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Re: [Networker] recommendations for networker server upgrade
2008-04-26 17:33:17
rick pim wrote:
our main networker server is a sun v490 (4x1500 MHz CPU, 32 GB)
direct-connected via fiber to 3 LTO-3 drives in an L8500 library.
our current tape footprint is probably in the 20-30 TB range
but we're expecting some growth.
this server has more or less performed adequately, but it has two
limitations:
- PCI bus only
- only two network interfaces
we're in the position that a data center network redesign is going
to require at least three network interfaces, so we're going to replace
the server rather than just trying to wedge another network card into
an already-too-small-bus.
we're a sun shop with almost exclusively sparc hardware so we'd like
to stick with that. with this constraint, two obvious upgrade paths
are:
- one of the coolthreads servers, t2000, t5220 or similar
- one of the other "midrange" servers -- sun's M series or equivalent
does anyone have experiences, horror stories, warnings or
recommendations that they'd be willing to share?
We just got our new T1000. This is a 6 core (1Ghz) CPU (24 logical
CPUs in a single socket), 4GE ports, 4GB of RAM and a dual 4Gbps Emulex
HBA on PCIe. It seems like a very good choice. It does have the
following issues:
. No CDROM. I spent a couple of days trying to see if I can attach
anything, just for the installation. It doesn't have USB or external
SCSI/IDE connector. The only way to install Solaris on this machine is
inetboot/wanboot. This is not an issue for a Sun shop.
. A single power supply. It would have been nice to have two of them.
. A single floating-point unit for all 24 logical CPUs. I checked
Networker with Sun's cooltst tool
(http://cooltools.sunsource.net/cooltst/) on a 280R and it came up as
'yellow' (FP: YELLOW (FP Component may be too high (2.56%). Further
checking required.)) which means that it might be an issue, although I
didn't notice any problem during the last couple of weeks.
. A single 1Ghz CPU (running nsrmmd) can drive an LTO-2
(native/compressed) or LTO-3 native with no apparent problem. LTO-3
compressed and above might be too much for it. Writing to adv_file
device on a ZFS file system has even worse performance due to file
system overhead which limits write speed to ~50MBps to a single device
(this is to a 4TB LUN on a fully populated RAID5 AX150 with 500Gb SATA
disks).
Regardless of the above I am very satisfied, because I could get
Sparc hardware at a very low price (web price is ~4800$ for the above
setup, but with 1 year NBD hardware warranty) and with great
performance. If you have more money to spend, you can spend 9000$ for
the minimal T2000 (4 core @1Ghz, 8Gb RAM, SAS disks, a second PS, a DVD
and a empty PCIe/PCI-X slots). The newer T5xxx are also attractive, but
I didn't even bother to get a price quote for them.
rp
rick pim rick AT post.queensu DOT ca
information technology services (613) 533-2242
queen's university, kingston
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