CIFS vs FC
Using EV9.2. I'm looking for info regarding performance of CIFS vs FC for indexes and partitions. We use FC at the moment. What are the limitations with CIFS? Is it speed of the device or speed of the protocol? We have access to the EMC VNX for File devices, which will be on 10GB ethernet. Would this give the same performance as FC or is there an overhead for CIFS? We use Discovery Accelerator so I need at least 2000 iops for indexes which I know FC will achieve. The performance guide says put indexes on FC and partitions can go on NAS, but I don't want to have a split model. Is there a compelling reason not to use CIFS for all? It also says: "In terms of storage cost savings, there is most benefit in keeping archived data on cheaper network-attached storage (NAS). However, you can also make some savings when keeping archived data on more expensive storage, such as a Storage Area Network (SAN), due to the additional compression and single-instance storage that Enterprise Vault provides." This implies compression and single-instancing from within EV won't work on NAS??
The reason we are exploring CIFS is because the VNX has some replication features we don't have on the SAN.
Comments
I think what the excerpt is
I think what the excerpt is saying that going with NAS may be an option because you can buy lots and lots of space fairly cheaply, HOWEVER with a SAN which is more expensive, you might not need as much as you think due to the fact that Compression and single instance occurs
Both NAS and SAN and CIFS etc you have EV providing OSIS and Compression.
There are certain devices that do deduplication and compression itself where EV doesn't provide any benefits and those types of storage tend to be more expensive, such as a Centera etc.
So yeah, either lots of cheap NAS storage, or more expensive faster SAN that will have less storage, but isn't going to be too bad because of the Compression / OSIS
Regardless though, I think these questions may be better suited for your storage teams as they may have these answers, especially if you have some of these devices deployed in your environment and have real world numbers.
From my experience though FC gives the best performance for the most part, and in a DA environment i'd definitely want the indexes to be on the faster storage
you have 3 main storage
you have 3 main storage components for EV: SQL dbs, Indexs, Vault Stores
the structure of each is quite different. the vault stores are the only one that, from my experience and understanding, can "tolerate" CIFS.
the idea of the split model, as you call it, is all about cost savings from being able to put the vault stores on cheaper, slower storage whereas the indexes and databases leverage faster storage for performance reasons both when archiving and when searching and also for the user experience.
to put it into perspective, i just was with a customer today who had 8TB of data in their Vault Stores (NAS) and only 400G for Indexes + Databases and they were using full indexing and DA. it doesn't make any sense economically speaking to store everything on the SAN as the 8TB is mostly static and would be a waste.
Andy Becker | Authorized Symantec Consultant | Trace3 | Symantec National Partner | www.trace3.com
sortid, did you get this
sortid, did you get this figured out?
Andy Becker | Authorized Symantec Consultant | Trace3 | Symantec National Partner | www.trace3.com
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