ActiveSAN

JSamuel · Xsan Master Joined: 05 Jan 2011 Posts: 169

So, here we have it Cool

It sounds good to me, but seeing will be believing. Knowing Active's history and past-performance, it certainly sounds good... No pizza box Wink

- ActiveSAN
- Dual 8Gb FC
- Linux Based
- Intel Chips (the ones Apple turned down?)
- Possible FCoE
- Possible iSCSI
- ActiveStats

Active Also announced a training and certification program for the ActiveSAN appliance.

Can I use the appliance for file sharing? No.

Lights-Out Management? Integrated with the admin app. Includes power and fan monitoring.

SNMP? Not at release, but we'll release a MIB "very quickly."

Extended attributes and ACL? We are working with Quantum bring these to StorNext.

Base level of Xsan supported? 2.2.1

Promise storage supported? Yes.

MultiSAN support in Innerpool? Will be supported.

Is this a replacement for Xserve? Can I run other apps on it? Nope. You can still buy an Xserve today and you should.

Can we leverage StorNext add-ons such as Storage Manager? Yes. (Best news of the day in my opinion.)

Open Directory support? That is a hard one to answer. (Translation: no.)

Thoughts?

sith33 · Knows DNS is the answer Joined: 31 Jul 2008 Posts: 33

Seems like a good solution for a very specific need - honestly, if it were a few years ago, I'd probably have purchased these instead of xserves for MDCs, since having storagemanager in a supported xsan environment would be nice.

That said, there can't be too many environments in which this is "enough" to replace xserves. In our case, we use xserves for qmaster, custom QT apps, podcast producer, and a variety of other mac-specific things.

In the end, this is probably a good product to help people transition away from Xsan entirely, what with Final Cut Server dead, Xsan on the way out, and the future of the other OSX Server products pretty hazy.

Perhaps Apple will surprise us with a more liberal virtualization license, but I shant hold my breath.

Pablitus · Knows DNS is the answer Joined: 05 Feb 2008 Posts: 37

I was excited thinking that Active will pop out a fully Xserve replacement

They dissapoint me...they only thinks in the Data Control with an MDC replacement with a lot of bells and whistles in the GUI apart.

We run Final Cut Server in our environment...if Jobs have been more clever in releasing OS X for Active Servers, maybe the history will be different.

For our standpoint, we will migrate all our XSAN environment to Stornext 4.0.1.1 with Windows MDC in the near future...the only OS X Server we will keep is the FCS one.

ogminlo · Xsan Master Joined: 29 May 2008 Posts: 149

When asked about features like OD and services, Alex seemed to leave the door ajar– as if this was one use for his new hardware and that others may be forthcoming.

Or was that just the way it looked through the lens of my optimism?

Either way, I'm very interested to see more about activeSAN.

aaron · Site Admin Joined: 19 Mar 2005 Posts: 405

It seems the box as announced is a long way from release. To speculate about future additions is at your own risk!

My questions: Is it powerful enough for large SANs? Is it inexpensive enough for small SANs?

We won't know the answers for some time.
_________________
Aaron Freimark
http://www.tekserve.com/vcard/af.vcf

sith33 · Knows DNS is the answer Joined: 31 Jul 2008 Posts: 33

Would be interesting to know what wrstuden thinks...

no_xvi · RAID 5 Joined: 02 Dec 2010 Posts: 16

- No OD
- No Services (AFP, etc.)
- Cant run FCSvr
- No ACL integration

Its not the server im looking for...

JSamuel · Xsan Master Joined: 05 Jan 2011 Posts: 169

The 4 drive bays did seem rammed in and a bit uneven... But that's just cosmetics of the box they put together for show. Aslong as they lock, I'm not too fussy about what it looks like aslong as I can get one decent pic each deployment.

+ Dual 8Gb FC
+ SSD InnerPool (or 7200rpm step-down)
+ RAID1 (HW RAID chip?) SAS OS possibly (7200rpm step-down)
+ 8GB RAM IIRC (would imply a decent 64bit OS)

= Beast MDC, but just MDC.

addihetja · Xsan Master Joined: 20 Dec 2006 Posts: 109

Pardon my French, but aren't you guys jumping to conclusions?

Point by point:
Why would ActiveSAN need to "have OD"? For file sharing? It's not in the box.
Who says FCsrv is dead? Apple has already told us we'll "love" FCS4 and judging from past experience with FCS updates they will "have to" update FCsrv for file format compatibility.
FCsrv already clusters pretty well. If you don't want to use Mac Pros for it then don't; get a big-ass Linux box and use it to store the Postgres DB. Cluster the Postgres setup if you want to. Put the rendering on a big pile of Mac minis and put them in a rack-mount kit from Sonnet. Put the rest or the whole damn thing on VMWare.

Apple has stopped shipping Xserves as of today (I'm on GMT and it's 1 AM). Xsan was still available for order last I checked. So was the Final Cut Studio and Server. Am I worried that Apple won't continue supporting Xsan (even as client) in future OS releases? Sure. But where there is a demand there will be a supply. Maybe not from Apple but since I'm not Jobs I don't know when or what will happen.

The landscape changes all the time. That's why I'm in IT and try to keep on top of things. But spouting rumors as facts is childish in a professional forum. Even if they all turn out to be true–which I'm _positive_ will happen (just don't know when or how–I'm not losing any sleep until then.

Active introduced a product today that seems to have great potential. Until I've read the whitepapers Alex mentioned I don't know exactly what the beast is and what I need to add on top of it to use it in production environments but please people: let's try to stay calm.

JSamuel · Xsan Master Joined: 05 Jan 2011 Posts: 169

I think the main 'problem' right now, is that many made the assumption based on wishful thinking that this would be an out-of-the-box Xserve replacement for everything as opposed to 'just' (term loosely used) a SAN device (including myself admittedly - the thought/expectation managed to creep into the back of my mind whilst reading many blogs and articles in the run-up, although I didn't make any leanings towards a direct Apple-Active-collaboration)

It will take a brief period of time for Active to be able to combat this, and educate the masses as to what it is and isn't - not based on what Active may or may not of said, but purely based on peoples vision of what they thought it would be and now think it is.

Skelly · Xsan Master Joined: 21 Jul 2009 Posts: 70

Glad I bought 2 Intel Xserves when I had the chance. This "solution" is a joke.

abstractrude · Xsan Master Joined: 13 Mar 2008 Posts: 864

skelly, what dont you like about it? for SAN environments it should do the trick. maybe a couple mac mini's for open directory and dns to augment.

beskone · Could work for Apple Joined: 13 Apr 2009 Posts: 40

My biggest beef is no file sharing services. It's a Linux box right? how about some SMB services for re-sharing? It's not native AFP, but it'll get the job done.

That alone would make it 100% more attractive.

addihetja · Xsan Master Joined: 20 Dec 2006 Posts: 109

Hook a linux box with Samba and netatalk and you're in business....

JSamuel · Xsan Master Joined: 05 Jan 2011 Posts: 169