Re: IBM XIV?

From: Steve Howard <stevedhoward_at_gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 3 Jun 2010 13:27:15 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID: <364cc442-24a2-4e3a-ac29-35479b5109b5_at_a16g2000vbr.googlegroups.com>



On Jun 2, 4:50 pm, Troels Arvin <tro..._at_arvin.dk> wrote:
> Steve Howard wrote:
> > Is anyone using this storage for any of their databases?  If so, do you
> > have any feedback?
>
> We are using XIV as storage backend for many activities, including ESX,
> Linux and AIX file systems, and large+busy DB2 databases. For a short
> while, we also tested and Oracle setup where the Oracle server was using
> an XIV storage backend (we dropped it again, but not because of XIV
> issues).
>
> We have been using it in production for around ½ a year now.
> No problems so far, and great performance. When I say "great
> performance", it's due to
>  - impressions during daily operations
>  - from extensive benchmarks using tools like fio, iozone, and
>    bonnie++; the results on XIV were very impressive, compared
>    to other storage solutios that we use
>
> We monitor it using SNMP.
>
> Due to it's active-active multipathing, it's super-simple to configure on
> the hosts, because you don't have to worry about setting up correct
> preferred paths, path-failover stuff, etc.
>
> Some minor drawbacks:
>
>  - The GUI user interface of the XIV is too flashy for my
>    taste, making it hard to use over a remote X session, for
>    example. (I haven't used the command line interface,
>    so I can't comment on that.)
>
>  - XIV doesn't accept passwords containing special charaters
>    like &
>
>  - IBM is somewhat secretive about the XIV; for example:
>     - There is a MIB for XIV, but you can't find it anywhere
>       public. But your XIV reseller should be able to
>       provide you with it.
>     - There is an interesting whitepaper about optimal
>       DB2 setup when using XIV which contains some rather
>       interesting advice, but the whitepaper isn't publicly
>       available. Maybe there are other whitepapers like that
>       (one for Oracle+XIV?). Again: Your XIV reseller should
>       be able to provide it for you.
>
> I can highly recommend the XIV for any database-like usage.
>
> --
> Troels

Great, thanks Troels! Received on Thu Jun 03 2010 - 15:27:15 CDT

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