Integrating EonStor FC-SAN into video-network

[Bob Zelin]

this is how to build a SAN –
1) get a file server
2) get a FIBRE CHANNEL SWITCH (ATTO, Brocade, QLogic)
3) put fibre cards in your computers, including the file server.
4) run fibre cables from clients into switch
5) run EonStor into switch (EonStor is connected via fibre host adaptor card into your file server computer)
6) run SAN management software from Apple XSAN, MetaSAN, SanMP, or Command Soft Fibre Jet.

Voila ! You have a SAN. Connecting a drive array to a network does not give you shared video storage.

Want ethernet connectivity on the same file server ? A simple switch will not give you the speeds that you need. You need a multiport ethernet card, link aggregated to the switch, and then the switch feeds the ethernet clients, to get the speeds you need for video files to play back in real time.

Moral – a simple network is not a SAN.

Bob Zelin

[Caspian Brand]

How is your Infortrend array currently used?

You listed that you have two Fibre Channel HBAs, are they both in the same computer, or in different computers?

The Infortrend array’s have a unique function of a built-in Fibre Channel Hub, so with the addition of some SAN management software, you could potentially start out by directly connecting your two Macs and share access to the same volumes. Using the Failover mode within the Infortrend might complicate this approach a bit as far as which ports to use, so it would be good to double check configuration recommendations there. Also, I’m pretty sure there is no automatic failover support on the Mac client side even with the Controller in Redundant Failover mode. Reassignment would have to be done manually.

Ultimately adding a Fibre Channel switch and SAN management software, such as SANmp, will provide the best long term growth of the system, but you can start off in HUB mode with some SAN sharing software if you cared to.

Some SAN clients can re-share their SAN mounted volumes over Ethernet, which can allow you to get by depending on how demanding your needs are, but ultimately having a dedicated server re-sharing access to the Fibre Channel based storage will provide the most networking options, and performance.

How many GbE clients do you have wanting to access this storage as well, and what level of contribution do you expect them to make?

If your other two FC connected systems are going to handle Uncompressed HD, there’s not going to be much performance left on the drives for much else.

Regards,

Caspian Brand
Studio Network Solutions

https://www.studionetworksolutions.com/products/

[Peter Shawn]

Thanks a lot for your answers. It made me understand the set of issues a bit more.

Unfortunately we cannot afford buying a FC-Switch because as I saw they start at a few thousand Euros. Or is there a FC-Switch which is affordable and would fit my needs?

I still wonder what could be done with the Longshine Fibre-Channel-to-Ethernet Switches – are they completely superfluent since there must be a Server which reshares the Volumes? Or would it be possible to have 2x Mac Workstations connected directly over FC to the SAN + the mini-GBIC-to-Eth-Switch where the rest of the Network could access the Volumes?

I cannot say how many other PCs need to have access to the Storage but I guess it would not exceed 3-4.

As I understand from the SANmp Webpage I’d have to buy a license for each Client for about 999€ – is that correct? So maybe there would a FC-Switch be cheaper + I’d be capable of having a file- not volumebased Storage which would be a great advantage, wouldn’t it?

Cheers,

Peter

[Peter Shawn]

Has anybody of you experience / knowledge of OpenFiler? It’s a opensource Software – wonder if that could work out.. Maybe I find time to try today!

[Caspian Brand]

Hi Peter,

The cheapest Fibre Channel switch I know of is the Qlogic 1404, which can be had in the states for just under $2k with SFPs. It is a 10port 4Gb switch, but with your Infortrend array, you don’t “need” a Fibre channel switch to start building a SAN. You can use the Infortrend’s built in Fibre Channel hub, especially for the two primary computers you intend to use with it.

Fibre Channel switch or not, you will need SAN sharing software if you want to share access to the same volumes over Fibre Channel. SANmp would allow you to simply share access to the volumes on your Infortrend without the need for any extra GbE MetaData networks.

If you don’t care about simultaneous Fibre Channel access, you “could” have two volumes on the Infortrend directly connected to each of your two Fibre Clients, and then have them re-share their respective volumes over GbE to others. However, this approach is not recommended if you intend to have video editing by other users over GbE.

If you’re main goal is to just more effectively have others contribute graphics or occasionally transfer their local media to the main video edit storage, then this approach can be fine, and if you don’t have a large budget, this approach could be a good start into slowly improving your network setup over time.

Regarding the Longshine switches, even though there are Optical Fibre Optic ports on these Ethernet switches, those ports are not implemented for the Fibre Channel protocol, which is based on SCSI. IP networks and Fibre Channel networks can use the same physical cables, but drastically different protocols. The Fibre ports on the Longshine switches are intended to connect multiple switches together over IP, sometimes over long distances, not to bridge Fibre Channel over Ethernet. There are specific devices called Fibre Channel to iSCSI bridges that do this, but these cost ~$5k.

Regarding your question about SANmp, it is per seat client license model, and would require a seat per Fibre connected client, so in your case, 2 seats. SANmp can work with Infortrend storage with or without an FC switch. Volume level sharing is not a disadvantage, and can actually be quite a benefit in a smaller workgroup on a tight budget, as there are fewer networking components required, less IT knowledge required, and a lot less pesky file permissions to worry about maintaining. If your Fibre connected clients re-share their SANmp connected Fibre volumes over Ethernet with AFP, you have now added File level sharing through your workstation to the storage. In this manner you could actually have two separate workstations hosting shares to distribute performance and provide some extra redundancy of sorts.

Again all the performance will depend on your budget and what you’re trying to do.

Feel free to shoot me an email if you want to discuss some of these approaches in more detail.

Regards,
-Caspian
cbrand@studionetworksolutions.com

Product Specialist
Studio Network Solutions

[Peter Shawn]

Thanks a lot for your help. I know about the advantages of your Software from the videos on your website – it seems like there’s really nothing that could be done wrong – plug&play – which I really like, personally.

But on the other hand what I find really important is that the workstations don’t need to be online all the time to reshare the Storage. So this brings me to the other solution which is in fact also cheaper right now.

What I thought, would be a good idea is to buy a FC switch (I found a cheap one (Brocade 200E 16-Port 4Gbps Fibre Channel Switch OEM: https://cgi.ebay.de/Brocade-200E-16-Port-4Gbps-Fibre-Channel-Switch-OEM_W0QQitemZ270654369170QQcmdZViewItem?rvr_id=170336296301&rvr_id=170336296301&cguid=76c4b28f12b0a0aa17211891ffe3136d) for under 1000€.

Now there is still a question about the topology:
How many FC-HBAs do I need it to have two workstations connected?
How many FC-HBAs does the Metadata-Fileserver need – one enough? Are they capable to send/receive (full duplex) at the same time? Must be, right?

As Metdata-Fileserver I guess it’d be the easiest way to use a software like FreeNAS (or the successor OpenMediaVault which is hopefully released soon), right? Which would also be a plug&play-solution.