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February 24th, 2012 06:00
Does Isilon replace Celerra as a NAS appliance
Forgive my ignorant question please but I have not had to deal with evaluating EMC products in a while. I'm in a new environment where we have a (non-EMC) array on the back end with plenty of space but an old NFS server that needs to be replaced. We would like an enterprise class appliance that can simply be NAS front end using the space on our existing backend array. Having worked with Celerra in the past I wanted to consider it. But, it look slike Celerra is being (has been ?) replace by Isilon. I do not see indication if the Isilon can simply act as a front end to another vendor array on the back. Can someone shed some light on this for me?
Thanks.
Ted Fisher
Bowling Green State University
AdamFox
254 Posts
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February 24th, 2012 06:00
The VNX (the next-generation of Celerra) is not being phased out. Isilon is a scale-out NAS solution and a very good one. But if you don't have the needs of an Isilon, the VNX is still a viable, supported platform that is still being actively developed (e.g. New software released with new features are still being created. One was just released last month, there are more planned for later this year and beyond).
For your case specifically, wanting to put a gateway in front of an existing EMC SAN array, the VNX is still the correct solution as Isilon is only an integrated platform and does not front-end SAN arrays. However both the integrated VNX units as well as the gateway model which can front-end both Clariion/VNX block arrays as well as Symmetrix/VMAX arrays.
dynamox
9 Legend
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20.4K Posts
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February 24th, 2012 07:00
no
tfisher.bgsu
3 Posts
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February 24th, 2012 07:00
Thanks for the feedback Adam. The one issue is that our existing array is NOT an EMC array. Will a VNS work as a front end to an array from another vendor?
Thanks.
Ted
tfisher.bgsu
3 Posts
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February 24th, 2012 07:00
Hi again Adam. Another question about the VNX line. If I understand it correctly the VNX is like a merge of the Celerra and Clariion units. Thus, it seems much like Isilon in terms of design for housing the drives on the back end. Each VNX unit on your web site is designed to hold a number of drives. I see no unit that would be suitable simply as a front end (the Celerra side of the combination). Am I missing a model somewhere?
Thanks.
Ted
Rainer_EMC
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8.6K Posts
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February 24th, 2012 08:00
no - VNX and Isilon architecture is quite different
Isilon is a scale-out architecture with up to hundreds of nodes connected by Infinitband.
Each node has CPU, memory and disk drives.
All nodes togehter form one big file system which is accessible via NFS, CIFS or ISCSI from each node.
The is NO Isilon "gateway" model without storage or one that is able to use external storage
VNX block is a dual controller architecture where up to 1000 disk drives are connected to both controllers (dual-ported) over multiple SAS backends.
This block storage is then accessible via FC, ISCSI or FCoE from both controllers
VNX file consists of multiple data movers (x-blades) that serve file systems via NFS / CIFS.
The X-blades are connected via FC to VNX block controllers or VMAX storage
Rainer
AdamFox
254 Posts
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February 27th, 2012 12:00
The VNX is available as an intergrated unit or as a NAS gateway (the VG2 and VG8 models). However, the gateways only front-end EMC storage (Clariion, VNX configured as block-only, or DMX/VMAX). The gateways would connect via an FC or FCoE fabric back to the array and get it's LUNs (or dVols in X-Blade-speak) and from there it would act just like an integrated unit.