Starwind AMA Ask Me Anything April 26 10am - 12pm EST
-
@Reid-Cooper said in Starwind AMA Ask Me Anything April 26 10am - 12pm EST:
@TheDeepStorage said in Starwind AMA Ask Me Anything April 26 10am - 12pm EST:
@Reid-Cooper said in Starwind AMA Ask Me Anything April 26 10am - 12pm EST:
How does the caching work on Starwind storage? I've read that I can use RAM cache, and obviously there are the disks in RAID. Can I have an SSD tier between the two? Can I have multiple tiers like a huge RAID 6 of SATA drives, a smaller RAID 10 of SAS 10Ks, a smaller SSD RAID 5 array and then the RAM on top?
StarWind can utilize both L1 cache on RAM and L2 cache on SSDs.
In regards to a specific configuration, as an example: you can have a huge RAID 6 array for your coldest data, then a moderate RAID 10 10k SAS array for your day-to-day workloads, a small RAID 5 of SSDs for I/O hungry databases and then top it off with RAM caching. That being said we do not provide automated tiering between these arrays and you would assign everything to each tier specifically. You could easily use Storage Spaces 2016 with StarWind for that functionality. Just make sure not to use SS 2012, since the storage tiering functionality on itsuckedwas suboptimal and lead us to the decision of not doing automated tiering in the first place.Okay so basically there are two cache layers, L1 RAM and L2 SSD Array, and then you would have to "manually tier" anything beneath that?
Any options for sending cold storage out to cloud like S3 or B2, which is popular here?
Yes, exactly. Or if you prefer automated tiering 2016 Storage Spaces play nicely with StarWind.
We have several options to offload data to cloud:
-Our own asynchronous replication, which allows to do block level replication to the cloud.
-We can provide a cloud gateway solution as part of our appliance infrastructure, which is plugged into the SATA bus and presents the cloud as a local cold storage tier.
-We have an offering with our partners from Veeam where you can offload data to the cloud using virtual emulations of physical tapes. This allows to kill 2 birds with 1 stone: you store backups (for example) in the cloud and have ransomware protection, because cryptolocker doesn't target physical tapes (for obvious reasons). -
@TheDeepStorage said in Starwind AMA Ask Me Anything April 26 10am - 12pm EST:
-We can provide a cloud gateway solution as part of our appliance infrastructure, which is plugged into the SATA bus and presents the cloud as a local cold storage tier.
That would be Aclouda. I got to hold one the other day.
-
@scottalanmiller said in Starwind AMA Ask Me Anything April 26 10am - 12pm EST:
@TheDeepStorage said in Starwind AMA Ask Me Anything April 26 10am - 12pm EST:
-We can provide a cloud gateway solution as part of our appliance infrastructure, which is plugged into the SATA bus and presents the cloud as a local cold storage tier.
That would be Aclouda. I got to hold one the other day.
The one and only, I really think it's a great addition to our appliance offering.
-
@scottalanmiller said in Starwind AMA Ask Me Anything April 26 10am - 12pm EST:
@LaMerk said in Starwind AMA Ask Me Anything April 26 10am - 12pm EST:
@scottalanmiller said in Starwind AMA Ask Me Anything April 26 10am - 12pm EST:
I'll jump in with one that I know but think it is worth talking about and that people are unlikely to know to ask about...
What are the benefits of the LSFS (Log Structured File System) and when would be want to choose it?
The ideal scenario for LSFS is slow spindle drives in RAID 5/50 and RAID 6/60. And the benefits are: eliminating I/O blender, snapshots, boosting synchronization process and overall performance in non-write intensive environments (maximum 60% read/40% write).
Do you see any real benefits on RAID 10 arrays? #OBR10
Even though LSFS technology was initially designed for parity type RAIDs, you could still benefit from utilizing LSFS on RAID 10 arrays having snapshot options and being able to squeeze out decent performance at the environments where reads dominate writes.
-
@LaMerk would there be a negative to using it in other circumstances? Or just a lack of benefits? I guess the needed question would be.. what factors would make you avoid LSFS given its benefits?
-
@TheDeepStorage said in Starwind AMA Ask Me Anything April 26 10am - 12pm EST:
-Our own asynchronous replication, which allows to do block level replication to the cloud.
Is this what we would normally look at for an off-site DR solution? What would be the "go to" for that?
Let's say I have a two node Starwind HC setup at my office. And I want a DR site, would I do a single node at a colo or a second office and use the asynchronous replication feature to get the data to it? What does that solution look like?
-
@scottalanmiller said in Starwind AMA Ask Me Anything April 26 10am - 12pm EST:
@LaMerk would there be a negative to using it in other circumstances? Or just a lack of benefits? I guess the needed question would be.. what factors would make you avoid LSFS given its benefits?
Honestly in any environment faster that the ones I mentioned the lack of benefits would already be a negative. Considering the skyrocketing of RAM pricing right now, devoting some of it for LSFS with no obvious benefits would be a strong factor for me not to use it in those environments.
-
@LaMerk said in Starwind AMA Ask Me Anything April 26 10am - 12pm EST:
@scottalanmiller said in Starwind AMA Ask Me Anything April 26 10am - 12pm EST:
@LaMerk would there be a negative to using it in other circumstances? Or just a lack of benefits? I guess the needed question would be.. what factors would make you avoid LSFS given its benefits?
Honestly in any environment faster that the ones I mentioned the lack of benefits would already be a negative. Considering the skyrocketing of RAM pricing right now, devoting some of it for LSFS with no obvious benefits would be a strong factor for me not to use it in those environments.
How much RAM utilization do we expect to see with LSFS?
-
@scottalanmiller said in Starwind AMA Ask Me Anything April 26 10am - 12pm EST:
@LaMerk said in Starwind AMA Ask Me Anything April 26 10am - 12pm EST:
@scottalanmiller said in Starwind AMA Ask Me Anything April 26 10am - 12pm EST:
@LaMerk would there be a negative to using it in other circumstances? Or just a lack of benefits? I guess the needed question would be.. what factors would make you avoid LSFS given its benefits?
Honestly in any environment faster that the ones I mentioned the lack of benefits would already be a negative. Considering the skyrocketing of RAM pricing right now, devoting some of it for LSFS with no obvious benefits would be a strong factor for me not to use it in those environments.
How much RAM utilization do we expect to see with LSFS?
Typo, we meant Flash.
-
@TheDeepStorage said in Starwind AMA Ask Me Anything April 26 10am - 12pm EST:
@scottalanmiller said in Starwind AMA Ask Me Anything April 26 10am - 12pm EST:
@LaMerk said in Starwind AMA Ask Me Anything April 26 10am - 12pm EST:
@scottalanmiller said in Starwind AMA Ask Me Anything April 26 10am - 12pm EST:
@LaMerk would there be a negative to using it in other circumstances? Or just a lack of benefits? I guess the needed question would be.. what factors would make you avoid LSFS given its benefits?
Honestly in any environment faster that the ones I mentioned the lack of benefits would already be a negative. Considering the skyrocketing of RAM pricing right now, devoting some of it for LSFS with no obvious benefits would be a strong factor for me not to use it in those environments.
How much RAM utilization do we expect to see with LSFS?
Typo, I meant Flash.
OH, that makes more sense
-
@Reid-Cooper said in Starwind AMA Ask Me Anything April 26 10am - 12pm EST:
@TheDeepStorage said in Starwind AMA Ask Me Anything April 26 10am - 12pm EST:
-Our own asynchronous replication, which allows to do block level replication to the cloud.
Is this what we would normally look at for an off-site DR solution? What would be the "go to" for that?
Let's say I have a two node Starwind HC setup at my office. And I want a DR site, would I do a single node at a colo or a second office and use the asynchronous replication feature to get the data to it? What does that solution look like?
It sounds, like you might start architecting StarWind deployments. That's exactly what we would suggest. Just add a node at a remote location and set it up as an asynchronous replication partner. Schedule the snapshots and your DR environment is good to go.
-
Thanks -
Anyone have any other questions for the @StarWind_Software guys? They are always here, but the AMA is officially winding down. So any last questions while everyone is at their keyboards together.. this is the time.
-
Oh and by the way, we will be hanging out on Mangolassi even after the AMA, so if you have any late questions afterwards, feel free to tag us.
-
@TheDeepStorage said in Starwind AMA Ask Me Anything April 26 10am - 12pm EST:
Oh and by the way, we will be hanging out on Mangolassi even after the AMA, so if you have any late questions afterwards, feel free to tag us.
Thanks for running the AMA guys! Lots of good info here. And awesome that we have the new Linux VSA appliances to be playing with.
-
I think we can say THANK YOU EVERYONE!
-
Definitely, thanks everyone! Very informative.
-
Thank you guys for attending!
-
Thank you for all the questions, we've had a great time (and we hope you did as well!). Also, I will abuse the situation to advertise @ABykovskyi and his webinar about the Linux VSA that will be happening tomorrow: https://www.starwindsoftware.com/dedicated-live-demo-session
-
@TheDeepStorage said in Starwind AMA Ask Me Anything April 26 10am - 12pm EST:
Thank you for all the questions, we've had a great time (and we hope you did as well!). Also, I will abuse the situation to advertise @ABykovskyi and his webinar about the Linux VSA that will be happening tomorrow: https://www.starwindsoftware.com/dedicated-live-demo-session
Abuse all you want!
