[geeks] Anyone have exp. with NexentaStor (OpenSolaris-based ZFS NAS)?

[Shannon Hendrix]

On May 25, 2008, at 07:52 , Lionel Peterson wrote:

> Subject line says it all - I stumbled across this the other day, and  
> I was wondering if anyone here has any exp. with it...
>
> It looks like a decent idea - an OpenSolaris-based NAS that takes  
> advantage of the ZFS filesystem and has a straight-forward  
> "appliance-like" install with a full suite of GUI tools.
>
> Link: http://www.nexenta.com/
>
> Based on the derivative OpenSolaris NexentaOS project: http://www.nexenta.org/os/Home
>
> Link to Developer Edition (Like a drug dealer, the first (Terabyte  
> of stored files) is free, additional TB will cost you:

I would check and see if the licensing is enforced.

If it is, then you could lose access to your storage over license  
issues, and in my experience opinion, that's a show stopper on  
reliability ratings for a product like this.

Their FAQ says the license only affects:

	1	CLI
	2	GUI
	3	all storage services
	4	fault tolerance
	5	all reports and operating statistics

Your storage is still there of course until you fix the license issue.

What bothers me about this:

3) This could cripple your systems, and have far reaching consequences  
if a lot of other systems and users are using the services

4) This could also lead to serious issues if licensing fails and a  
failure happens
before you can fix the license issue.

5) Even this one could cause you trouble if you have a mandatory  
auditing requirement.  I've worked in shots were losing even a few  
hours of reports was considered an audit failure unless it was out of  
your control.

Some shops would reject this software right off because of 3 and 4,  
and some would even reject it because of 5.

Personally, I would reject it because of 3, since ZFS still works and  
that's the biggest part of fault tolerance I worry about.


-- 
"Where some they sell their dreams for small desires."