Questions and Answers, part two: Red Hat Storage Server 3

Please note: Red Hat Storage Server has a new name: Red Hat Gluster Storage. Learn more about it, and Red Hat Ceph Storage, here: http://red.ht/1Hw7gYb

Welcome to part two of our series on Q&A's from the recent launch of Red Hat Storage Server 3 (RHSS3). Our first post in this series covered how RHSS3 compared to competitors. Now we'll cover the product itself.

Can you help me understand the pricing mechanics for Storage Server 3  and if this has changed given the enhancements for more workloads and more hardware platform support?

Pricing has remained the same.  We offer 1 year and 3 year subscription options.  Depending on the level of support needed the options range from business hours only to 24/7 support.  Pricing is per node, regardless of storage capacity.

How does RHSS address traditional storage workloads ie: databases?

Red Hat Storage Server is a scale-out storage system and is focused on managing unstructured data not structured data used in transactional database systems.

What backup/recovery tools are available for this solution?

Red Hat Storage has built-in snapshot capabilities. Partners such as CommVault can provide backup and archive of Red Hat Storage.

Have any workloads uncovered bottlenecks in either networking or I/O bandwidth?

Each workload introduces different performance requirements. We have not seen bottlenecks when used with suitable, and properly tuned unstructured data workloads.

Is it possible to centralize data storage using Red Hat Red Hat Storage Server  while the connected client didn't using Red Hat products (eg. Windows)?

Yes, Red Hat Storage Server supports multiple client options (Linux, Unix, Windows).

Usually scale-out storage is focused at data analysis and large data sets. What about VM's booting directly from these storage platforms? Are there any acceleration/cache options available?

Red Hat Storage has numerous ways to tune the platform to support virtual infrastructure storage. We have integration with Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization to provide both infrastructure and data storage.

What protocols are used to connect to Red Hat Storage Server? e.g. NFS  FcoIP?

We support a range of protocols including NFS, CIFS/SMB, Native GlusterFS, Swift for object storage, and HDFS replacement with the Hadoop plug-in.

What backend storage connectivity is supported? SAS/FC/other?

Ethernet and SAS are currently supported.

Can you speak to CIFS/SAMBA network performance?

Red Hat Storage leverages the standard implementation of SMB and optimizes it for use with Red Hat Storage Server.

How can replication & DR be achieved?

Local and long-distance replication and self-healing capabilities ensure high levels of data protection, availability, and resiliency. They lay a foundation for business continuity and disaster recovery—even in the event of hardware failure.

Do you have pre-configured system with the server manufacturers to support the Red Hat Storage Server?

Yes, we have partnerships with major hardware OEM providers such as HP, Cisco, Dell, IBM, and Supermicro. A number of our VAR partners provide completely integrated solutions (hardware+software) to simplify deployment. You can contact your Red Hat sales rep and they can get you in touch with one of our Storage VAR partners.

Please provide information about how Storage Server 3 will be utilized by OpenStack.

Storage Server can provide Swift, object-based services to support OpenStack applications today and also run as a guest within an OpenStack environment to provide application storage across a variety of persistent data stores. In addition, Red Hat is continuing to invest in contributing to project Manilla (file services for OpenStack). As this project matures in the OpenStack community Red Hat Storage will be able to provide Manilla file-based services.

Does Red Hat Storage Server 3 have an open API for customization?

Yes, Red Hat Storage Server has an open rest-based API that provides native access to the storage system through gflibapi.

What are the integration options between IBM mainframe and Red Hat Storage Server?

Red Hat Storage provides standard access protocols for access to data including NFS, Swift for object, native REST based API, and SMB. Any system with the ability to mount data via these standard protocols can utilize Red Hat Storage Server.