Re: SAN Vendor support for IBM i?

[Vern Hamberg <vhamberg@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

It's all virtualization these days - IBM has some storage that can be 
external but look just like internal, DS3800 or something or other - we 
went through an exercise to be Storage-Ready or some such certification 
a few years ago.

Now it's VIOS - that is the thing that reports what kind of disk you 
have set up - it is reported as standard i-DASD - if VIOS can talk to 
other stuff, hey, you're there, man! I think!

Vern

On 5/21/2012 2:54 PM, Jack Kingsley wrote:
> i was referring to what I read about like a EMC/IBM CSA.
>
> On Mon, May 21, 2012 at 3:48 PM, Richard Schoen<richard@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>wrote:
>
> > Depends on what you mean by supported ? :-)
> >
> > If the SAN device uses standard CIFS or NFS that's supported under Linux
> > or Windows Storage Server, you should be able to copy data there.
> >
> > In our case our WebDocs software interacts normally via the aforementioned
> > NFS services so we can read/write to the SAN as easily as an NFS drive.
> >
> > If you're using IBM Content Manager or other system user where the system
> > doesn't support direct read/write to NFS or CIFS.  Then it's time to
> > upgrade your 3995 jukebox or add more iSeries disk if you don't want an IBM
> > SAN :-)
> >
> > One of our customers recently bought a Buffalo 12TB Terastation with
> > Windows Storage Server on it fo leass than $2k.
> >
> > Not bad for low end disk, although not a true SAN and probably not meant
> > to be used without a good network backup.
> >
> > Regards,
> > Richard Schoen
> > RJS Software Systems Inc.
> > Where Information Meets Innovation
> > Document Management, Workflow, Report Delivery, Forms and Business
> > Intelligence
> > Email: richard@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> > Web Site: http://www.rjssoftware.com
> > Tel: (952) 736-5800
> > Fax: (952) 736-5801
> > Toll Free: (888) RJSSOFT
> > ------------------------------
> >
> > message: 3
> > date: Mon, 21 May 2012 17:21:32 +0000
> > from: Matt Olson<Matt.Olson@xxxxxxxx>
> > subject: SAN Vendor support for IBM i?
> >
> > Does anyone know of any SAN's that are compatible with IBM i other than
> > from EMC or IBM themselves?  It seems we only have two vendor choices on
> > this front whereas our Windows boxes has an incredibly larger vendor
> > selection.
> >
> > I've looked at Xiotech, NetApp, Equilogic (dell), Compellent (dell), and
> > HP and none of those vendors seem to support the iSeries.  They all have
> > SAN's that work with Unix/Windows/x86 boxes but not the iSeries.
> > Additionally cost is a factor, for the price of TWO 8TB san's from the
> > manufacturers that do NOT have iSeries support we cannot even get ONE from
> > EMC or IBM.
> >
> > Kinda disappointing so far, so I'm hoping someone can tell me of an
> > economical SAN that is compatible with the IBM i that have all the bells
> > and whistles that we are use to from the big guys in the x86 world
> > (geolocated site failover, blocklevel replication and restore, automatic
> > management of files by moving frequently access to faster drives and lower
> > access data to slow drives, etc).
> >
> > Matt
> >
> > --
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