Users look to ease SAN adoption

The installation and configuration of storage-area network technology has gotten simpler as companies such as Dell and QLogic have begun selling low-cost, easy-to-install SAN equipment and software, users say. The trend is expected to become even simpler, when HP, QLogic and Microsoft introduce low-cost SAN packages at Storage Networking World next week in Orlando.

The companies are following a trend of introducing SAN packages for users who are looking to set up their own environments that are easier to use. Among the SAN bundles already available are the Dell/EMC AX100, QLogic's SAN Connectivity Kit and StoneFly Networks' IP SAN, which lets users attach Advanced Technology Attachment drives to the Gigabit network.

One IT manager, Tim Pindell, network engineer for Otterbein University in Westerville, Ohio, installed a Fibre Channel-based Dell/EMC SAN on his own. Another, Lorie Beam, director of IT for law firm Smith Anderson in Raleigh, N.C., had EMC install her blended network-attached storage (NAS)/SAN for her.

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The installation and configuration of storage-area network technology has gotten simpler as companies such as Dell and QLogic have begun selling low-cost, easy-to-install SAN equipment and software, users say. The trend is expected to become even simpler, when HP, QLogic and Microsoft introduce low-cost SAN packages at Storage Networking World next week in Orlando.

The companies are following a trend of introducing SAN packages for users who are looking to set up their own environments that are easier to use. Among the SAN bundles already available are the Dell/EMC AX100, QLogic's SAN Connectivity Kit and StoneFly Networks' IP SAN, which lets users attach Advanced Technology Attachment drives to the Gigabit network.

One IT manager, Tim Pindell, network engineer for Otterbein University in Westerville, Ohio, installed a Fibre Channel-based Dell/EMC SAN on his own. Another, Lorie Beam, director of IT for law firm Smith Anderson in Raleigh, N.C., had EMC install her blended network-attached storage (NAS)/SAN for her.

Still another, Bill Polymenakos, director of technology at construction company Ecker Enterprises in Chicago, had a value-added reseller install an IP SAN, although he says he could have done it himself, if he had the time.

Pindell installed and configured his Dell/EMC AX100 Fibre Channel SAN to meet the performance requirements he had for his Microsoft Exchange and SQL Server implementations. The AX100 connects to two servers via an integrated Fibre Channel switch.

No experience needed

"I had no Fibre Channel experience whatsoever when I installed the AX100," Pindell says. "It was pretty straightforward. The drivers were easy to install. It was just like installing any other network adapter. Once I hooked up the fiber-optic cables to the Dell AX/100, everything saw each other. I just followed the directions that Dell gave me."

Pindell also evaluated NAS appliances, but found they cost more than his Dell/EMC SAN. A dual-controller Dell/EMC AX/100 Storage Array with four QLogic host bus adapters (HBA) and 880G bytes of capacity starts at $14,300.

"If we were going to spend the kind of money on a NAS device, we might as well step up to the performance we could receive from a Fibre Channel SAN," says Pindell.

Using documentation Dell provided, Pindell assigned servers to storage resources.

"There was some general information on partitioning the array," says Pindell, who has 850G to 900G bytes of Fibre Channel storage. "You just have to follow the onscreen directions based on the recommendations for your size box."

Pindell says one of the primary issues that drove the company's decision to buy Fibre Channel storage was the AX/100's scalability. The AX100 can scale to 3T bytes.

"We don't anticipate that we will grow enough to put in a separate Fibre Channel switch, Pindell says. However, he says that as more users at Otterbein access the SAN, he might need to reconfigure his SAN and add a separate Fibre Channel switch.

Pindell also was interested in the redundancy and fault tolerance the AX100 offered. He installed two QLogic HBAs in each server that fail over for each other. He also has supplemented his array with dual controllers.

"I confirmed that the HBAs would fail over if one got pinched," Pindell says. "I also confirmed its failover capability by unplugging one of the controllers on the back of the AX100. It was able to recover after a few moments, and there were no problems with inactivity."

As for saving money implementing his first SAN, Pindell says he won't have to buy internal storage on any more servers and will be able to add more drives to the AX100 when he needs more capacity.

"We just have to buy new drives, not new servers," Pindell says.