I recently read an article in CIO magazine about the cost per gig per month. In the article they quoted Google at about 6 cents per gig per month. I use Amazon for a few projects, which runs at about 12 cents per gig per month. Including labor and hardware I decided to look at about what it would cost per gigabyte per month for Xsan storage. Averaging out 30 installs that we did over the past year turned out a total of about 7.2 cents per gig per month, as opposed to around $2.00 per gig per month which is pretty average for many SAN solutions. Now, Xsan…
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Xsan: Setting up StorNext Clients on Red Hat Enterprise
Xsan and the acfs (Apple Clustered File System) volumes that Xsan controls can be utilized by Windows and Linux clients. The Windows setup is fairly straight forward, so here we’re going to cover setting up a Linux client to mount an Xsan volume using StorNext. First, buy StorNext. Second, register StorNext. Then, go to your Metadata Controller and Backup Metadata Controller and use the cvfsid command. Copy the contents and go to this site, completing the form using the output from cvfsid: http://Prodreg.quantum.treehousei.com/login.aspx Now put the information that Quantum sends you into the /Library/FileSystems/Xsan/config/license.dat file on your Metadata Controllers and reboot them. Now you’re ready to setup your clients.…
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Final Cut Server: Creating a Device
Final Cut Server is able to see files and folders that are available to a system through a variety of means. This could be an Xsan or a folder on an Xsan, an nfs mount from another host, a folder through FTP, etc. Basically, if you can see some data through the Finder reliably then you can go ahead and add it to Final Cut Server. Speeds of clients to access the data then depend on the ability of the clients to access that data either in place or through the Final Cut Server application. Each top level folder that you will be accessing through Final Cut Server can be…
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Testers Needed
We’ve been working on an application that will repair corrupted Xsan volumes. If you have a volume you wouldn’t mind potentially shredding and would like to test the app for us then please let me know.
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Xsan: Stripe Group Down Errors
If you are getting Stripe Group Down errors in your Xsan logs then this usually means there is a problem with your workstation accessing LUNs in the environment. This can be an issue with a given workstation having problems seeing the SAN fabric or it can be a problem with any other system seeing the fabric. You will notice the system having the error indicated in the logs. Check Apple System Profiler (keep in mind Apple System Profiler sometimes requires a reboot to refresh the LUNs it has access to via Fibre Channel) to see if the indicated LUNs are present. If all LUNs give an error (one per line)…
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Xsan: Create a Volume
Once you have created your SAN you will want to build a volume. The volume is what is logically shown to end users running as Xsan clients and by default will automatically mount for them when they log into their computer. Creating the volume is a straight forward matter. To begin, open Xsan Admin and you will see a screen similar to the one below. Xsan Admin Click on Volumes in your SAN Assets side bar and you will see a blank listing of Volumes. Here, click on the + sign in the bottom right hand side of the screen. This will begin the volume creation wizard at the SAN…
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Xsan: Adding Client Computers
Now that you have created your volume you will want to move on to adding computers that can access your volume. This is one place where Xsan 2 is very different than Xsan 1.x. To add a computer that has access to your volume, click on Computers in your SAN Assets list. From here, click on the + sign in the lower right hand corner of your screen. This will invoke a list of computers that have the Xsan software installed (as can be seen below). You can add clients of 1.4.2 or 2.x to your SAN. You can also add clients running 10.5.0 through 10.5.2; however, you will receive…
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Xsan: Installation
Install Xsan software and Reboot. This will install a bin, config, debug, examples, man and ras folder into your /Library/FileSystems/Xsan folder. The bin folder will contain the Xsan command line binary files that allow you to do all of what you can do within Xsan Admin (and more). The config folder will begin with only a uuid file. Once you setup the SAN it will fill in with more information. Next you will want to place the Xsan Admin application in your dock and open it for the first time. Once open, you will be faced with the Introduction screen. Xsan 2.0 Introduction Screen Here you will click Continue. In…
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Free Quantum Courseware
http://www.quantum.com/ServiceandSupport/StorageCareLearning/Index.aspx
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Mac in the Cloud
A few days ago I noticed a post in Tim O’Reilly’s twitter feed asking whether or not it would matter whether people ran a Mac or a PC once everyone had migrated to a cloud. Well, there are a few things about Mac OS X that make it fairly difficult to run in a cloud environment: EFI – Mac OS X doesn’t use a BIOS like most Operating Systems. This makes the bootup process fairly difficult in a distributed computing environment where the Guest OS would be OS X and the Host OS would be something else. Lack of Firepower – I love the Xserve. I always have. They’re some…