Replies – Forums – Michael Hughes

Forum Replies Created

Michael Hughes
August 28, 2008 at 2:20 pm in reply to: Installed Base

Thanks much Gary.
Michael Hughes
July 29, 2005 at 5:26 pm in reply to: 4 -1Gb ethernet connection to San stoarge?

What was the name of that place again? Oh yeah – Abraxis. I have fond memories of Stephane on the winding staircase – he’ll be there too. Coffee is on me.

Mike
Michael Hughes
July 24, 2005 at 7:56 pm in reply to: 4 -1Gb ethernet connection to San stoarge?

Hi Larry,

Yup – it’s me. Hope you’re doing well and come by at IBC and we can catch up. Regards,

Mike “Did my crime and time in Chicago” Hughes
Michael Hughes
June 15, 2005 at 1:20 pm in reply to: My thoughts so far on IP-SAN vs Fibre SAN

One point to note through this whole discussion is the requirement, be it for FC or iSCSI based SANs, the requirement for client-side clustered file system software (assuming that the users need to share the data in the storage pool).

A NAS solution offers shared storage with the added benefit of not requiring client side software. This post is mildly self-serving as we make a NAS device, but just wanted to highlight the fact that there is an alternative to the complexity and cost of a SAN. Regards,

Mike
Michael Hughes
June 15, 2005 at 1:14 pm in reply to: 4 -1Gb ethernet connection to San stoarge?

Richard,

Please drop me a line at mhughes@max-t.com as you’re describing exactly the product we build and deliver. Regards,

Mike
Michael Hughes
June 6, 2005 at 6:30 pm in reply to: Looking for simple cost effective storage for small network – capture and encode

Matthew,

Your options are either a storage area network (SAN) or a network attached storage (NAS) device. We sell a NAS which might fit the bill. You can contact me at mhughes@max-t.com Regards,

Mike
Michael Hughes
June 6, 2005 at 6:25 pm in reply to: ISCSI Vs Fibre Channel SAN

What about products and their costs?

Specifically, fibre channel and ISCSI costs per seat for both hardware and software. What are the choices in software for both Fibre and ISCSI?

As far as iSCSI is concerned, I think it’s worth clarifying that iSCSI is actually a block level protocol (like FC except using an IP-based transport like Ethernet). When calculating costs, both FC and iSCSI based solutions require a SAN file system, managed via a Metadata Controller, running on every network client.

Where GigE performance is concerned, I think that the numbers that were quoted in a previous response were per client, not necessarily the maximum amount of data that can actually be supported per link. We’ve found that a single GigE link can be driven to ~110MB/sec. out of the theoretical limit of 125MB/sec. (1000Mb/sec.).

Another point to note is that network attached storage (NAS) devices are actually multi- protocol file servers that deliver file level services and don’t really have anything to do with the iSCSI protocol. Similarity is that both employ the same wire (i.e. GigE) to move the data. NAS devices do not require client-side software, and are typically much simpler to manage from an IT perspective than are SANs.

Regards,

Mike