A client has a requirement for cheap storage that will be used for backups, file storage, ISO/Image storage and VM Storage. The client has a small budget and therefore cannot afford to purchase a propriety solution due to budget constraints. Our team is going to be investigating this and to start off with began research into creating a custom NAS solution with inexpensive hardware and opensource products.
There a few solutions available on the net for this. The most notable being FreeNAS and Openfiler which both provide multiple services, a easy to use GUI and provide some HA and Replication. During the research phase we also came across this custom built solution:
http://eugenyho.blogspot.com/
Seeing fantastic work from FreeNAS, Openfiler and now this blogger is great to see and shows how much cheap storage is a requirement for other businesses too. The only issue is that these solutions do not seem to be scalable and only provide mirror functionality between two servers. As with most IT staff, we always want more :)
EugenyHo attempted to find a scalable solution using GlusterFS but was not able to do so. This project we will be embarking on will be to expand on the original idea and see if there is a way to approach a scalable, HA enabled SAN solution through other methods (without being overly complex)
There a few solutions available on the net for this. The most notable being FreeNAS and Openfiler which both provide multiple services, a easy to use GUI and provide some HA and Replication. During the research phase we also came across this custom built solution:
http://eugenyho.blogspot.com/
Seeing fantastic work from FreeNAS, Openfiler and now this blogger is great to see and shows how much cheap storage is a requirement for other businesses too. The only issue is that these solutions do not seem to be scalable and only provide mirror functionality between two servers. As with most IT staff, we always want more :)
EugenyHo attempted to find a scalable solution using GlusterFS but was not able to do so. This project we will be embarking on will be to expand on the original idea and see if there is a way to approach a scalable, HA enabled SAN solution through other methods (without being overly complex)
Thank you for sharing this post! I have been online researching and reading up on the Evolution of NAS Storage because I think it's the way of the future. I can't wait to read part 2 too see if you and your team were able to help the client.
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