iSCSI for DBs w/ Nexus 5k

ninjaturtle

Heya,

I wanted to run something by you guys. Is anybody booting SQL databases from an iSCSI volume utilizing a Nexus 5k? We have a database server that is filled up with controllers, so I need to boot one more volume(hard hitting). My only option right now is to boot it off our SAN.

Hardware we'll be using:
Intel 10GB adaptors
Nexus 5548UP
Equallogic SAN PS6500 running 48 15K SAS drives.

I believe we have the performance, but the database guys are over here shaking there heads no. They keep saying to go FC, but unfortunately that SAN controller the Equallogic Type 10 can't do FC and iSCSI. I don't think it can do FC at all.

Any thoughts?

kohr-ah

Will iSCSI work? Of course.

The only thing I remember our storage guy telling us about it was make sure iSCSI traffic is seperated and that redundancy sucked to get working.

joelsfood

I run lots of SQL servers over iSCSI, both natively and vmware datastores for virtual SQL boxes. My biggest box is 4.2t, 16 vcpus, 160gb of ram, and it hits 8k or so of iops and chokes the CPU/cache of a Nimble 240x2 SAN. So there's definitely no reason a properly designed iscsi solution can't give them the performance they need, particularly with a line rate switch like the 5548

ninjaturtle

joelsfood wrote: »

I run lots of SQL servers over iSCSI, both natively and vmware datastores for virtual SQL boxes. My biggest box is 4.2t, 16 vcpus, 160gb of ram, and it hits 8k or so of iops and chokes the CPU/cache of a Nimble 240x2 SAN. So there's definitely no reason a properly designed iscsi solution can't give them the performance they need, particularly with a line rate switch like the 5548

That's what I figured, hence why I chose the 5548 in the first place. You've got a lot of data, and I'm sure it works very well with that nice Nimble! We were looking at Nimble, but got shot down due to cost. You'll come out on top right away with the Nimble against the Equallogic. That fast cache is utilized quite nicely with the DBs off that Nimble, along with the small blocks of data Nimble utilizes.

What switches are you using with the Nimble?

joelsfood

The Vmware hosts themselves are Cisco UCS B Series, so there's a pair of 6248 Fabric Interconnects to start the switching, and those are connected to a pair of Juniper QFX5100s, so that client has line rate 10g (actually, more, because of lacp and mpio) from the hosts to the Nimbles.

ninjaturtle

Very nice mate! *drool*