RE: [Xen-users] iscsi/nfs/aoe SAN storage for Xen

[Nathan Eisenberg <nathan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I wholeheartedly agree - there's nothing technically wrong with them.  They are 
very solid, high performance units with great interfaces, and fantastic 
support.  

But I had a very poor marketing experience with them (and I know others who 
have, as well), and so I can't recommend them.  The same goes with the Coraid 
units - they may well be excellent units, but I (and, I am sure, many others) 
find their marketing to be deceptive and insulting - and I completely refuse to 
support any company attempting to tell me that an AOE switchport costs a penny 
more than an iSCSI switchport, when I have both technologies in production, on 
the same switching equipment.

Maybe Equilogic's marketing was changed in the Dell acquisition - in which 
case, I now know what company their marketing people have moved to.  :)

Thank You,
Nathan Eisenberg
Sr. Systems Administrator
Atlas Networks, LLC


-----Original Message-----
From: Jeff Sturm [mailto:jeff.sturm@xxxxxxxxxx] 
Sent: Monday, July 06, 2009 6:30 PM
To: Nathan Eisenberg; xen-users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: RE: [Xen-users] iscsi/nfs/aoe SAN storage for Xen

> -----Original Message-----
> From: xen-users-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:xen-users-
> bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Nathan Eisenberg
> Sent: Monday, July 06, 2009 7:35 PM
> To: xen-users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: RE: [Xen-users] iscsi/nfs/aoe SAN storage for Xen
> 
> Those are the most monstrously inflated marketing numbers I've seen since a 
> VMWare
> rep took me out to lunch with an Equilogic rep and tried to convince me their 
> products
> would save me more money on HVAC and power than I was even spending!

There's a lot of bad marketing out there for sure--Coraid doesn't have a lock 
on that by any means.  There's nothing technically wrong with Equallogic units; 
we have one of those too.

My advice is:  Try each out for yourselves.  We did exactly that.  What 
eventually sold me on Coraid is that they "Just Work" and I could get perhaps 
10 of those for the price of a single competitor's unit.  Plus they are easy to 
stack for growth and reliability.

I'd be happy to share our experiences further (off list) to anyone interested.

Really though, I don't understand why AoE isn't more popular.  The main 
drawbacks I can tell is that it isn't a standard and has somewhat limited 
driver support.  But AoE works perfectly well with Linux and Xen, which are 
mainly what we use today.

Jeff

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