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Pete,

Here, it was decided to host all disk storage on the i5 and use VMWare
Server for server virtualization/consolidation. We implemented this
configuration using IXA about two years ago and now will be migrating from
IXA to iSCSI to take advantage of IBM's recently announced support for
VMWare ESX Server. Daily backup/recovery procedures as well as the overall
DR plan have been greatly simplified. Everything fits in one rack which has
greatly reduced the space requirements. The power requirements for both the
computing equipment and the HVAC system have also been cut. To reduce
acquisition costs, we went with used drives which can be purchased for half
the price of new.

Rob's point about having to restore an entire server to get back one
file can be mitigated by isolating your data on a separate virtual disk
which will allow you to just restore that disk, link it to a server and copy
the file from there. We haven't had to do this kind of restore very often
but it's fairly painless and with an LTO3 tape drive it doesn't take too
much time.

Regards,

BJ


On 9/14/07, Pete Helgren <Pete@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

John mentioned in the RAID Cache Battery Source thread about NAS and
iSCSI and the System i. I am facing some decisions about storage and
server consolidation in the near future (maybe 6 months or so) and I am
trying to plot a strategy that will try to kill as many birds with one
stone as possible.

I want to lead with the storage first because that is where I have the
most pain. I have 2TB of RAID 5 storage scattered over 3 or 4
Wintel/Linux servers, plus 220 Gb of storage on System i / iSeries (520
and 270). We have been adding disks to each of the servers over time
and have had to swap tape drives for some with greater capacity over
time and I am frankly getting tired of individual system upgrades. We
need to consolidate and rationalize the approach.

I know enough about SAN, NAS and iSCSI to be dangerous so what I am
working with is purely conceptual. I have no experience (yet) with this
stuff.

What I envision is an iSCSI storage system to start. I have one server
that I am just about to replace (rack mounted), and I could use iSCSI as
the storage solution for it. What I'd like to do is continue to add
drives to the iSCSI storage device as I retire each server. Some
servers will be virtualized and some will be metal to metal replacements
but in all cases I would rather add disks to the iSCSI device and then
use iSCSI interfaces in each server rather than add disks to the
servers. I may even look at a blade server rather than rack mount
servers because of the inevitability of a System i blade offering.

Does this approach make sense, particularly with a System i in the mix?
And, that System i is due for replacement late next summer/early fall (I
know the dear old 270 won't be able to play) I recall reading that the
System i can be an iSCSI target but not an initiator (true?). The whole
approach is to have a single storage device where the disks are
virtualized for use by the servers (both metal and virtualized). Then a
single tape backup strategy and a single blade center hosting the
servers. That gets me back to a simplified hardware/storage/backup
strategy.

Where are the gotcha's if this is feasible?

Pete

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