Slashdot Mirror

Isn't this exactly what products such as EMC's Centera were designed for? No, I don't work for EMC, but I have worked with the Centera... it does the job well.

Any company that has a hyperlink marked "Investor Information" above-the-fold (shown without a need to scroll down on a typical 800x600 setup) is automatically a bit suspect.

Keeping things on topic, anyone know how OSS friendly EMC is?

I did some research about this, and I found an article stating that Compaq, EMC, HP, IBM, Intel and Sun Join Open Source Development Network. But note that this article is dated for the year 2000. Founded by them OSDN site feels VERY good. And we can see it was a really good (bottom) initiative (OSDN even supports slashdot ;).

I tried to answer if after 4 years EMC is still supporting OSDN. Yet I was unable to confirm that.

those are the results of my research in this interestong topic. If you have manage to confirm that EMC still supports OSDN, please let us know!

--

here's emc's press release

I work at EMC, and this fact (along with projections for similar growth in the future) is a big marketing strategy for the company, especially toward investors. The storage market grows with the amount of information produced... it's gotta be stored somewhere!

You need more storage, or an archiving solution, check out something like EMC's Centera system.

You mention High Overhead, but I am not sure what kind of overhead you are talking about. As far as saving each message seperately, you shouldn't ever have to do that. Just copy the message to the exhange public folder, and voila! it's there. Need a new Public Folder? Right click, choose "New Folder", and assign permissions for users.

If this doesn't meet your needs as a groupware suite, what features are you looking for? Maybe someone can point you to one that would fit.

The big boys in storage (ie: emc, ibm, persist, et al) are already doing this with self healing cheap disk based WORM technology to do archiving of data locally and mirroring geographically. This guy is just using the idea for the hardware design without the smarts of the self healing software.

I found out that solaris has a very interesting command: fssnap

If you are using EMC Symmetrix storage, you can use the TimeFinder product to create a "Business Continuence Volume", or BCV. It deltas against your last backup (at the track level, not files or blocks), applies changes to a copy of the last backup to create a consistent image, then you can dump that to tape.

I wonder if there's something like this for linux...

So long as you have one host (Solaris, NT, whatever) to run the TimeFinder client on, you can use the Symmetrix to provide storage to as many Linux boxes as you want.

I mean, that's what it always boils down to, isn't it?

Of course, if you have a few mil to spend, you could always just get an EMC Symmetrix, which uses algorithms to load disk information into a cache, to reduce bottlenecking at the disks. [so you modify the data in the cache, and when it gets a chance, it'll write out the changes to multiple disks]

Of course, they're not cheap, but hell, when you consider that you have to buy some pretty big systems to get over 10G of RAM into a box... and it solves the issues with writing out to disk on a regular basis [oh...and a built in UPS with enough time to write out the whole cache...or so they claim]

But for your issue-- to everything else, it's just a disk....so you don't have to reconfigure everything. [okay, the real question is how does this product handle that...and well, if their site wasn't down, they might have some literature on that, but well, it's not.]

(B)Regarding preserving your own voices and/or self-images, check out this and this.

(disclaimer: I work for EMC. In spite of that, I would love to see an open-source implementation of the APIs, as it would encourage greater adoption of the technology, and I feel that my employer could do quite well providing high-performance solutions for high-end users. Here is a review of the technology.)

(disclaimer: I work for EMC. In spite of that, I would love to see an open-source implementation of the APIs, as it would encourage greater adoption of the technology, and I feel that my employer could do quite well providing high-performance solutions for high-end users. Here is a review of the technology.)

Searching eBay for EMC provided some interesting results (these are mostly "buy it now" prices):

EMC Symmetrix 3930 w/ 12 TeraBytes = $57K
(With the proper drive configuration, this unit should be able to deliver up to 70TB in a single system).
This one comes with 12TB of storage (256x50GB HD's). If you throw out all 256 of those 50GB HD's (or just give them to me as a consulting fee for saving your company over $19.5 million) and buy 256X181 GB HD's, you're just short of you 50 TB mark (~46,336 GB).

On Pricewatch those drives come out at $999 ea x 256=$255,744.00 add the initial $57K and you've got a machine that meets your specification significantly less than $20mil

Here are some other EMC machines for sale on eBay:
EMC Symmetrix 3830-36 With 3 TB No Reserve! = $59K

EMC Symmetrix 3700 6TB w/Install & 1YR Mnt! = $48K

EMC Symmetrix 5700 3TB Storage System = $9K

This is what I found by doing minimal research. I'm not 100% sure that the Symmetrix 3930 can handle that configuration (its not my money) so before you go down this road -- do your research (better than I did).

--Turkey

Other than expense, why not just use some sort of shared storage appliance. The admin can be allowed to mount the appliance rw, while the webserver can be given read only access? I think EMC has products that do this.

If you could throw the cost of the drive out the window by voiding the warranty by removing the top then *why* couldn't you have put the money into a second hard drive for some mirroring?

Hitachi HDS has some nifty SAN products/technology. Merge that with some of IBMs SAN (think ESS) technology and you got yourself an interesting outcome. Come to think of it, IBM and HDS have been in bed for awhile now. This seems more of a formality and merging of technologies to compete againts EMC.

Yes indeed, there are absolutely no NAS solutions out there that don't lock you into a Microsoft-centric solution.

How'd this get +4?

- A.P.

Yup, as mentioned, you should talk with your EMC sales rep about their EMC Data Manager [EDM] product.

This is an Ask EMC, not an Ask Slashdot question!

Data General has unix and they sell X86 base machines.

Data General do not exist, so they can neither have UNIX nor sell x86-based machines. They were bought by EMC; if you go to the old DG Web site, you get taken to a site whose only mention of DG products is a link to the EMC Powerlink site, which appears to require you to have an account.

The main EMC site doesn't seem to feature the AViiON systems; perhaps you can still get AViiON machines running DG/UX, but it doesn't look particularly easy to do so.

Your needs sounds a lot like those of a Casino. Like someone suggested, check out EMC, this is how they really make their living.

BTW, EMC has a LOT of experience in this field, providing some gobernment agencies with massive storage (some satelites send to Earth several TeraBytes a day of information which needs to be stored for several months). I can assure you that if you're serious about what you want to do that they'll send some smart guy to your location for an in-depth interview with you and to come back later with a specific solution to your needs and a price quote.

Check out www.emc.com , if you need MASS storage, they're who you need to talk to.

FYI, you get 764 results on Google with "TV Elite," mostly people selling the product, such as: http://www.cfriends.com/tvelite.html. If you search on "TV Elite" and "EMC," you don't get anything.

What you must do, however, is ensure that the arrangements you make with a company hosting your data provide a means for you to recover the data in the event of them winding operations down, and ensuring that any "upgrades" that may interfere with your operations are notified to you well in advance. If they're worth their salt, they'd have a decent SLA to cover such things.

If they're not happy providing such a thing, avoid them like the plague, but the likes of Storage Networks seem to be doing rather well off the back of large ISP's/Co-Lo's where they claim to offer a very flexible, low-cost storage solution.

It's a trade off, pure and simple. If you can afford to have your own EMC or sun storage array(s) (and scale them when you need to), then do it. If you want the services of an SSP, without the hefty outlay to buy storage, fine, but be careful, and keep your eye on them, and the fine print.

For Extremely good performance, and many features at a high price, the EMC Symmetrix is definatly the way to go.

RAID 1 is NOT the fastest, RAID 1 is mirroring. It is slow. RAID 0 is the fastest, but has no redundancy. RAID 0+1 is the way to go for speed/redundancy.

All you've said is that you're looking at SANs and NAS devices. But what's it going to be used for? This is important.

As for HA, it's rather common these days. NetApp does seem to have a good solution.

And why not EMC? Cost? They've got lower end stuff: http://www.emc.com/products/systems/clariion.jsp. We've got two Clariion's coming next week. They'll be point to point SAN, though.

You might look at the IP4700 as a NAS device. I prefer their HA solution.

In the end, I've been looking at this exact thing for about four months now. Got any questions? Ask. I've spent a lot of time with bot EMC and NetApp.

Check out The Global File System, it's the heat! GFS is *the* open source filesystem that has the backing of the big storage manufacturers, like EMC Corporation. It blows away AFS, try it for yourself and you will see.

An alternate solution is their Data General division, which makes the Clar iio n disk arrays and SAN. We actually bought one of these puppies and it should be delivered sometime next week (at which time no one will ever read this thread again since /. threads have a half-life of about two hours so me following up with status is useless...)

Any firm *serious* about shared storage uses EMC. This isn't snake-oil motivated zealotry or whatever. If any of you have engineers in big name firms are in them yourself, ask them what they use for shared storage and you'll have the majority be EMC. You simply cannot beat the performance, reliability, and scalability. If this is interesting to you, contact me via email and I'll put you in touch with my EMC rep, a very knowledgable, kind, and no-nonsense guy.

Regards

ps: I know this sounds like a lot of marketing, but when you have such a complex situation as massive shared storage that needs uber uptime and so on, I can't really convey how happy it makes you to find a solution that Just Plain Works. I call it like I see it, no intra-ass sunshine blowing.

"The problem is, EMC is expensive. I don't think you can get anything from them for under six digits, and I'd be surprised if it was much under seven."

Actually Richard, that's no longer true. EMC purchased Data General back in October of 1999 and thus acquired their CLARiiO N line of storage products. These products are aimed at distributed environments and are actually quite affordable.

Not to mention the fact that EMC will let you lease their equipment if you absolutely have to avoid the upfront aquisition costs.

"The problem is, EMC is expensive. I don't think you can get anything from them for under six digits, and I'd be surprised if it was much under seven."

Actually Richard, that's no longer true. EMC purchased Data General back in October of 1999 and thus acquired their CLARiiO N line of storage products. These products are aimed at distributed environments and are actually quite affordable.

Not to mention the fact that EMC will let you lease their equipment if you absolutely have to avoid the upfront aquisition costs.

You really need to talk to EMC.
They have a high performance disk storage array called Symmet rix, which is pretty cool in it's own right. However, what makes it REALLY REALLY cool is that they sell it with a software package called Symmetrix Remote Data Facility (SRDF). SRDF allows you to copy/mirror data to an offsite Symmetrix array that can be located anywhere in the world! This is the software that all the large companies use to provide their "disaster recovery" site at another geographical location.

You really need to talk to EMC.
They have a high performance disk storage array called Symmet rix, which is pretty cool in it's own right. However, what makes it REALLY REALLY cool is that they sell it with a software package called Symmetrix Remote Data Facility (SRDF). SRDF allows you to copy/mirror data to an offsite Symmetrix array that can be located anywhere in the world! This is the software that all the large companies use to provide their "disaster recovery" site at another geographical location.

You really need to talk to EMC.
They have a high performance disk storage array called Symmet rix, which is pretty cool in it's own right. However, what makes it REALLY REALLY cool is that they sell it with a software package called Symmetrix Remote Data Facility (SRDF). SRDF allows you to copy/mirror data to an offsite Symmetrix array that can be located anywhere in the world! This is the software that all the large companies use to provide their "disaster recovery" site at another geographical location.

I work at EMC, where we seem to have similar stock plans to what is mentioned above in regards to Microsoft, so I thought I would explain a bit about how they work.

The most talked about stock deal is the "Incentive Stock Option." Depending on your performance, the company may decide to offer these to you. When they do, they'll give you options for a certain number of shares, priced at the current value as of the day they offer them to you. You can't excercise the options until they vest, though, and that takes time. At EMC, options vest at 20% per year, so they don't fully vest until after 5 years. Other companies vest at different rates. It's important to note that stock options are given out on a case by case basis, so people who don't get them, be they employees or temps, can't sue for them.

What they're talking about here is different. It's something like our Employee Stock Purchase Program. The deal is that you can have a given portion of your paycheck (at EMC, upto 10% or $10,000) withheld, and at the end of each half, they buy stock with that money. Now what makes this such a great deal is the price at which they buy the stock. They take the price as of the first trading day of the half and the last trading day of the half. They then toss out the higher of the two prices. They then lop 15% off that price. They then buy stock for you at that price with all the money that you've had withheld. This can be very profitable--at least a 15% profit, even if the stock is crashing and you sell immediately. The important thing here is that this is a standard benefit for all employees, but not for temps, so the temps are saying that they should be considered employees, so they should have received this benefit. It's easy to calculate the exact cash value that they would have received had they participated in the program and sold immediately, so it's easy for them to say what the dammages should be.

Now back to the issue of whether they're employees or temps.

You are correct that you should be doing analysis of your system to identify bottlenecks and then work to eliminate them. However, this should also include the application level, as well.


I can't speak for how one would go about doing application-specific tuning for things specific to Exim, but I find that many MTAs share the same problems. I'd suggest going to the Sendmail Performance Tuning for Large Sites paper that I wrote and presented at SANE'98, and see what of those problems (and solutions) might be applicable to your situation.

It is entirely possible that you could end up tuning the system performance enough that you don't even need to buy any additional hardware at all, just change the configuration of the software and OS you already have.


That said, if you've done all this and you still have problems, you probably do need to buy some new hardware. If that new hardware you need to buy turns out to be disk storage, Sun will be glad to sell you a StorEdge system that will implement RAID levels 0, 1, and 5 in hardware.

This would probably be the simplest and easiest solution to implement on a Sun machine, since the people who sold and installed the machine originally can help you with the expansion. However, it's likely to be rather expensive from a price/performance perspective. Note that Sun OEMs their hardware from SymBios/LSI Logic, and you can buy higher-end equipment direct. See http://www.metastor.com/ for more info.

If even the MetaStor hardware isn't enough for you, then you might want to consider vendors such as EMC and comparable units from Hitachi Data Systems. For my part, the HDS equipment can have a larger cache (up to 16GB in some units), can segment the cache so that different hosts get their own dedicated slice (which EMC can't do), and overall seems to simply be more intelligently implemented.

If you were in Europe, I would suggest looking at Comparex, since they are the licensed HDS VAR for this region.

I read somewhere that the brains capacity was on the order of 13 TB. No links to back it up yet...

If you want to back up 13TB, you might start with EMC. We deal with datasets measured in terabytes every day, and are quite adept at backing them up without even taking them offline.

:)

[Yes, I work for EMC--it's a wonderful job.]