John,
The 2 that I would research as a starting point would be EMC and Network
Appliance. I like Network Appliance for several reasons. The SNAP mirror
and SNAP restore are great. SNAP mirror will mirror the disk array to
another Network Appliance and keep it mirrored real time. SNAP restore
keeps a copy of the files that change in the time frame. So if you delete a
users account and need it back. You don't need to go to tape to get it.
Just go to the SNAP directory and restore it. The SNAP restore feature
makes you look like a GOD to the management staff and users on the filer.
Especially when they come to you on both knees because of someone's screw up
and they deleted someone's website. The last company I worked for, we
didn't tell anyone about this feature because of that exact reason.
Also the support you get from Network Appliance is awesome. You can Cluster
the Network Appliance Filers if you really want to. Network Appliance are
the only ones I know of that give a SLA on the Filer. I think they give a
99.98% uptime guarantee. You can add disks on the fly. They run RAID 4 for
the disk arrays. Yeah I know it's strange, I had to lookup RAID 4 the first
time I read the manual. Network Appliance supports both Unix NFS and
Windows CIFS. So if you buy one you can also use it for the *nix servers as
well as the Windows Servers.
I don't have any EMC experience. I just know they are competitors to
Network Appliance. So I really can't brag about them. I do know that there
are several new Network Attached Storage solutions out on the market right
now. I'm sure they are a lot cheaper then the Network Appliance Filers. My
motto is you get what you pay for. The support alone from Network Appliance
is worth the money. I do know that one of the other companies making NAS
devices has just released a journaling file system. And it runs a Micro
Kernel of RedHat or BSD. Sorry. I don't remember the name. But they
showed a lot of promise in there product.
If you are interested I did have a Viso Diagram of the proposed design I did
for Management. E-mail me off the list if you want it. I'll see if I still
have it.
Best Regards,
Mark Atkinson
System Administrator
WebAccess.net
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Office (303) 893-3462 ext 108
Fax (303) 825-7954
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Thursday, March 15, 2001 7:23 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: RE: [IMail Forum] F5 Big IP and Imail
>What you want to do is setup the front end mail servers in a cluster for 1
>IP address and hostname. Then get something like a Network Appliance for
>the back end. The network appliance is the storage device that will hold
>all of the email, users, logs, etc.... You then have 2 or more front end
>servers that share the same settings and files. Which are stored on the
>Network Appliance.
Any recommendations on the best performing
& most stable storage appliance?
thanks!
John
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