Forum Discussion

rihatum's avatar
rihatum
Level 2
12 years ago

Learning Storage Foundation

Hi All,

I am interested in learning storage foundation for unix / solaris and windows. I have discussed with my fellow colleagues at work to get some understanding of the product itself and have seen some videos too.

Can someone guide me on setting up a lab for storage foundation, my understanding is :

Storage Foundation is a Suite of products, which includes :

Veritas filesystem

Veritas Volume Manager

Veritas Volume Replicator

What is Storage Foundation HA ? Is it a software or a suite with the above products and HA funcionality?

Also, any tips in learning this product and having a play around testing will be really helpful

Thanks

 

business continuity
Features
Installing
Solaris
Storage Foundation
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  • mikebounds's avatar
    mikebounds
    12 years ago

    I would create a vxfs filesystem on a Veritas volume (in a diskgroup) as this is what you want to test.

    Yes, VCS joins two node in a veritas cluster 

    What you test depends on what you want to get out of the product - http://www.symantec.com/storage-foundation gives a good overview of the features, but seems to be missing mentioning the ability to mirror across arrays in conjuction with site awareness feature.

    I would also recommend installing VOM in another VM which is a centralised management tool which is installed on a Windows/Linux/Unix server such as Windows 2003/2008 or RedHat Enterprise Linux and  you access VOM via a web browser on a client desktop.  VOM can manage VCS and SF nodes installed on Windows, Linux and UNIX.

    Mike

     

  • mikebounds's avatar
    mikebounds
    Level 6
    12 years ago

    Yes SFHA adds HA funcionality - i.e VCS

    Veritas Volume Replicator (VVR) is part of Veritas Volume Manager (VxVM), but requires an additional license.

    You can setup this up in VMWare using Linux - you can learn VxVM and Vxfs (filesystem) on one node and you can learn a fair bit if VCS with one node, but 2 nodes are better.  VVR requires 2 nodes and VVR will replicate storage over IP.

    From 5.1 onwards an eval license for 60 days is built-in.

    Mike

  • rihatum's avatar
    rihatum
    Level 2
    12 years ago

    Thanks Mike, for a prompt response - Much appreciated.

    So, I have already setup 2 x Solaris 11 Virtual Machines on ESX 5.1 ( i have got around 48GB RAM on my ESX cluster) I have allocated 4GB RAM to each Solaris 11 VM.

    I have used "Think Disks" for the VM's  - is that OK ?

    Now as ZFS is the filesystem on Solaris 11, so I should be adding another DISK to each of the VM's and then upload the binaries / installer I will download for storage foundation, then follow the install guide for solaris ?

    Once the additional disk is mounted, shall i create a zfs filesystem or a vertias file system (vxfs) ?

    Also, when they say Storage Foundation HA - they refer to Veritas Cluster Server, which basically joins two node in a veritas cluster ?

    Sorry - I have never used these products and given there complexity I want to get a good grip on it's understanding, deployment and maintenance !!

    Thanks again for your assistance !!

    EDIT : Also, once I have successfully installed Veritas Volume Manager, Veritas filesystem - what will you suggest to test and or do as a lab to get to know the benefits of this product ?

  • mikebounds's avatar
    mikebounds
    Level 6
    12 years ago

    I would create a vxfs filesystem on a Veritas volume (in a diskgroup) as this is what you want to test.

    Yes, VCS joins two node in a veritas cluster 

    What you test depends on what you want to get out of the product - http://www.symantec.com/storage-foundation gives a good overview of the features, but seems to be missing mentioning the ability to mirror across arrays in conjuction with site awareness feature.

    I would also recommend installing VOM in another VM which is a centralised management tool which is installed on a Windows/Linux/Unix server such as Windows 2003/2008 or RedHat Enterprise Linux and  you access VOM via a web browser on a client desktop.  VOM can manage VCS and SF nodes installed on Windows, Linux and UNIX.

    Mike

     

  • stinsong's avatar
    stinsong
    Level 5
    12 years ago

    Hi rihatum,

    Install and practise Storage Foundation only is recommended for you for entry level understanding the product. It's generally a more powerful and functional product for volume and filesystem.

    You can start with creat, recover, modify volume groups, volume mirrors(with/without GCO), snapshot, filesystem. And you could understand the product by having LVM knowledges if you do.

    VCS is a cluster product which could say more powerful in high availability. Usually it needs VxVM resource in it for application usage.