We continue to develop variables
[color = # 0000cd] Will I have the possibility of having Proactive Support? [/colour]
Support Needless to say, the support, its quality, availability and experience is essential to sleep peacefully. What types of support do you offer me? What response times? The support will be In-Situ? Support attention will be in Spanish or English?
Proactive Support There are several companies that monitor our storage system. When detecting any part that needs replacement, they send it to us automatically, thus achieving Proactive Support (the word sounds good). This type of services often makes the difference between a quality support and the rest.
[color = # 0000cd] Will I configure my Storage System with a Redundant Power Supply? [/colour]
Redundancy in Food. Surely it will seem silly to talk about Performance, High Availability, Capacity and others and to imply that we will have more than one Power Supply. There are many input or economic solutions that can give us good solutions although, due to their price, they do not have a redundant power supply. We should consider the importance of having or not having an additional Source to increase availability.
[color = # 0000cd] Simple or Redundant Controller? [/colour]
Redundancy in Controller. The Controller is the heart of our Storage System. Having Redundancy at the Controller level is really important not only to increase availability, but also to help us distribute the load. We have to consider that the cost of a Storage System is an investment for several years and the decision to acquire one or two controllers is very important.
[color = # 0000cd] Will my system work in Active-Active or Active-Passive mode? [/colour]
Active-Active or Active-Passive. Considering that we acquired a Storage Solution with Double Controller, it would be important that we know how the product works. There are systems that work in Active-Active or in Active-Passive mode. The possibility of having a device that serves simultaneously with the two controllers will give us greater versatility when distributing the load. This characteristic is another one that usually marks the difference between a Quality System and the rest.
[color = # 0000cd] How much Cache does each Controller have? [/colour]
Cache. The Cache Memory is another feature that can make our Storage System a "black leg". The Cache of the Cabin can improve the performance notably moving to the cache the most consulted memory blocks. Caché sizes can be 1GB, 2GB, 4GB, 8GB, 12GB, 16GB or more.
[color = # 0000cd] Is it possible to increase the Cache Memory once the Cajon has been purchased? [/colour]
Caché extension. Normally the Medium-High range Storage Cabins give us the possibility of expanding the Cache Memory. Another uncomfortable question for a Storage commercial would be:
[color = # 0000cd] Does the Storage System include a Dynamic Cache? [/colour]
Dynamic Cache Several manufacturers have been offering hybrid Caché solutions for some time. They identify the most consulted disk blocks and move them dynamically to SSD disks. While the memories used for the Cache are faster than SSDs, it is also true that SSDs are faster than a SAS disk at 10 or 15k.
[color = # 0000cd] How many ports does the System have for each Controller? [/colour]
HBAs or Targets by Controller. Each Controller will have HBA ports FC, Ethernet or even SAS. The greater the number of available ports or targets, the more we will increase the availability and the load balancing of LUNs or shared resources.
We follow our decision making with the tutorial HOW TO EVALUATE THE ACQUISITION OF A STORAGE TO VIRTUALIZE - Section IV