http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9176075/Enterprise_SSDs_to_soar_through_2015?taxonomyId=19

If you want to dive deeper on this topic email me dan.brinkmann@lewan.com , this is a transformational technology!

http://blog.scottlowe.org/2009/10/25/setting-up-fcoe-on-a-nexus-5000/

http://wikis.sun.com/display/BluePrints/Provisioning+with+iSCSI+and+Solaris+ZFS+in+10+Minutes

Here is also a link for a HP Lefthand document which describes how to expand a Solaris UFS File System on the fly.
HP Lefthand How To – Expand a Solaris UFS File System on the Fly

Here’s a great Sun article on using Multipath (MPIO) on Solaris with iSCSI:
http://docs.sun.com/app/docs/doc/819-2723/fncpc?l=en&a=view

The article mentions the steps were tested on Redhat Enterprise (RHEL) v5, CentOS v5, Fedora v7 and Debian/Ubuntu Linux.
I went through the steps on a CentOS v5.3 x64 machine and it worked flawlessly.

Here’s another link when working with the Linux Device-mapper Multi-pathing with iSCSI:
http://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/rhel-linux4-setup-device-mapper-multipathing-devicemapper.html

Here is a link on working with SAN Snapshots and mounting that snapshot volume to a Linux host:
http://knowledgelayer.softlayer.com/questions/405/How+to+connect+to+an+iSCSI+Snapshot

Here are also some useful Linux and iSCSI documents from HP Lefthand that we’ve uploaded to this blog:
Setting Up iSCSI volumes on CENTOS 5, RedHat 5, Fedora 7 and, Debian
Configuring CHAP authentication with the linux iscsi initiator
LeftHand Volumes with SUSE Linux iSCSI

Here are the high-level differences between SAS and SATA disk drives:

Capacity:

• SATA disk drives are the largest on the market.  The largest SATA drives available with widespread distribution today are 1.5TB-2TB.
• SAS disk drives are typically smaller than SATA.  The largest SAS drives available with widespread distribution today are 450GB.
• So, for capacity, a SATA disk drive is 3X-4x as dense for capacity than SAS.
• A good way to quantify capacity comparison is $/GB.  SATA will have best $/GB.

Performance:

• SATA disk drives spin at 7.2k RPMs.  Average seek time on SATA is 9.5msec.  Raw Disk IOPS (IOs per second) are 106.
• SAS disk drives spin at 15k RPMs.  Average seek time on SATA is 3.5msec.  Raw Disk IOPS (IOs per second) are 294.
• So, for performance, a SAS hard drive is nearly 3X as fast as SATA.
• A good way to quantify performance comparison is $/IOP.  SAS will have best $/IOP.

Reliability: there are two reliability measures – MTBF and BER.

• MTBF is mean time between failures.  MTBF is a statistical measure of drive reliability.
• BER is Bit Error Rate.  BER is a measure of read error rates for disk drives.
• SATA drives have a MTBF of 1.2 million hours.  SAS drives have a MTBF of 1.6 million hours.  SAS drives are more reliable than SATA when looking at MTBF.
• SATA drives have a BER of 1 read error in 10^15 bits read.  SAS drives have a BER of 1 read error in 10^16 bits read.  SAS drives are 10x more reliable for read errors.  Keep in mind a read error is data loss without other mechanisms (RAID or Network RAID) in place to recover the data.

Here are some good links for comparing disk types:
http://www.seagate.com/docs/pdf/datasheet/disc/ds_barracuda_es_2.pdf
http://www.seagate.com/docs/pdf/datasheet/disc/ds_cheetah_15k_7.pdf
http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/servers/proliantstorage/drives-enclosures/index.html

1 gig = 125 MB/sec

2 gig = 250 MB/sec

4 gig = 500 MB/sec

8 gig = 1000 MB/sec

10 gig = 1250 MB/sec

Brocade – How-To Collect a “supportshow” from a Brocade Switch from a Windows Host with HyperTerminal
Follow these steps:

1. Start the HyperTerminal program by selecting Start -> Programs -> Accessories -> Communications -> HyperTerminal.
2. Make a new connection and select a name and icon for the connection.
3. A “Connect to” window is displayed.
4. Change the Connection using modem to TCP/IP (Winsock) and enter the IP address of the Brocade switch.
5. Click the OK button.
6. Log in to Brocade switch (default user: admin/default password: password), and then start to capture text. Select Transfer -> Capture text -> File C:\supportshow.wri.
7. Run the Brocade supportshow command.
8. After the command completes, stop the “capture text” process (Transfer -> Capture text -> Stop).
9. After completing this for all switches in all related fabrics, type quit and close the HyperTerminal session.

Cisco Support Logs

To capture support logs for a Cisco FC switch, following these instructions:

1) For firmware 1.2(x) and above telnet to the switch and open a capture session.
2) Run the following commands:
    term len 0
    show tech-support details
3) For firmware 1.0(4):  There is not a single command like a supportshow or data collection. There are two ways to get the outputs needed to troubleshoot most Cisco switch issues. Contact Lewan for additional information.

McDATA Switch Data Collection

In order to collect data from a McDATA switch being managed by McDATA’s EFCM utility, follow these instructions:

1. Select the switch that you want to collect data from.
2. Select Maintenance and then Data Collection.
3. Enter a file name to call the file and then select save. Note the directory where the data is saved.  Once you select save, the data collection takes over and the files is downloaded to the local PC and stored in the directory specified.

How to collect switch information and related data from a McDATA DS-16M, DS-32M or another switch with EWS:

These switches (also known as ES3016 and ES3032)  have an Embedded Web Server (EWS) GUI. You can access this through a web browser by entering the IP Address in the URL address line  (that is, http:/10.14.1.92).  Once you have logged in you can run a script that collects switch information including: Network Info, Operating Parameters, Zone Info, Port Login Data, Port Data and Port Types, and Switch Status.

Note:  These model switches do not support serial port connectivity for information retrieval.

To collect this information, follow these steps:

1. Once you have logged in to the EWS GUI, click on ” Operations ” from the left frame of the EWS GUI.
2. Click the third tab called “Maintenance.”
3. Click the secondary tab labeled Product Info.
4. Click Product Information. This will generate a report.
5. Click “File” on the web browser toolbar and select “Save As” to save the .txt file with either the default name or one that you rename it to. Save it on the desktop or to a directory where you can locate it so that you can email it to Technical Support.

To locate the switch firmware revision, follow these steps:

1. Click “View” from the left frame of the EWS GUI.
2. Select Unit Properties. The last entry of that page has the firmware level.

http://www.techhead.co.uk/how-to-configure-openfiler-v23-iscsi-storage-for-use-with-vmware-esx

I’ve heard great things about OpenFiler from our customers who are using it. Keep in mind, you’ll want to keep OpenFiler in DR environments or Test/Dev environments as there is some limits on performance. But those who are looking for a free iSCSI target or appliance, it’s a good one.

You might also check out our other post on some of the other common iSCSI appliances, very similar to OpenFiler:
http://lewanps.wordpress.com/2009/02/04/xtravirt-xvs-iscsi-san-vm-appliance/
http://lewanps.wordpress.com/2009/01/08/dr-in-a-box/

Enjoy!

This post is similar to these other options we’ve mentioned for iSCSI SAN VM appliances:
http://lewanps.wordpress.com/2009/01/08/dr-in-a-box/

Enjoy!

http://www.getdropbox.com/

Hope it’s useful to you!