Hi folks

I'm interested in hearing from anyone in a mixed platform environment
who is running more than 60 media servers from one master server.

We currently have 39 media servers (Solaris, HP-UX, WIndows, Linux)
managed by a clustered pair of Solaris 9 SunFire V880 machines as the
master server.

Our immediate plans call for adding about 30 new media servers, and
I'm concerned about scalability and performance as we move into 2006.

Symantec have advised that we are unlikely to hit any absolute
barriers, but they are preaching caution with regard to the number of
media servers per master going above 60, citing the time to scan for
available drives as the likely tipping point.

We are considering whether to create a new master server cluster to
divide our future workload, but I want to have a strong justification
for the hardware and software spend.

While I realise Symantec will err on the side of caution, I don't want
to assume everything will just work. Clearly we are also looking at
the release of 6.x to provide some scalability benefits, but this will
not meet our needs before the end of this year.

If you have responsibility for a large environment and are willing to
discuss it, please email me and I can give you more details.

Cheers
Mike Thomson

UK-based mobile telecommunications company

Solaris 9 clustered master server
39 Mixed media servers (Solaris, HP-UX, Windows, Linux)
650+ clients
2 x StorageTek L5500 tape libraries (with ACSLS control)
All IBM LTO-2 drives, fibrechannel SAN connected