Examples of proper utilization of SAN
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We all know the horror stories of IPODs and such, as well as small business infrastructure built around having a SAN that makes zero sense. For those with experience deploying SAN, what would be examples of proper use of SAN? What kind of storage needs would warrant the consideration of deploying a SAN?
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Large scale out storage is the only logical use. Storage way above what could be fit in a single server.
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We deployed a starwind vSAN in HA to store some critical VMs, it works quite well (cfr. "StarWind Virtual SAN
Installation and Configuration of HyperConverged 2 Nodes with Hyper-V Cluster" technical paper) -
@davide-bonavita said in Examples of proper utilization of SAN:
We deployed a starwind vSAN in HA to store some critical VMs, it works quite well (cfr. "StarWind Virtual SAN
Installation and Configuration of HyperConverged 2 Nodes with Hyper-V Cluster" technical paper)While that is an good example of uses to deploy a SAN solution, I think @EddieJennings is referring to physical SAN products and not the logical vSAN solutions that we know about today.
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@DustinB3403 said in Examples of proper utilization of SAN:
@davide-bonavita said in Examples of proper utilization of SAN:
We deployed a starwind vSAN in HA to store some critical VMs, it works quite well (cfr. "StarWind Virtual SAN
Installation and Configuration of HyperConverged 2 Nodes with Hyper-V Cluster" technical paper)While that is an good example of uses to deploy a SAN solution, I think @EddieJennings is referring to physical SAN products and not the logical vSAN solutions that we know about today.
OK that brings up a good point - is physical SANs even really worth it much anymore today considering the abilities of vSANs? I mean I'm sure there are times where it can be worthwhile - but likely not for anyone really hanging out on these forums.
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@Dashrender said in Examples of proper utilization of SAN:
@DustinB3403 said in Examples of proper utilization of SAN:
@davide-bonavita said in Examples of proper utilization of SAN:
We deployed a starwind vSAN in HA to store some critical VMs, it works quite well (cfr. "StarWind Virtual SAN
Installation and Configuration of HyperConverged 2 Nodes with Hyper-V Cluster" technical paper)While that is an good example of uses to deploy a SAN solution, I think @EddieJennings is referring to physical SAN products and not the logical vSAN solutions that we know about today.
OK that brings up a good point - is physical SANs even really worth it much anymore today considering the abilities of vSANs? I mean I'm sure there are times where it can be worthwhile - but likely not for anyone really hanging out on these forums.
As something you buy, I can't imagine a reason to ever purchase a physical SAN today. Especially since there are so many heavily tested and proven vSAN products out there today.
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@DustinB3403 said in Examples of proper utilization of SAN:
@davide-bonavita said in Examples of proper utilization of SAN:
We deployed a starwind vSAN in HA to store some critical VMs, it works quite well (cfr. "StarWind Virtual SAN
Installation and Configuration of HyperConverged 2 Nodes with Hyper-V Cluster" technical paper)While that is an good example of uses to deploy a SAN solution, I think @EddieJennings is referring to physical SAN products and not the logical vSAN solutions that we know about today.
Yes. I'm intending the scope of the discussion to be about a physical SAN (storage devices and their network).
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@DustinB3403 said in Examples of proper utilization of SAN:
@Dashrender said in Examples of proper utilization of SAN:
@DustinB3403 said in Examples of proper utilization of SAN:
@davide-bonavita said in Examples of proper utilization of SAN:
We deployed a starwind vSAN in HA to store some critical VMs, it works quite well (cfr. "StarWind Virtual SAN
Installation and Configuration of HyperConverged 2 Nodes with Hyper-V Cluster" technical paper)While that is an good example of uses to deploy a SAN solution, I think @EddieJennings is referring to physical SAN products and not the logical vSAN solutions that we know about today.
OK that brings up a good point - is physical SANs even really worth it much anymore today considering the abilities of vSANs? I mean I'm sure there are times where it can be worthwhile - but likely not for anyone really hanging out on these forums.
As something you buy, I can't imagine a reason to ever purchase a physical SAN today. Especially since there are so many heavily tested and proven vSAN products out there today.
Well, in that case, the OP's answer would be - there aren't many. You'd need a specialty case to really look at needing a physical SAN.
Disk/network layout now becomes a layout function of the vSAN setup.
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If you look at it a SAN is very desirable when you're running large databases, typical of the enterprise, because you need low latency block storage.
SANs using all flash NVMe arrays have very impressive performance and a price to match of course. For it to make economic sense you have to have the need for that kind of storage and speed and I guess that's why it falls into the enterprise market and not SMBs. If most SMBs can run their entire infrastructure on two or three server it's hard to see how they would have the need for a SAN - unless they are some kind of provider.
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@Pete-S said in Examples of proper utilization of SAN:
If you look at it a SAN is very desirable when you're running large databases, typical of the enterprise, because you need low latency block storage.
SAN always increases latency. I'd love it to be magic, but whenever you add more connections, you add latency. There is no getting around it. If you need low latency, you always go local.
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@Pete-S said in Examples of proper utilization of SAN:
If you look at it a SAN is very desirable when you're running large databases, typical of the enterprise
The part quoted is the only bit that makes sense.
More devices, more LAN, more connections, all external storage means it will always be slower. If you could get a single massive server with that much storage, you'd out perform a SAN every day all day.
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SAN only make sense when you have massive storage requirements, tens of hundreds of Terabytes and upward.
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@Pete-S said in Examples of proper utilization of SAN:
If you look at it a SAN is very desirable when you're running large databases, typical of the enterprise, because you need low latency block storage.
SANs using all flash NVMe arrays have very impressive performance and a price to match of course. For it to make economic sense you have to have the need for that kind of storage and speed and I guess that's why it falls into the enterprise market and not SMBs. If most SMBs can run their entire infrastructure on two or three server it's hard to see how they would have the need for a SAN - unless they are some kind of provider.
What's wrong with NVMe in a non-San shared nothing setup, or even a serverless database?
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@Obsolesce said in Examples of proper utilization of SAN:
What's wrong with NVMe in a non-San shared nothing setup, or even a serverless database?
What?
There is nothing wrong with it, besides that it doesn't scale easily.
Edit: Also it doesn't fit the subject of "proper utilization of SAN", because that's just a standalone server.
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@travisdh1 said in Examples of proper utilization of SAN:
@Pete-S said in Examples of proper utilization of SAN:
If you look at it a SAN is very desirable when you're running large databases, typical of the enterprise, because you need low latency block storage.
SAN always increases latency. I'd love it to be magic, but whenever you add more connections, you add latency. There is no getting around it. If you need low latency, you always go local.
When I wrote "large database" I didn't talk about a wordpress installation. So it's implied that if we are talking about SAN we are talking about shared block storage - meaning local storage is out.
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@Pete-S said in Examples of proper utilization of SAN:
@travisdh1 said in Examples of proper utilization of SAN:
@Pete-S said in Examples of proper utilization of SAN:
If you look at it a SAN is very desirable when you're running large databases, typical of the enterprise, because you need low latency block storage.
SAN always increases latency. I'd love it to be magic, but whenever you add more connections, you add latency. There is no getting around it. If you need low latency, you always go local.
When I wrote "large database" I didn't talk about a wordpress installation. So it's implied that if we are talking about SAN we are talking about shared block storage - meaning local storage is out.
Talking about SAN at all means local storage is out. Why are yourself and @Obsolesce talking about local storage at all?
The only reasonable use case for SAN is with massive scale out storage requirements.
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Talking about vSAN, which this topic very clearly isn't based on:
@EddieJennings said in Examples of proper utilization of SAN:
Yes. I'm intending the scope of the discussion to be about a physical SAN (storage devices and their network).
Would of course take advantage of the local storage on each server and create a SAN with it. But it still functions as a SAN.
So talking about, presumably things like Dell EMC SAN products (throw a name up) there is no reasonable need for them unless you are discussing scale out storage requirements.
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@EddieJennings what conversation is going on that you're looking for more information regarding SAN (products I assume). Which SAN isn't something you can purchase, it's something you have to build.
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@DustinB3403 said in Examples of proper utilization of SAN:
The only reasonable use case for SAN is with massive scale out storage requirements.
Wrong. Low latency shared block storage for OLTP applications don't have to be massive to make sense. Just need high performance requirements. Also, for instance a HPC cluster might fit in one rack but need a high performance storage solution.
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Just Google: When to Consider a SAN
A voila, first hit.
