Tips and Tricks: Economic Alternative to SAN

Author: Greg Roelandt

January 2009

Situation
Your production (or DR) environment requires the capacity and performance of a SAN (storage area network).  Your primary database management systems require a SAN.

Problem
SAN infrastructure and management of fibre channel switches are expensive, but you have a staff that is well versed in IP.

Solution
Implement an iSCSI environment and retain the performance while avoiding the high cost of SAN.

Tips
By working with your storage vendor, whether it is EMC, Hitachi, Network Appliance or another that provides the technology for iSCSI, you can avoid the high cost of physical SAN hardware, and the maintenance that comes along with the software.
For Windows based systems, the iSCSI initiator can be downloaded for no charge from Microsoft.com.
A driver agent will be installed on each server to recognize the DASD just as it would while masking and presenting a LUN from SAN based storage.  These agents typically run in the $700 range.
Many do not realize that an iSCSI solution can run in a clustered environment, providing high availability.  However, they can, by simply presenting the iSCSI LUN as a resource to Cluster Manager, they will failover and back exactly as a SAN based device.
Your IT staff already has the expertise to administer IP based functions.  By using iSCSI for your storage needs, there is no need to hire fibre channel experts or train your existing engineers in the complexities of FC.
If you need more information on how you can improve the performance of your production databases, contact Gary Codeluppi at 937-431-1026 x123 or visit the Ross Group Inc web site at www.rossgroupinc.com.