Big Ben. I > think the model number is 3900 something. We've had pretty good luck with > the one we have so far. It has a "dial-home" feature (a modem attached) > that is pretty cool. Helps them to help us. Plus they have VERY good tech > support. 7/24 toll-free and easy to reach when I've had questions. One > thing they do have is their RAID S, which only uses half the normal RAID > 0+1, so you 50 percent more storage. > > The only beef I really have with them is that I found out I needed some > patches and I thought they would tell me what I needed, but they didn't. > Fortunately, nothing critical, but still when you spend that kind of > money... > > grant > > -----Original Message----- > From: White, Kelvin > To: 'Sun Managers Mailing List' > Sent: 6/13/00 5:35 PM > Subject: To EMC or not to EMC? That is the question... > > Would anyone care to share their hard won experience in choosing between > a > Sun storage solution and an EMC storage solution? What criteria did you > use? > Checklists? Pro's/Con's of either? > > Send me your laundry lists...and opinions...and examples of past > decision > making on storage...thanks...Kelvin > > ___________________________________ > Kelvin White > mailto:kelvin.white@pobox.com <mailto:kelvin.white@pobox.com> > (403) 237-1047 direct > (403) 237-1674 fax > > ----- > Message-ID: <JA8AAAAAAFcqiQABYQABrV0dAcxU@swift.stoke.gov.uk> > From: Steve Boronski <steve.boronski@swift.stoke.gov.uk> > To: "White, Kelvin" <KWhite@talisman-energy.com> > Subject: Re:To EMC or not to EMC? That is the question... > Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2000 04:53:00 -0600 > X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21) > > Kelvin > > We have just installed some EMC, the decision was forced on us by our > mainframe supplier, however we will be hooking them up to Sun. Our main > problem with EMC has been the lack of suitable training facilities in th UK > we are heavily reliant on EMC engineer to make every change for us and are > not happy. > > The EMC hardware is excellent but I would just make sure you get your > training sessions arranged before signing any contracts. > > Steve B. > > White, Kelvin (6/14/00 12:35 AM): > >Would anyone care to share their hard won experience in choosing between a > >Sun storage solution and an EMC storage solution? What criteria did you > use? > >Checklists? Pro's/Con's of either? > > > >Send me your laundry lists...and opinions...and examples of past decision > >making on storage...thanks...Kelvin > > > >___________________________________ > >Kelvin White > >mailto:kelvin.white@pobox.com > >(403) 237-1047 direct > >(403) 237-1674 fax > > > > > > > > -- > Steve.Boronski@stoke.gov.uk > Senior Systems Programmer > Unix Technical Support > Stoke-on-Trent City Council > > ----- > Message-ID: <1129AD89384CD011B0B000001D2730F701F3ED40@UKHXZCMSX001> > From: Hurst Mark ME <Mark.Hurst@astrazeneca.com> > To: "White, Kelvin" <KWhite@talisman-energy.com> > Subject: RE: To EMC or not to EMC? That is the question... > Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2000 02:46:03 -0600 > X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21) > > Hi Kelvin, > > We've been burned really badly going down the multi-vendor root so > I'd suggest going for Sun storage unless there are very good reasons not > to. We have a number of servers we manage for different projects in > different countries using Sun storage (both SCSI and FC-AL) and they give us > > very few problems. When we do have problems Sun support is normally > very fast and helpful. > > We have a cluster of E6500s using StorageTek rebadged Clariion (now > owned by EMC) storage over FC-AL. We seem to have more > problems with this cluster than everything else put together. Each > vendor then starts pointing the finger at the others or third parties and > everything drags on and on. > > We are using EMC storage with HP servers, but until recently HP and > EMC had a good relationship, we'll have to see how things go from here. > > Cheers, > > Mark > > ---------- > > From: White, Kelvin[SMTP:KWhite@talisman-energy.com] > > Sent: 14 June 2000 01:35 > > To: 'Sun Managers Mailing List' > > Subject: To EMC or not to EMC? That is the question... > > > > Would anyone care to share their hard won experience in choosing between a > > Sun storage solution and an EMC storage solution? What criteria did you > > use? > > Checklists? Pro's/Con's of either? > > > > Send me your laundry lists...and opinions...and examples of past decision > > making on storage...thanks...Kelvin > > > > ___________________________________ > > Kelvin White > > mailto:kelvin.white@pobox.com > > (403) 237-1047 direct > > (403) 237-1674 fax > > > > > > > > ----- > Message-ID: <577838B2F7F7D211913100805FFECEB9FDE05D@exlpseu005.ldn.bzwint.com> > From: carl.staroscik@barclayscapital.com > To: "White, Kelvin" <KWhite@talisman-energy.com> > Subject: RE: To EMC or not to EMC? That is the question... > Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2000 02:30:58 -0600 > X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21) > > If you can afford it go for EMC, it can`t be beaten for reliability and > support. Otherise the A3500FC solution is fast and pretty good, although I > would wait until the T300 is out. > > Regards, > > Carl Staroscik > Unix SA > Global Technical Services > > Direct Line 44 (0)20 7773 6374 > Mobile 44 (0)78 9906 5346 > Fax 44 (0)20 7773 4819 > Pager 44 (0)15 2393 1277 > Email carl.staroscik@barcap.com > > ----Original Message----- > From: White, Kelvin [SMTP:KWhite@talisman-energy.com] > Sent: Wednesday, June 14, 2000 1:35 AM > To: 'Sun Managers Mailing List' > Subject: To EMC or not to EMC? That is the question... > > Would anyone care to share their hard won experience in choosing > between a > Sun storage solution and an EMC storage solution? What criteria did > you use? > Checklists? Pro's/Con's of either? > > Send me your laundry lists...and opinions...and examples of past > decision > making on storage...thanks...Kelvin > > ___________________________________ > Kelvin White > mailto:kelvin.white@pobox.com > (403) 237-1047 direct > (403) 237-1674 fax > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > ---------- > For more information about Barclays Capital, please > visit our web site at http://www.barcap.com. > > Internet communications are not secure and therefore the Barclays Group > does not accept legal responsibility for the contents of this message. > Any views or opinions presented are solely those of the author and do > not necessarily represent those of the Barclays Group unless otherwise > specifically stated. > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > ---------- > > ----- > Message-ID: <200006140811.KAA28119@duna80.danubius> > From: Imre.Kolos@eth.ericsson.se > To: "White, Kelvin" <KWhite@talisman-energy.com> > Subject: Re: To EMC or not to EMC? That is the question... > Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2000 02:11:46 -0600 > X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21) > > Hi Kelvin, > > Is your choice restricted to EMC and Sun intentionally ? > Do you know of comparable storage products of IBM, Compaq and > NetworkAppliance ? > We are just about finishing our Enterprise Storage vendor > selection process, for us (for our needs) IBM and Compaq is > on top, beating HP, EMC and Sun. NetApp is a very exciting > alternative with some restrictions. > > So I can't comprehensively compare EMC and Sun, but let me > know if the others interest you. > > regards, > Imre > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > Imre Kolos e-mail: Imre.Kolos@eth.ericsson.se > UNIX support mgr. tel: +36 1 4377322 > Ericsson Ltd. Hungary fax: +36 1 4377374 > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > ----- > Message-ID: <39473D0C.BF6A9520@de.origin-it.com> > From: Dieter Wurm <dieter.wurm@de.origin-it.com> > To: "White, Kelvin" <KWhite@talisman-energy.com> > Subject: Re: To EMC or not to EMC? That is the question... > Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2000 02:06:37 -0600 > X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21) > > hye there, > if you search realy high availability, than EMC is the only > Solution with Trust... > we have Cellera and Symetrix conneted for NFS-File-Service > and the Performance and Availability is that what we expected, even > more. The next Step will be Integration in heavy heterogeneous World > with MPFS (Beta-Site will start soon) and Connectivity with > SAN-Components. > If you whatch only to the Price, than your Decision is going the wrong > way, believe > me! > > Any Questions? Don't hesitate... > > Dieter Wurm > > ----- > Message-ID: <862568FE.00239B7D.00@notessmtp.forsythesolutions.com> > From: mjohnson@forsythemca.com > To: "White, Kelvin" <KWhite@talisman-energy.com> > Subject: Re: To EMC or not to EMC? That is the question... > Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2000 00:15:18 -0600 > X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21) > > Kevin, > > I do not have a formal checklist, but I can speak to the issue at hand. You > have a choice that many must face when transitioning data management > strategies > from decentralization to centralization, etc. You must address the > following > issues: > > Direct connect to the host > Direct connect to multiple hosts > Data Sharing amongst hosts > SAN, strategic direction now or in the near future > Enterprise functionality, a necessity > Network attached > Backups > Disaster Recovery > Fibre Channel > SCSI attached > Application usage > Database usage > Database in use > Availability required > Data criticality > Budget > > These issues are most of the initial issues that must be addressed before > you > can truly start looking at one player or another. If you are looking for an > enterprise solution with enterprise connectivity and functionality, EMC is > the > enterprise player which you have mentioned. SUN has good disk products and > many > well functioning software packages in conjunction with those products; > however, > SUN does not have the full enterprise package. EMC has a SAN solution (ESN > if > you talk with them). You can direct attach to both SUN and EMC products; > however the question remains, are you going to attach one or multiple hosts > (heterogeneous or homogenous). Are you going to share data amongst systems? > How do you plan to do that? Do you want to attach to the storage through > the > network? How do you envision doing your backups? Do you have detailed > disaster > recovery plans? How will you fit this solution into those disaster recovery > plans? To boil it down... If it is enterprise storage, then your answer is > EMC. If it is isolated to a particular project, localized application, > relatively small foot print (>250GB), and budget is an issue, then SUN is > the > answer. Beyond those basic points, things get complicated beyond a quick > response. > > Happy hunting, > > Marc Johnson > > "White, Kelvin" <KWhite@talisman-energy.com> on 06/13/2000 07:35:06 PM > > To: 'Sun Managers Mailing List' <sun-managers@sunmanagers.ececs.uc.edu> > cc: (bcc: Marc Johnson/Forsythe) > Subject: To EMC or not to EMC? That is the question... > > Would anyone care to share their hard won experience in choosing between a > Sun storage solution and an EMC storage solution? What criteria did you use? > Checklists? Pro's/Con's of either? > > Send me your laundry lists...and opinions...and examples of past decision > making on storage...thanks...Kelvin > > ___________________________________ > Kelvin White > mailto:kelvin.white@pobox.com > (403) 237-1047 direct > (403) 237-1674 fax > > ----- > Message-ID: <20000614154341.A7375@uow.edu.au> > From: "Peter D. Gray" <pdg@uow.edu.au> > To: "White, Kelvin" <KWhite@talisman-energy.com> > Subject: Re: To EMC or not to EMC? That is the question... > Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2000 23:43:41 -0600 > X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21) > > On Tue, Jun 13, 2000 at 07:12:50PM -0600, White, Kelvin wrote: > > > > > > netapp is not considered due to Oracle and clustering requirements... > > > > Errrrr... but netapp are certified for oracle (see netapp web site, > you need to set a single option on the netapp to be supported > by oracle, i think they were the first NFS appliance > ever certified by oracle) and they do clustering? > > Regards, > pdg > > ----- > Message-ID: <D36AF5FAE7CED311A4BE009027E33ED06957BA@CLAVENEXCH> > From: Grant Lowe <glowe@skydesk.com> > To: "White, Kelvin" <KWhite@talisman-energy.com> > Subject: RE: To EMC or not to EMC? That is the question... > Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2000 19:45:59 -0600 > X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21) > > We're using an EMC right now. We have a lower end one. Pretty soon we'll > be getting they're top of the line, something they nick name the Big Ben. I > think the model number is 3900 something. We've had pretty good luck with > the one we have so far. It has a "dial-home" feature (a modem attached) > that is pretty cool. Helps them to help us. Plus they have VERY good tech > support. 7/24 toll-free and easy to reach when I've had questions. One > thing they do have is their RAID S, which only uses half the normal RAID > 0+1, so you 50 percent more storage. > > The only beef I really have with them is that I found out I needed some > patches and I thought they would tell me what I needed, but they didn't. > Fortunately, nothing critical, but still when you spend that kind of > money... > > grant > > -----Original Message----- > From: White, Kelvin > To: 'Sun Managers Mailing List' > Sent: 6/13/00 5:35 PM > Subject: To EMC or not to EMC? That is the question... > > Would anyone care to share their hard won experience in choosing between > a > Sun storage solution and an EMC storage solution? What criteria did you > use? > Checklists? Pro's/Con's of either? > > Send me your laundry lists...and opinions...and examples of past > decision > making on storage...thanks...Kelvin > > ___________________________________ > Kelvin White > mailto:kelvin.white@pobox.com > (403) 237-1047 direct > (403) 237-1674 fax > > ----- > Message-ID: <20000614111325.A6879@uow.edu.au> > From: "Peter D. Gray" <pdg@uow.edu.au> > To: "White, Kelvin" <KWhite@talisman-energy.com> > Subject: Re: To EMC or not to EMC? That is the question... > Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2000 19:13:25 -0600 > X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21) > > On Tue, Jun 13, 2000 at 06:35:06PM -0600, White, Kelvin wrote: > > Would anyone care to share their hard won experience in choosing between a > > Sun storage solution and an EMC storage solution? What criteria did you > use? > > Checklists? Pro's/Con's of either? > > > > Send me your laundry lists...and opinions...and examples of past decision > > making on storage...thanks...Kelvin > > > > I assume there is some reason for not considering a network appliance? > We have a netapp and are VERY happy. > > Regards, > pdg > > ----- > Message-ID: <200006140109.VAA18826@alpha.fdu.edu> > From: Greg Obremski <obremski@alpha.fdu.edu> > To: "White, Kelvin" <KWhite@talisman-energy.com> > Subject: Re: To EMC or not to EMC? That is the question... > Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2000 19:09:26 -0600 > X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21) > > I used to work for Goldman Sachs...they're a very large emc shop. > > Pros for using EMC over Standalone disks: > > Ease/Peace of mind. (disk dies, the emc boxes call home, and replace the > disk. > you never have to worry about bad disks or replacing them again. And they > pretty much *never ever* go down. You won't have to worry about losing disks > or data ever again. It's roughly as save and error-free as you can get these > days.) > > Multiple connects (machine A in building 1 is attached to an EMC array. You > can > put machine B in building 2, as a backup for machine A, connected to the > same > disks, but sitting at a prom prompt. if machine A goes down, just type boot > on machine B...and its up where A left off.) (assuming you're on sun or > other *nix boxes anyway..still applies to pc's tho i guess) > > Almost unlimited configurability. No more needing to tack on more arrays, > unless > you happen to max out the emc box.. > > Distance. You can have the computer in one building, its backup counterpart > in > another, and the EMC disks in a 3rd. It dosent get much more redundant than > that. > > Cons: > > Expensive. Very expensive. If I recall correctly, you rent the disks from > them, > per month. It can get pricy...but see Ease/Peace of mind above. > > A little time consuming at the start. Depending on how long it'll take to > run cables, set up the disks, etc, it may be a little while initially before > you can plug in a machine and get it all going. Little while as in days or > so. > However, if you're not droppign machines in in a "must have it up and > production > by 3pm today with no planning" kind of basis, this is fine. > > Basically..the main drawback is expense. On one hand, it's damne xpensive > and > hard to justify. On the other...once you have it, you'll never go back. > It's worth it, if you'r ein an enviornment where you have neither the time, > resources, or ability to deal with gobs of disk issues. > > The NYSE uses EMC for all its storage for a reason....I, for one, would > recommend EMC if you can afford it, and justify it. (If you're talking like > 20 machines or somethign small like that..it'd be cheaper and more > cost-effective to stick a bunch of A1000's on. But, ifg you're dealign with > several hundred or thousand, like I did...EMC's the way to go. You can even > boot from them, which is a total bonus.) > > Hope that helps... > > Greg > > > > > Would anyone care to share their hard won experience in choosing between a > > Sun storage solution and an EMC storage solution? What criteria did you > use? > > Checklists? Pro's/Con's of either? > > > > Send me your laundry lists...and opinions...and examples of past decision > > making on storage...thanks...Kelvin > > > > ___________________________________ > > Kelvin White > > mailto:kelvin.white@pobox.com > > (403) 237-1047 direct > > (403) 237-1674 fax > > > > > > > > > > ----- > Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.4.10.10006131953570.20574-100000@logical.logical-approach.com> > From: Al Hopper <al@logical-approach.com> > To: "White, Kelvin" <KWhite@talisman-energy.com> > Subject: Re: To EMC or not to EMC? That is the question... > Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2000 19:04:19 -0600 > X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21) > > On Tue, 13 Jun 2000, White, Kelvin wrote: > > > Would anyone care to share their hard won experience in choosing between a > > Sun storage solution and an EMC storage solution? What criteria did you > use? > > Checklists? Pro's/Con's of either? > > > > Send me your laundry lists...and opinions...and examples of past decision > > making on storage...thanks...Kelvin > > I have no first hand experience of EMC solutions, but I know that they are > way overpriced for what they offer. Before you spend any $s with EMC, take > a look at Hitachi (Hitachi Data Systems) who offer the same kind of box as > EMC but with much better cost/Mb. > > Other than that your options are: > > o JBOD using Emulex PCI based controllers and FC-AL disk drives with > Veritas software (RAID mirroring, striping, striping/mirroring etc). > > o Network Appliances box. Problem here is their pricing model really > sucks. Or really their business model really sucks: you can't even get a > list price without talking to a sales droid. And they are really > overpriced. But if you want to write a large number of small files (in a > hurry), there are very few alternatives. > > o You may very well need a combination of both technologies: > > a) Large striped/mirrored filesystems for RDBMS data files (one example) > > b) Small high write activity filesystems like email, news, messaging, RDBMS > transaction logs etc. > > IMHO there is no "one solution fits every problem space" silver bullet. > You are much better off spending your $s on a "mixed" solution - especially > since you may be buying a "box" to solve todays application mix, but you > really cannot determine what tomorrows application mix might be!!! > > Comments welcome. > > Al Hopper Logical Approach Inc, Plano, TX. al@logical-approach.com > Voice: 972.379.2133 Fax: 972.379.2134 > MicroSoft "ILOVEYOU". Thanks for engineering a 100% Virus Enabled platform! > > ----- > Message-ID: <DF7E4441E178D1119C1E0000F86AF53605BD6381@appsrv1> > From: Robert Hill <Robert_Hill@cch.com> > To: "White, Kelvin" <KWhite@talisman-energy.com> > Subject: Re: To EMC or not to EMC? That is the question... > Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2000 18:49:01 -0600 > X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21) > > We went with EMC, and at first I wasn't that impressed due to their > prices, but > I'm sold. Their service and support are first rate, and their > software tools are simple > yet powerful. Their list prices are outrageous --I've seen over 70% > discounts, so if you > do go with them, be prepared to play hardball... > > Downside, you can't use Sun's Clustering software- we went with > Veritas... > > Just an opinion... > Rob > > From: "White, Kelvin" <KWhite@talisman-energy.com> on 06/13/2000 > 07:35 PM > To: Sun Managers Mailing List > <sun-managers@sunmanagers.ececs.uc.edu>@SMTP@cchntmsd > cc: > > Subject: To EMC or not to EMC? That is the question... > > Would anyone care to share their hard won experience in choosing > between a > Sun storage solution and an EMC storage solution? What criteria did > you use? > Checklists? Pro's/Con's of either? > > Send me your laundry lists...and opinions...and examples of past > decision > making on storage...thanks...Kelvin > > ___________________________________ > Kelvin White > mailto:kelvin.white@pobox.com > (403) 237-1047 direct > (403) 237-1674 fax > > ----- > Message-ID: <DF7E4441E178D1119C1E0000F86AF536057193F4@appsrv1> > From: "White, Kelvin" <KWhite@talisman-energy.com> > To: 'Sun Managers Mailing List' <sun-managers@sunmanagers.ececs.uc.edu> > Subject: To EMC or not to EMC? That is the question... > Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2000 18:35:06 -0600 > X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21) > > Would anyone care to share their hard won experience in choosing between a > Sun storage solution and an EMC storage solution? What criteria did you use? > Checklists? Pro's/Con's of either? > > Send me your laundry lists...and opinions...and examples of past decision > making on storage...thanks...Kelvin > > ___________________________________ > Kelvin White > mailto:kelvin.white@pobox.com > (403) 237-1047 direct > (403) 237-1674 fax
-- Gregory Peters IT Manager EdgeNet Communications Corporation 1350 Bayshore Highway Ste.380 Burlingame, CA 94010 650.347.1260 x109 650.347.1214 fax gpeters@encc.com http://www.encc.com
Making the Connection - Edge to Edge
----- Message-ID: <OF8A39EA2F.E3F3EA63-ON862568FE.00705452@stsv.seagate.com> From: Doug_Phelps@notes.seagate.com To: "White, Kelvin" <KWhite@talisman-energy.com> Subject: Re: To EMC or not to EMC? That is the question... Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2000 14:30:40 -0600 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21)
I would not go with the Sun A3500FC storage. I have had horribly experiences with this machine. I have had the A3500s in for several years and they perform really well but Sun really screwed up with there fiber interface on the A3500FC storage array. The purple announcement shows great promise and I have no information on the A5000 machines. We have had an EMC in house for several years without any issues. Sun really discourages booting from the EMC machines.
Also, I have just installed my first XioTech array to an E10K today. I am acually still working on this but it shows great promise.
"White, Kelvin" <KWhite@talisman-energy.com>@Eng.Auburn.EDU on 06/14/2000 13:48:11
Please respond to "White, Kelvin" <KWhite@talisman-energy.com>
Sent by: owner-ssa-managers@Eng.Auburn.EDU
To: ssa-managers@Eng.Auburn.EDU cc:
Subject: To EMC or not to EMC? That is the question...
> Would anyone care to share their hard won experience in choosing between a > Sun storage solution and an EMC storage solution? What criteria did you > use? Checklists? Pro's/Con's of either? > > Send me your laundry lists...and opinions...and examples of past decision > making on storage...thanks...Kelvin > > ___________________________________ > Kelvin White > mailto:kelvin.white@pobox.com > (403) 237-1047 direct > (403) 237-1674 fax > >
----- Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.3.95L.1000614200346.9796A-100000@voltron.oit.unc.edu> From: Chris Colomb <chris@tac.unc.edu> To: "White, Kelvin" <KWhite@talisman-energy.com> Subject: Re: To EMC or not to EMC? That is the question... Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2000 18:07:12 -0600 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21)
Kelvin:
I'm faced with this exact same decision I'd really appreciate any information you turn up.
I've run about every type of storage that Sun has (feel free to ask me any questions about their stuff) but never EMC and EMC is what we're looking at (talking with them again tomorrow).
Thanks in advance,
Chris
On Wed, 14 Jun 2000, White, Kelvin wrote:
> > > Would anyone care to share their hard won experience in choosing between a > > Sun storage solution and an EMC storage solution? What criteria did you > > use? Checklists? Pro's/Con's of either? > > > > Send me your laundry lists...and opinions...and examples of past decision > > making on storage...thanks...Kelvin > > > > ___________________________________ > > Kelvin White > > mailto:kelvin.white@pobox.com > > (403) 237-1047 direct > > (403) 237-1674 fax > > > > >
----- Message-ID: <Pine.OSF.4.21.0006151241460.78755-100000@vidar.mbt.washington.edu> From: Richard Bond <rbond@mbt.washington.edu> To: "White, Kelvin" <KWhite@talisman-energy.com> Subject: Re: To EMC or not to EMC? That is the question... Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2000 13:43:53 -0600 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21)
We built-
6500-HA pair 4500-HA pair Clarion 5700 (Now EMC - maybe the new model is 4500 ) Vixel switches/emulex 7000E fibre cards
very fast/ works great
- Richard Bond (rbond@mbt.washington.edu (206) 605-3561 System Administrator K-351, Health Sciences Center Department of Molecular Biotechnology Box 357730 University of Washington Seattle, WA 98195
On Wed, 14 Jun 2000, White, Kelvin wrote:
> Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2000 12:48:11 -0600 > From: "White, Kelvin" <KWhite@talisman-energy.com> > To: ssa-managers@Eng.Auburn.EDU > Subject: To EMC or not to EMC? That is the question... > > > > Would anyone care to share their hard won experience in choosing between a > > Sun storage solution and an EMC storage solution? What criteria did you > > use? Checklists? Pro's/Con's of either? > > > > Send me your laundry lists...and opinions...and examples of past decision > > making on storage...thanks...Kelvin > > > > ___________________________________ > > Kelvin White > > mailto:kelvin.white@pobox.com > > (403) 237-1047 direct > > (403) 237-1674 fax > > > > >
----- Message-ID: <834B92CB0E4CD21184A400A0C9D180BD0190ADE3@NTEXC0001> From: "Graff, Tracy" <Tracy-Graff@forum-financial.com> To: "White, Kelvin" <KWhite@talisman-energy.com> Subject: RE: To EMC or not to EMC? That is the question... Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2000 11:42:58 -0600 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21)
Kelvin,
I just wanted to thank you for forwarding all of your replies to me. It was interesting reading....
Have a good weekend.
Tracy
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Tracy M. Graff UNIX Systems Administrator ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Forum Financial Group phone: (207) 822-6515 Two Portland Square fax: (207) 822-6655 Portland, ME 04101 email: tracy-graff@forum-financial.com
----- Message-ID: <E182C4951281D1118AF400A0C9975E1227162B@MAILSERVER> From: Tom Houston <thouston@ssi.ie> To: "White, Kelvin" <KWhite@talisman-energy.com> Subject: Enterprise Storage Solutions Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2000 03:00:09 -0600 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21)
Kelvin,
Have you considered the Hewlett-Packard XP256 as a storage option. We have installed a few of them here in Ireland and the customers are delighted.
Scales from 47Gb to 12Tb No single point of failure
We have been successful selling against EMC etc into areas like Stockbrokers etc where uptime is a must.
If you have any questions (or if you'd like to buy one!!!!!) let me know and I'll do my best to help
Hope I was of some use to you.
Tom Houston Enterprise Storage Sales Manager SSI
----- Message-ID: <3953A035.2750EB4A@weblinkwireless.com> From: Bill Fay <Bill.Fay@weblinkwireless.com> To: "White, Kelvin" <KWhite@talisman-energy.com> Subject: Re: To EMC or not to EMC? That is the question... Date: Fri, 23 Jun 2000 11:36:53 -0600 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21)
Kevin, I don't have any real personal info as I am relatively new with my current employer but I can tell you that we are shifting from EMC to IBM Shark. By what I gather, the Sharks are simpler to configure, maintain, and MUCH less $$$$$. bf
"White, Kelvin" wrote:
> Would anyone care to share their hard won experience in choosing between a > Sun storage solution and an EMC storage solution? What criteria did you use? > Checklists? Pro's/Con's of either? > > Send me your laundry lists...and opinions...and examples of past decision > making on storage...thanks...Kelvin > > ___________________________________ > Kelvin White > mailto:kelvin.white@pobox.com > (403) 237-1047 direct > (403) 237-1674 fax
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