Thank you for the response. It helps, but I'm still with a doubt on the networking aspects, specifically on complimentary hardware best cost (setup/maintanance) for storage-to-storage connection (dark fiber and/or metro-ethernet).
The dark fiber solution is technically simple because both ends (CX500 and CX3-40) have the right interfaces, but is quite expensive.
The metro-ethernet solution is more economical, but requires a FC-to-IP box at the CX500 side. Is that approach more expansive than the other one?
I understand that the costs comparaison can be expressed as follows.
ANY SOLUTION:
Investment: 2 x MirrorView setup and 1st year licences
Anual maintanance: MV licences renewal
Solution 1:
CX500 and new CX3-40 linked by dark fiber
Investment: CX3-40, darkfiber setup (2 lines for reduncancy)
Anual maintainance: darkfiber service, EMC CX500 and CX3 support
Solution 2:
CX500 and new CX3-40 linked by 100Mbps IP
Investment: CX3-40, metro-ethernet 100Mbps (2 lines), 2 FC-to-IP boxes
Anual maintanance: metro service, EMC CX500 and CX3 support
Solution 3:
CX500 upgrade to CX3-40 and new CX3-40, darkfiber or metro
Investment: CX3-40, metro or FC setup
Anual maintanance: metro or FC service, EMC 2x CX3 support
Is such cost benchmarking enough? Any missing component?
Thanks,
Jose
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by: meyersdPosted on 2008-06-30 at 16:52:31ID: 21903940
Consider the purchase of a CX3-40C and an upgrade from CX500 to CX3-40C. This will enable MirrorView replication over iSCSI . If you don't, you'll need to either purchase an IP services box that provide FC over IP. The McData (now Brocade) 1620 is perfect for the job, but is now end-of-life. Other options are the Brocade 7500, Cisco MDS9216i/9220i with appropriate licenses. QLogic also do a fantastic FC over iSCSI box, but it isn't supported by EMC so you'd be on your own with that one. The option that is likely to be most cost-effective is to upgrade the CX500 to a CX3-xxC. The C models have front-end FC and iSCSI ports, and with FLARE release 26, you can now enable MirrorView (/S and /A) replication over iSCSI - and it works brilliantly. Alternatively, purchase a CX3-10C or CX3-20C with 400GB FC drives and use that as your MirrorView target. This may be more economical than upgrading the CX500 as the MirrorView license and maintenance will cost you less than a CX3-40C as a MirrorView target. Note that you can only upgrade a CX500 to a CX3-40 or CX3-80. No upgrade options are available to upgrade to a CX3-20 or CX3-10.
So: you'll need:
CX3-40C
CX500 to CX3-40C upgrade *or* CX3-10C or CX3-20C with appropriate disc space. The new 400GB FC drives are handy!
MirrorView/A for both CLARiiON models.