2

We are planning to do a migration with our current physical environment to a new, virtualized SAN infrastructure. To keep it short, we want to migratie first our DC (3), Exchange (1) and file server.

We also have a SAN (IBM DS4700 )for our SAP environment, which we want to migrate or use as an extension in the new hardware (SAP doesn't get virtualized).

The problem i'm facing is that i need evaluation criteria to choose the right hardware vendor. i know that they all are all scalable, high perfomant, have a monitoring feature.

the hypervisor isn't yet important now , only the hardware that will host the virtual environment. Can somebody give me good advice of point me in the right direction? thank you in advance!

moviefreak
  • 61
  • 1
  • Hardware recommendations are off-topic here, and on the rest of the SE network of sites. Honestly, choose any of the big-name server vendors, whichever you're most comfortable with, and make sure to get a good 4-hour response warranty. – EEAA Feb 07 '12 at 15:14
  • it is just that what i cannot do. I work in a government organisation, so i need to choose from a shortlist. we are using taxmoney ;-) – moviefreak Feb 07 '12 at 15:38

1 Answers1

1

There are many criteria to look at. From my experience some of the more important things to look at are:

  1. Upgrade path for future hardware releases.

    • a. Will the next generation drives work with the current chassis\modules
    • b. Can you upgrade modules\shelves without replacing the chassis

  2. Can you mix types of modules\drive configurations?

    • a. Can you put 2TB in one shelf and 1TB drives in another?

  3. What types of connections are supported? Do you need?

    • a. Fibre(4GB, 8Gb, etc)
    • b. iSCSI

  4. I/O Specs for your environment

    • a. Gather performance data on current environment. Performance logs for disk activity. Look at Read/write Second AVG, Peak
    • b. based on Performance data gathering. Find out what I/O you need and get system that can handle it

  5. Growth specs for your environment

    • a. Average growth of your data per month\week\year to estimate when you will get full

This is a pretty good list to start.

the-wabbit
  • 40,737
  • 13
  • 111
  • 174
Mike
  • 828
  • 1
  • 7
  • 18