Veritas-bu

[Veritas-bu] McData vs Brocade

2006-11-03 10:38:31
Subject: [Veritas-bu] McData vs Brocade
From: andrew.stueve at neovera.com (Andrew Stueve)
Date: Fri, 03 Nov 2006 10:38:31 -0500
We had 4 Brocade Ds16s setup, between Sun servers, EMC storage, STK tape
library, and across dwdm to DR site with duplicate hardware.  Never had
an issue.

We migrated to McData, and it took a while to work the bugs out (turned
out to be the switches didn't have enough buffer credits).  Once we were
on McData, the only problem we had was gbic's.  Out of 51 active gbics,
we had 3 fail in the first year.  I have since left, so I don't know how
they are doing now.

-Andrew

misha.pavlov at sgcib.com wrote:
> Folks,
> 
> 
> I would like to hear your experiences or better yet comparison of  McData
> Sphereon 4700 with Brocade Silkworm 4100 4Gb switches.
> 
> CurrentIy our environment is
> 2 SUN media servers, STK L700, SL500 at one location, connected via 2 STK
> StoreNet 4100 ( re-branded 1Gb Brocade SilkWorm 2800 ) to
> 2 SUN media servers, STK L700 at the remote location, another 2 StoreNet
> 4100.
> L700 populated with SDLT220s and SDLT320s drives, which SAN'ed via
> Crossroads 4x50 SCSI to FC bridges.
> Netapp R200 NDMP from the remote location via DWDM to SL500 at this
> location.
> 
> 2 StoreNet 4100 ( re-branded Brocade SilkWorm 2800 )  at each location
> ISL'ed and DWDM'ed to other location.
> We are doing in-line copy of each backup ( except NDMP form Netapp ).  1
> stream to a local library, 1 stream to remote one.
> We vault local tapes and rotate tapes in remote L700.
> 
> 
> We were having really hard time with SDLT drives going down every day and
> SCSI-FC bridges being hung in this SSO configuration.
> Of course the backup window grew with time to 24x7 and initial 1 month
> on-site retention is shrinking as the ammount of data dumped doubles each
> year.
> 
> At thi spoint we decided to replace SDLTs with LTO3, upgrade DWDM to 2Gb (
> 2 of them ), upgrade to 4Gb HBAs on media servers and of course upgrade to
> faster 4Gb switches.
> 
> We all set and decided on keeping the existing L700 and buying LTO3 HP
> drives.
> It is the switch selection, whcih drives us crazy.
> CISCO came out to be cost prohibitive for this simple mini SAN.
> Brocade seems to be all right at more than twice less money + Extended
> Fabric license ( to get enough buffer-to-buffer credits for DWDM ports )
> But McData's 4700 is more than twice cheaper that Brocade and seems to be a
> real deal, plus no additional license for DWDM required.
> 
> Any input on switch seleection is appreciated.
> 
> *************************************************************************
> This message and any attachments (the "message") are confidential and
> intended solely for the addressees.
> Any unauthorised use or dissemination is prohibited. 
> E-mails are susceptible to alteration.   
> Neither SOCIETE GENERALE nor any of its subsidiaries or affiliates 
> shall be liable for the message if altered, changed or falsified. 
> 
> *************************************************************************
> _______________________________________________
> Veritas-bu maillist  -  Veritas-bu at mailman.eng.auburn.edu
> http://mailman.eng.auburn.edu/mailman/listinfo/veritas-bu
> 

-- 
Andrew Stueve
andrew.stueve at neovera.com
571-437-5754

<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>