On Fri, 26 Jan 2007, Rainer Heilke wrote:
> > So, if I was an enterprise, I'd be willing to keep
> > enough empty LUNs
> > available to facilitate at least the migration of
> > one or more filesystems
> > if not complete pools.
.... reformatted ...
> You might be, but don't be surprised when the Financials folks laugh you
> out of their office. Large corporations do not make money by leaving
> wads of cash lying around, and that's exactly what a few terabytes of
> unused storage in a high-end SAN is. This is in addition to the laughter
But this is exactly where ZFS distrupts "Large corporations" thinking.
You're talking about (for example) 2 terabytes on a high-end SAN which
costs (what ?) per GB (including the capital cost of the hi-end SAN)
versus a dual Opteron box with 12 * 500Gb SATA disk drives that gives you
5TB of storage for (in round numbers) a total of ~ $6k. And how much are
your ongoing monthlies on that hi-end SAN box? (Don't answer) So - aside
from the occasional use of the box for data migration, this ZFS "storage
box" has 1,001 other uses. Pick any two (uses), based on your knowledge
of big corporation thinking and its an easy sell to management.
Now your accounting folks are going to be asking you to justify the
purchase of that hi-end SAN box.... and why you're not using ZFS
everywhere. :)
Oh - and the accounting folks love it when you tell them there's no
ongoing cost of ownership - because Joe Screwdriver can swap out a failed
Seagate 500Gb SATA drive after he picks up a replacement from Frys on his
lunch break!
> generated by the comment that, "not a big deal if the Financials and HR
> databases are offline for three days while we do the migration." Good
Again - sounds like more "legacy" thinking. With multiple gigabit
ethernet connections you can move terrabytes of information in a hour,
instead of in 24-hours - using legacy tape systems etc. This can be
easily handled during scheduled downtime.
> luck writing up a business case that justifies this sort of fiscal
> generosity.
> Sorry, this argument smacks a little too much of being out of touch with
> the fiscal (and time) restrictions of working in a typical corporation,
> as opposed to a well-funded research group.
>
> I hope I'm not sounding rude, but those of us working in medium to large
> corporations simply do not have the money for such luxuries. Period.
On the contrary - if you're not thinking ZFS, you're wasting a ton of IT
$s and hurting the competitiveness of your business.
Regards,
Al Hopper Logical Approach Inc, Plano, TX. [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Voice: 972.379.2133 Fax: 972.379.2134 Timezone: US CDT
OpenSolaris.Org Community Advisory Board (CAB) Member - Apr 2005
OpenSolaris Governing Board (OGB) Member - Feb 2006
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