Can a Starwind Server “front-end” FC Storage?

pignatel · Wed Mar 03, 2010 1:18 pm

I have preexisting Fiber Channel Storage Units (Sun 2540 Units) and Switches from my Falconstor installation. If using “StarWind Enterprise HA Unlimited” - Can a Starwind Server “front-end” FC Storage Units? Can a Starwind Server “Front-end FC Storage through FC Switches? Assuming there are FC-Adapters in the Starwind Server, will the Starwind Software be able to provide “Other Host Servers” access to the FC Storage through the FC-Switch or Directly Attached to the Starwind Server? Thank you for your time in advance.

Wed Mar 03, 2010 4:24 pm

Absolutely! You can hand-craft such a solution now and also we'll be releasing StarWind Network Storage Gateway product soon. It's going to do exactly what you want: grab FC storage and export as iSCSI target.

Connection method is entirely up to you. You can save on pretty expensive FC switches or just re-use them if you've managed to have them purchased already

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pignatel wrote:I have preexisting Fiber Channel Storage Units (Sun 2540 Units) and Switches from my Falconstor installation. If using “StarWind Enterprise HA Unlimited” - Can a Starwind Server “front-end” FC Storage Units? Can a Starwind Server “Front-end FC Storage through FC Switches? Assuming there are FC-Adapters in the Starwind Server, will the Starwind Software be able to provide “Other Host Servers” access to the FC Storage through the FC-Switch or Directly Attached to the Starwind Server? Thank you for your time in advance.

Aitor_Ibarra · Fri Mar 05, 2010 8:03 pm

This is similar to a question I had about front ending iSCSI boxes... would be a way to bring HA to non-HA capable targets.

Basically, if you can write a file to it and windows sees it as a local disk (as opposed to a network share say), then Starwind can put an .img on it and present it as an iSCSI target. It may also be able to do passthrough (as WIndows sees FC disks as SCSI, IIRC).

Starwind now requires windows 2008 as a minimum, so check that you can get drivers for your FC HBAs if they are old!

cheers,

Aitor

Fri Mar 05, 2010 8:23 pm

It's not a very good idea to use pass-thru as performance is going to be less then great. Putting cached image file is the best way to go here.

Aitor_Ibarra wrote:This is similar to a question I had about front ending iSCSI boxes... would be a way to bring HA to non-HA capable targets.

Basically, if you can write a file to it and windows sees it as a local disk (as opposed to a network share say), then Starwind can put an .img on it and present it as an iSCSI target. It may also be able to do passthrough (as WIndows sees FC disks as SCSI, IIRC).

Starwind now requires windows 2008 as a minimum, so check that you can get drivers for your FC HBAs if they are old!

cheers,

Aitor

Aitor_Ibarra · Fri Mar 05, 2010 9:02 pm

I've never actually used pass-through for production data!I've always preferred IMG. Still, point is that you can use Starwind to present other SANs as iSCSI targets. Which is great!

pignatel · Mon Mar 08, 2010 1:57 pm

Thank you all for your responses - the tip on performance and looking forward to checking out the "Storage Gateway Product" - Is there a listserv to recive product updates?

Thu Mar 11, 2010 6:49 pm

You can joing beta team to receive early versions of both StarWind Storage Converter (SAN Gateway) and StarWind Storage Accelerator (multi-gigabyte write-back cache).

pignatel · Wed Mar 09, 2011 2:19 pm

Can Hosts (WMware Servers, Microsoft Servers) also connect to Starwind through Fiber Channel and Fiber Channel Switches? Meaning the Host has Fiber Channel Cards connected to a FC Switch which the Starwind Servers are “Front-ending” / Managing the FC Storage through FC Switches also?

Wed Mar 09, 2011 3:49 pm

No and we don't have any plans to support FC directly ever. There's no perfomance penalty for 10 GbE iSCSI shop compared to 8 Gbps FC. For only fraction of FC costs. ROI is much better. "Video killed radio star" (c) ...

pignatel wrote:Can Hosts (WMware Servers, Microsoft Servers) also connect to Starwind through Fiber Channel and Fiber Channel Switches? Meaning the Host has Fiber Channel Cards connected to a FC Switch which the Starwind Servers are “Front-ending” / Managing the FC Storage through FC Switches also?