Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 00:37:46 -0400 From: John Von Essen <john@essenz.com> To: freebsd-scsi@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Status of iSCSI Message-ID: <4FBA10EE-11D1-11D9-B2A1-0003933DDCFA@essenz.com> In-Reply-To: <415A3060.1060402@forrie.com> References: <415A3060.1060402@forrie.com>
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(Forrest - Had to post to list too as my mail also bounced back) Not sure if your budget can handle it, but if I where you.... I would stick with NFS over GigE network. But go with a very robust hardened NFS soluton, like a NetApp FAS960 Fileserver. Throughput is very good, SPOF is non-existent, the disk shelves are fiber channel so you can start with 0.5Tb and scale as high (30Tb) as you want on the fly (within nfs filesystem mount limits). A good NetApp system with 1/2 a terabyte will run you around $70,000 (last time I checked). Can be lower through refurb and/or second hand markets. There are cheaper alternatives but these are no where near the performance level of the NetApp units. -john On Sep 28, 2004, at 11:47 PM, Forrest Aldrich wrote: > [Scott, sorry about the bounced mail - it was an old IP block I had, > it's fixed now.] > > I'm working on a project that requires a scalable mail store, which is > poised to support 25k users initially, but scale to 100's of thousands > of users. > > The budget won't provide for a SAN right now; iSCSI is a little new, > but unfortunately it's not supported in FreeBSD at this time. > > I've been looking into the storage market areas specifically of Linux > and/vs FreeBSD. A Linux/NAS/iSCSI model and that of a > FreeBSD/NAS/NFS model -- not sure we want to do direct storage at this > time, if we did, we'd need to plan how that purchased hardware would > fit into a larger plan. > > NAS has the advantage of being independent; some have their own OS and > most have redundancies in place. I'm not sure if it's possible to > dual-attach Linux or FreeBSD boxes to a FC fabric; a while ago, that > wasn't possible. > > The front-end servers will be split up into scalable groups - ie: some > servers doing SpamAssassin, some antivirus, some MTA-in and MTA-out, > etc. > > The common denomenator, and driving factor of this design, is the > backend mail store. I'd like to explore what (realistic) options > FreeBSD may have here - as I dread the thought of Linux-anything in > this scenario. > > All input/feedback welcomed. > > > > Forrest > > > > > > There was an implementation done by Lucent last year for 4.x, but it > has > a sticky license and is probably out of date. I and several others see > iSCSI as something that really needs to get done, but the 3-4 months of > development time is more than can be done on evenings and weekends. I > would also want to do it 'right' and implement new infrastructure in > CAM > to accompany it rather than making it monolithic like the Lucent > implementation. > > What kind of project do you need it for, and what kind of resources do > you have right now? > > Scott > > > Forrest Aldrich wrote: > > I read the April 2004 report (on freebsd.org); presuming that's > > up-to-date, it may be a while before we have iSCSI support in > FreeBSD. > > I wanted to verify here, etc. > > > > I'm involved in a project that will require something of that nature. > > > > > > Thanks, > > Forrest > > > > > _______________________________________________ > freebsd-scsi@freebsd.org mailing list > http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-scsi > To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-scsi-unsubscribe@freebsd.org" > > John Von Essen (john@essenz.com) President, Essenz Consulting (www.essenz.com) Phone: (800) 248-1736 Fax: (800) 852-3387
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