HP EVA4000 and MS SQL clustering
Hi,
Couple of questions for the group
1) I would be very interested in any feedback on real world experience of HP EVA4000 performance. We are about to implement a system and have trawled through the official published performance indicators on IOPs and throughput, but experience has shown this does not always translate into direct real world experience
2) We are planning to implement a MS SQL 2005 cluster on the SAN. The DBA wants to install a single SQL server and then migrate to clustered SQL / the Systems Administrator wants to go straight to a cluster on the SAN. Again is there any experience of which method is the most advisable?
Software/Hardware used:
Software/Hardware used:
ASKED:
April 5, 2006 10:07 AM
UPDATED:
May 5, 2006 7:25 PM
Answer Wiki:
Flynch -
I have experience with EMC DMX, Clariion, Hitachi and EVA. In my experience, EVA gives you the best bang for the buck with ease of use and performance. My advise (If you haven't implemented it yet) is to go for an EVA6000 or 8000 if you can. That will offer you the best expandability. Any upgrade to a maxxed out 4000 requires downtime. Also, you should fill it up with disks. The EVA performs the best when it is filled with disks. Performance will actually double if you double the amount of spindles.
I would go straight to the cluster. There is no problem with clustering a MS SQL server. Make one large disk group on the EVA and carve three LUNs: A 1GB LUN for quorum and two large LUNs for data and logs.
Good luck!
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Flynch –
I have experience with EMC DMX, Clariion, Hitachi and EVA. In my experience, EVA gives you the best bang for the buck with ease of use and performance. My advise (If you haven’t implemented it yet) is to go for an EVA6000 or 8000 if you can. That will offer you the best expandability. Any upgrade to a maxxed out 4000 requires downtime. Also, you should fill it up with disks. The EVA performs the best when it is filled with disks. Performance will actually double if you double the amount of spindles.
I would go straight to the cluster. There is no problem with clustering a MS SQL server. Make one large disk group on the EVA and carve three LUNs: A 1GB LUN for quorum and two large LUNs for data and logs.
Good luck!
Mileage varies for each and every customer.
To keep your technical guys happy, you could ask HP to help assist your team in testing a sample configuration or alternativley have them walk through a simulated load (i.e. iometer etc.) with input from your technical staff on the parameters of the IO load.
You could also ask HP to provide reference customers also with whom you can talk to.
Although, I’d agree with the previous statement. See if you can look at the EVA 6000 or even EVA 8000 for head room and growth (in both performance and capacity).
The EVA addresses performance issues with it’s technology, however like with anything the more disks you have the better it will perform.