Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Colocation and Data Centers : "OnApp Storage": bullet-proof software SAN?

[eming]

Originally Posted by funkywizard

It would be great if you could specify 1 or 2 copies of data be stored on one tier (SSD for example), and store extra copies on another tier which is only used for disaster recovery purposes. If you had 2 copies on SSD, the chances of losing both at once is pretty small so long as the storage is smart enough to keep the data on separate servers, and then the cost to keep extra copies on hard disks is almost nothing in comparison to storing 4 copies on SSD.

that is actually a very very good idea. You are able to specify tiers of storage, and you can guarantee IO's to specific clients/drives for QoS etc. You are also able to define the copies per virtual drive - but currently you are not able to mix it so the copies would be on lower tiers of drives. That makes perfect sense - I'll pass it on to the guys!

Thanks...


D

[cartika-andrew]

Originally Posted by cwl@apaqdigital

is this a real game changer for the SAN hardware as we know it?
http://onapp.com/storage/

not sure about a game changer, but, its certainly an indication of the trend moving forward, where storage will become more flexible and vendors will start to deliver these sorts of storage solutions as a service...

Im not sure what tech they used - it looks like a cool offering and very cool that more storage options are coming available.. expect more of this over time

Building your SAN is easy. Using a simple web-based UI you can select physical disks from any servers connected to the platform, and combine them into virtual data stores to create your SAN. Disks can be any size: they are simply grouped by performance, which enables you to create tiers of storage based on low performance/high capacity SATA drives, high-performance SSDs, or anything in between. A powerful CLI provides low-level access for sysadmins, too.

this does sound a lot like ZFS - we have been using this to backbone our cloud for quite awhile.. better then tiers though (and you can still tier with zfs if you like), you can create massive SSD read/write caching layers - we can grow a caching layer by adding free SSD drives found anywhere in our network.. or we can grow zpools of sata/sas capacity type of storage behind the caches on the fly, again using any drive available in our network...

I dont think this type of solution is unique (heck, zfs has been around for ages) - but, the concept of packaging these solutions for service providers is pretty new and onapp is certainly - and continues to be - ahead of the curve with delivering solutions to the market specifically geared towards service providers...

[cyberhouse]

i was thinking it sounded like zfs with some nice management features.

Originally Posted by cartika-andrew

not sure about a game changer, but, its certainly an indication of the trend moving forward, where storage will become more flexible and vendors will start to deliver these sorts of storage solutions as a service...

Im not sure what tech they used - it looks like a cool offering and very cool that more storage options are coming available.. expect more of this over time



this does sound a lot like ZFS - we have been using this to backbone our cloud for quite awhile.. better then tiers though (and you can still tier with zfs if you like), you can create massive SSD read/write caching layers - we can grow a caching layer by adding free SSD drives found anywhere in our network.. or we can grow zpools of sata/sas capacity type of storage behind the caches on the fly, again using any drive available in our network...

I dont think this type of solution is unique (heck, zfs has been around for ages) - but, the concept of packaging these solutions for service providers is pretty new and onapp is certainly - and continues to be - ahead of the curve with delivering solutions to the market specifically geared towards service providers...

[eming]

Originally Posted by cyberhouse

i was thinking it sounded like zfs with some nice management features.

It's not - I've uploaded some more info for you guys here: http://ditlev.onapp.com/storage.zip
It's Julian's (who runs the storage team at OnApp) presentation from worldhostingdays...hopefully that helps answering some of the questions here.


D

[cartika-andrew]

Originally Posted by eming

It's not - I've uploaded some more info for you guys here: http://ditlev.onapp.com/storage.zip
It's Julian's (who runs the storage team at OnApp) presentation from worldhostingdays...hopefully that helps answering some of the questions here.


D

you guys really built something proprietary to do what ZFS already does?

eitherway, Im impressed as always Ditlev - you guys continually package solutions for our industry.. keep it up bud!!!

[funkywizard]

Originally Posted by cartika-andrew

you guys really built something proprietary to do what ZFS already does?

eitherway, Im impressed as always Ditlev - you guys continually package solutions for our industry.. keep it up bud!!!

ZFS is kind of proprietary when you consider that it only runs properly in solaris (or via a low performance module under linux). Such a configuration is not entirely useful for the average service provider.

[cartika-andrew]

Originally Posted by funkywizard

ZFS is kind of proprietary when you consider that it only runs properly in solaris (or via a low performance module under linux).

yes, it runs on solaris, but, as iscsi attached volumes, it doesnt matter whether you are running linux or windows or whatever. its certainly not "low performance" - if you saw the metrics, you would be hard pressed to replicate it with anything.. we used netapp for years, and no matter what caching you used, you arent coming close..

Such a configuration is not entirely useful for the average service provider.

you're right - the average provider could not implement this. this is the value companies like onapp are bringing, where they are developing interfaces and solutions specifically geared to service providers. just seemed logical, based on the functionality - that they would build this on top of something already proven - like an open standards file system and volume manager like zfs.. if they went their own way, so be it.. Im sure it will be an effective solution, but, its not ground breaking - these things exist - what IS groundbreaking is how they package and build solutions and deliver them specifically for service providers - quite impressive

[funkywizard]

Originally Posted by cartika-andrew

yes, it runs on solaris, but, as iscsi attached volumes, it doesnt matter whether you are running linux or windows or whatever. its certainly not "low performance" - if you saw the metrics, you would be hard pressed to replicate it with anything.. we used netapp for years, and no matter what caching you used, you arent coming close..



you're right - the average provider could not implement this. this is the value companies like onapp are bringing, where they are developing interfaces and solutions specifically geared to service providers. just seemed logical, based on the functionality - that they would build this on top of something already proven - like an open standards file system and volume manager like zfs.. if they went their own way, so be it.. Im sure it will be an effective solution, but, its not ground breaking - these things exist - what IS groundbreaking is how they package and build solutions and deliver them specifically for service providers - quite impressive

I mean to say that because the storage needs to be on a solaris box, then for the typical service provider that you would need separate storage nodes from everything else since most of their hardware won't be running solaris, which wouldn't really work given what onapp storage is looking to accomplish here, which is to allow you to use disks attached to your existing servers.

[cartika-andrew]

Originally Posted by funkywizard

I mean to say that because the storage needs to be on a solaris box, then for the typical service provider that you would need separate storage nodes from everything else since most of their hardware won't be running solaris, which wouldn't really work given what onapp storage is looking to accomplish here, which is to allow you to use disks attached to your existing servers.

I understand and agree.. onapp is trying to do something different. sounded like zfs to me, but, great if its not

curious to see this in action

[cyberhouse]

zfs runs pretty well on freebsd 9 i am running some live tests on some servers and from what i see zfs is kicking ass.

What i would love to see is a great control panel to manage zfs pools and everything.

Originally Posted by funkywizard

I mean to say that because the storage needs to be on a solaris box, then for the typical service provider that you would need separate storage nodes from everything else since most of their hardware won't be running solaris, which wouldn't really work given what onapp storage is looking to accomplish here, which is to allow you to use disks attached to your existing servers.

[cartika-andrew]

Originally Posted by cyberhouse

zfs runs pretty well on freebsd 9 i am running some live tests on some servers and from what i see zfs is kicking ass.

What i would love to see is a great control panel to manage zfs pools and everything.

thats what I thought this was and got sooo excited !!!

freebsd has been doing some serious work with zfs, Im not surprised to hear this. we run it on solaris, but, I was quite curious about freebsd based on the investment they have made recently here

thanks for the feedback, really appreciate it

[che09]

This is interesting to say the least. But we shall see soon!

[RavC]

ZFS is not a clustered file system. It doesn't scale to multiple nodes. (But it can be used as the base to build a clustered file system). This product seems much more like Red Hat's Gluster which provides a scale-out clustered storage solution across any number of commodity nodes.

[CRego3D]

Trust me guys, building a storage solution was not on our minds when we first started OnApp over 2 years ago, we looked everywhere for a solution that would fit the demand of the clients we where getting onboard, we looked at it all, Gluster, ZFS, Sheepdog, Ceph, you named it, we checked it out.

Problem was, nothing really fit the bill 100%, everything was a compromise, unfinished or simply too expensive, so as the old saying goes "see a need ?, fill a need !" we decided to do something new, to fit the exact requirements of our industry, in the process we find ourselves building something that transcends it, and thats good

This was a major investment for us, but we felt unless this problem was cracked, the adoption of the cloud as a underline technology (instead of just a marketing term) would not be feasible for all.

I'm bias of course, but I think it's revolutionary stuff

[JSCL]

This was a major investment for us, but we felt unless this problem was cracked, the adoption of the cloud as a underline technology (instead of just a marketing term) would not be feasible for all.

But my view is that this is right - offering Cloud shouldn't be an adoption for all providers and it shouldn't be made too cheap to do so. As it stands at the moment, the requirement of decent investment in to establishing a Cloud solution makes the product more trustworthy. Whilst I think that the new storage product looks good, I can't wait for it to be past the initial 'Beta' and ready for production to see how it compares to existing options. But "would not be feasible for all." is in my opinion, how it should remain. (Maybe I'm just being narrow minded?)