The Software RAID Inflection Point
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@Dashrender said in The Software RAID Inflection Point:
@scottalanmiller said in The Software RAID Inflection Point:
@Dashrender said in The Software RAID Inflection Point:
@scottalanmiller said in The Software RAID Inflection Point:
@Dashrender said in The Software RAID Inflection Point:
@scottalanmiller said in The Software RAID Inflection Point:
@Dashrender said in The Software RAID Inflection Point:
@travisdh1 said in The Software RAID Inflection Point:
@Dashrender said in The Software RAID Inflection Point:
@scottalanmiller said in The Software RAID Inflection Point:
RAID Hardware sees.... drives destined for RAID arrays. MD sees everything on the system. They are very different from that one perspective alone.
OK, great, I get that - but nothing stops you from saying, this array is these device only, and when a fail happens do x.
So do it. Nothing is stopping someone from automating the process. It's just never sold to someone like that.
And the question is, why not?
Scott clearly loves software RAID - So why not make systems that automate this process based around limits you put in place? If something falls outside those limits, manual intervention will of course be required.
Because there is generally too much desire for flexibility and in large shops there is no need for this and small ones there is no market pressure.
No market pressure in small shops because they just go hardware RAID instead?
And because there is no money in NOT selling solutions.
No money in not selling solutions - huh? NTG for example could make money selling this solution. They get paid to set it up. Assuming the solution can blink the lights, then from that point forward, a bench tech can swap drives without concern.
Right, but you have a disconnect. The money to be made is from people unrelated to the ones that would spend the fortune to build the software to do it. And those that get paid to set it up that way already get paid to set it up the even longer way. So it's negative money to them.
Who do you foresee investing money into this that could ever recoup it?
Who pays for MD development now?
The OS vendors, of course. It's part of the OS.
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@Dashrender said in The Software RAID Inflection Point:
The hardware RAID is already taking away the work from MSPs / ITSPs, so what's the difference there?
It doesn't work that way. It takes no time to set up either. MD RAID is already a "zero effort" set up process. But there is pay for supporting it. It's not that this would really hurt an MSP, but it would cost a fortune to make it and support the code, money that could never be recouped, not even with tens of thousands of customers all using it.
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@Dashrender said in The Software RAID Inflection Point:
I'm really lost again - MSPs / ITSPs are setting up hardware RAID today. This typically takes mere mins or less to configure, so setting up MD would take longer (probably) and give them more billable time.
Takes me less time. But neither takes like over two minutes.
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@scottalanmiller said in The Software RAID Inflection Point:
@Dashrender said in The Software RAID Inflection Point:
I'm really lost again - MSPs / ITSPs are setting up hardware RAID today. This typically takes mere mins or less to configure, so setting up MD would take longer (probably) and give them more billable time.
Takes me less time. But neither takes like over two minutes.
LOL, if you know what you want it to be, it should be a very fast process.
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@scottalanmiller said in The Software RAID Inflection Point:
@Dashrender said in The Software RAID Inflection Point:
The hardware RAID is already taking away the work from MSPs / ITSPs, so what's the difference there?
It doesn't work that way. It takes no time to set up either. MD RAID is already a "zero effort" set up process. But there is pay for supporting it. It's not that this would really hurt an MSP, but it would cost a fortune to make it and support the code, money that could never be recouped, not even with tens of thousands of customers all using it.
So each Linux distro has it's own version of MD? it's not universal like so many other components?
And they would never make any money ..... because they are already getting support contracts from those willing to pay, they likely wouldn't pick up additional ones, so this would be only a net negative? Is that what you're saying?
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@Dashrender said in The Software RAID Inflection Point:
@scottalanmiller said in The Software RAID Inflection Point:
@Dashrender said in The Software RAID Inflection Point:
I'm really lost again - MSPs / ITSPs are setting up hardware RAID today. This typically takes mere mins or less to configure, so setting up MD would take longer (probably) and give them more billable time.
Takes me less time. But neither takes like over two minutes.
LOL, if you know what you want it to be, it should be a very fast process.
If you don't know, then the automated scripts won't work. It's one or the other.
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@Dashrender said in The Software RAID Inflection Point:
@scottalanmiller said in The Software RAID Inflection Point:
@Dashrender said in The Software RAID Inflection Point:
The hardware RAID is already taking away the work from MSPs / ITSPs, so what's the difference there?
It doesn't work that way. It takes no time to set up either. MD RAID is already a "zero effort" set up process. But there is pay for supporting it. It's not that this would really hurt an MSP, but it would cost a fortune to make it and support the code, money that could never be recouped, not even with tens of thousands of customers all using it.
So each Linux distro has it's own version of MD? it's not universal like so many other components?
How did you get from somewhere to this?
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@Dashrender said in The Software RAID Inflection Point:
@scottalanmiller said in The Software RAID Inflection Point:
It doesn't work that way. It takes no time to set up either. MD RAID is already a "zero effort" set up process. But there is pay for supporting it. It's not that this would really hurt an MSP, but it would cost a fortune to make it and support the code, money that could never be recouped, not even with tens of thousands of customers all using it.
And they would never make any money ..... because they are already getting support contracts from those willing to pay, they likely wouldn't pick up additional ones, so this would be only a net negative? Is that what you're saying?
It's a negative because there is no money to be made, just money to be lost. You would not gain customers from it, nor make more money from the customers that you have. But you'd have to invest a tonne making it in the first place and would need to test and support it for forever. There is no business case for it.
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Try making the business case for it. State where the investment money would come from, how you will continue to pay for supporting it and how you will recoup the money.
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@scottalanmiller said in The Software RAID Inflection Point:
@Dashrender said in The Software RAID Inflection Point:
@scottalanmiller said in The Software RAID Inflection Point:
@Dashrender said in The Software RAID Inflection Point:
The hardware RAID is already taking away the work from MSPs / ITSPs, so what's the difference there?
It doesn't work that way. It takes no time to set up either. MD RAID is already a "zero effort" set up process. But there is pay for supporting it. It's not that this would really hurt an MSP, but it would cost a fortune to make it and support the code, money that could never be recouped, not even with tens of thousands of customers all using it.
So each Linux distro has it's own version of MD? it's not universal like so many other components?
How did you get from somewhere to this?
From here.
@scottalanmiller said in The Software RAID Inflection Point:
@Dashrender said in The Software RAID Inflection Point:
Who pays for MD development now?
The OS vendors, of course. It's part of the OS.
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@scottalanmiller said in The Software RAID Inflection Point:
@Dashrender said in The Software RAID Inflection Point:
@scottalanmiller said in The Software RAID Inflection Point:
It doesn't work that way. It takes no time to set up either. MD RAID is already a "zero effort" set up process. But there is pay for supporting it. It's not that this would really hurt an MSP, but it would cost a fortune to make it and support the code, money that could never be recouped, not even with tens of thousands of customers all using it.
And they would never make any money ..... because they are already getting support contracts from those willing to pay, they likely wouldn't pick up additional ones, so this would be only a net negative? Is that what you're saying?
It's a negative because there is no money to be made, just money to be lost. You would not gain customers from it, nor make more money from the customers that you have. But you'd have to invest a tonne making it in the first place and would need to test and support it for forever. There is no business case for it.
You don't think that XenServer could get more customers by having this included? The customer wouldn't need a 1000$ hardware RAID card anymore.
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@Dashrender said in The Software RAID Inflection Point:
@scottalanmiller said in The Software RAID Inflection Point:
@Dashrender said in The Software RAID Inflection Point:
@scottalanmiller said in The Software RAID Inflection Point:
@Dashrender said in The Software RAID Inflection Point:
The hardware RAID is already taking away the work from MSPs / ITSPs, so what's the difference there?
It doesn't work that way. It takes no time to set up either. MD RAID is already a "zero effort" set up process. But there is pay for supporting it. It's not that this would really hurt an MSP, but it would cost a fortune to make it and support the code, money that could never be recouped, not even with tens of thousands of customers all using it.
So each Linux distro has it's own version of MD? it's not universal like so many other components?
How did you get from somewhere to this?
From here.
@scottalanmiller said in The Software RAID Inflection Point:
@Dashrender said in The Software RAID Inflection Point:
Who pays for MD development now?
The OS vendors, of course. It's part of the OS.
I don't follow.
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@Dashrender said in The Software RAID Inflection Point:
You don't think that XenServer could get more customers by having this included? The customer wouldn't need a 1000$ hardware RAID card anymore.
XenServer doesn't even care to officially support MD RAID the normal way which is already there and works great. No, I don't think there is any way for XenServer, RHEL, ESXi or anyone else to make this make any financial sense whatsoever.
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@scottalanmiller said in The Software RAID Inflection Point:
Try making the business case for it. State where the investment money would come from, how you will continue to pay for supporting it and how you will recoup the money.
Why would a company be willing to pay for support of RHEL, but not this?
Why would someone be willing to pay for XS support, but not support of MD in XS?
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@scottalanmiller said in The Software RAID Inflection Point:
@Dashrender said in The Software RAID Inflection Point:
You don't think that XenServer could get more customers by having this included? The customer wouldn't need a 1000$ hardware RAID card anymore.
XenServer doesn't even care to officially support MD RAID the normal way which is already there and works great. No, I don't think there is any way for XenServer, RHEL, ESXi or anyone else to make this make any financial sense whatsoever.
Then why not abandon it completely?
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Here is the thing, I think you are scratching an itch that just isn't there. Who actually needs this functionality? Who is the real world use case where this script would change buying decisions? And how do those changed buying decisions turn into direct financial benefit for the company that makes and supports the new software?
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@Dashrender said in The Software RAID Inflection Point:
Why would someone be willing to pay for XS support, but not support of MD in XS?
Why do people pay for VMware with the same limitations (actually with fewer limitations?) Because you are picking something no one cares about and wondering why it doesn't drive decisions. It doesn't because no one cares.
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@Dashrender said in The Software RAID Inflection Point:
@scottalanmiller said in The Software RAID Inflection Point:
@Dashrender said in The Software RAID Inflection Point:
You don't think that XenServer could get more customers by having this included? The customer wouldn't need a 1000$ hardware RAID card anymore.
XenServer doesn't even care to officially support MD RAID the normal way which is already there and works great. No, I don't think there is any way for XenServer, RHEL, ESXi or anyone else to make this make any financial sense whatsoever.
Then why not abandon it completely?
Because there is no reason to spend money to abandon something that some people use and taking it out would make it super duper easy for someone to repackage XenServer with it and cut the XS team out of the equation.
Reverse the question, why WOULD they take it out?
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@Dashrender said in The Software RAID Inflection Point:
@scottalanmiller said in The Software RAID Inflection Point:
Try making the business case for it. State where the investment money would come from, how you will continue to pay for supporting it and how you will recoup the money.
Why would a company be willing to pay for support of RHEL, but not this?
Because one is important and the other doesn't matter. How much money are you willing to spend to get support for the sole purpose of avoiding buying a $700 hardware card that comes bundled with the server and is fully supported by the hardware vendor? In real dollars, how much will you convince your company to invest in software support for RAID to replace their current hardware spending on the same functionality?
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aww, so that it. The price of a RAID controller is so low that getting a software solution isn't worth the effort. OK I think I'm on the same page now.
They can't do it cheaper, and still make money.. so why bother doing it at all. That makes sense.
