The mysteries of SANs

SAN. What a nice three letter acronym. Zzzzzz. Well it does stand for something - storage area network. And since the company that employs me has been going through a massive growth streak, we’ve implemented a SAN. If SANs had existed during the Middle Ages, they would have been managed by wizards and other practitioners of assorted arcanery. You almost need a new bachelor’s degree to understand the basic concepts that underlay the technology.

So anyhow, while I was away at war, the company, led by my trusty right hand man, who I’ll refer to as Mighty T, put in a fibre channel SAN in the main corporate office. Problem - we have four corporate offices, each of which should probably have its own SAN. After all, our data pipes are T1s not OC3s. It takes time for the electronic soup to move back and forth through those little pipes. Our employees are taking cold data showers. They’re tired of waiting for the information to warm up…

Long story short - we’re investigating new SAN solutions that might be better fitted to our company’s needs. Enter the vendors.

Using only the company initials (I lie sometimes), we’re in talks with Left Hand Networks and Equallogic. They are not the only two dealers of SANs in existence, but we don’t have time to listen to 17 pitches. I wish we did, because I could probably get a free lunch every time.

Left Hand Networks seems to have a less proprietary thing going, and I tend to like that approach. They use several different vendors hardware to build their systems, and they had a good pitch. Equallogic is a bigger company. I missed their pitch because I was still in Iraq. So I’m scouring the net today for comparisons of the two vendors SAN systems.

First, let me explain that our basic operating premise is that fibre channel is too expensive and complicated for us. We think iSCSI will be the dominant SAN technology. It’s cheaper, more scalable, seems very reliable and redundant and most of all it’s cheaper. According to Network Computing:

iSCSI accounts for only two percent of the SAN market, but its low cost and ease of use are positioning it for growth. We examined four iSCSI modular SANs and found our Editor’s Choice running circles around the competition.

Network computing also decided that they had a clear winner in their “real-world” tests:

In our real-world performance tests, the EqualLogic dominated the competition, with MPC and LeftHand Networks following at a distant second and third.

On the other hand, Storage Networking World Online (crappy long name, I know) says that:

Consistent customer feedback says that LeftHand’s solution is “easy to implement,” “really drag-and-drop storage” with “the ability to easily auto grow volumes.” One user declares, “We are one of the few organizations our size with a DR plan in place. The reason is that LeftHand makes it so easy to do.” Upgrades are reported to be very smooth and often done while in production.

While users report an occasional hardware failure, they are highly complimentary about SAN/iQ’s ability to tolerate such failures with minimal degradation due to seamless, non-disruptive re-striping. Users are also very happy with LeftHand’s direct support.

And in the “guys I know” department, one guy has a Left Hand SAN solution and loves it. And another guy I know who consults for a living says they are a “garage operation” and to stay away. It’s the age old dilemma we’ve all faced at one time or another - do I want to buy my SAN from the big name corporate suits or should I give the little guys in Dockers and scuffed hush puppies a chance?

What I want to know is - do any of you experienced uber-admins out there have an opinion *insert sarcasm*? Is EqualLogic the only game in town when it comes to an iSCSI SAN? Some of you have real world experience that you might share with no vested interest in the eventual outcome for my company. I want to hear from you. I want to know what you think of EqualLogic, Intransa, StoneFly, Nimbus Data, FalconStor, Xiotech or Network Appliance. Who has the best product, the best price and the best support? We need all three in a package. That should be simple, shouldn’t it?