Subscriber Discussion

Big Storage System

UI
Undisclosed Integrator #1
Feb 28, 2013

I am putting together a larger system for a customer. 390TB of storage for 18 months of retention. There is no engineering firm here. I am engineering this myself. Sitting at 4000 watts and 13000 BTU/h with UPS power. I am taking into consideration the following but just looking to cover bases with some advice from fellow IPVM friends:

  • Rack U space
  • Cooling
  • Standard and UPS power
  • Grounding for static electricity

KVM console

Anything else you can think of? Thanks.

HB
Harris Bond
Feb 28, 2013

Network redundancy maybe for such a big system?

HB
Harris Bond
Feb 28, 2013

Also for our AV and automation project we always use ethernet switched PDUs. Makes its very easy to reboot a device remotely. I am not sure if it is applicable for your projects but it is good to have swicthes on this. Another thing we use on with these switches PDUs is auto-pinging e.g if one device cannot be pinged, after x failed attempts the PDU will reboot its specific outlet.

JH
John Honovich
Mar 01, 2013
IPVM

Undisclosed, are you just looking for advice on the logistics / deployment side or are you looking for input on what type of storage architecture / solution to use?

HC
Hernan Carzalo
Mar 05, 2013
IPVMU Certified

Undisclosed, we use a SAN architecture for multi PB system.

Avatar
Brian Karas
Mar 05, 2013
Pelican Zero

My suggestions:

Managed switches, the ability to change VLANs, port status, etc. remotely will likely come in handy. As will the ability to pull some data into MRTG at time.

Remote control PDU (which someone else also mentioned), ideally with power draw info for each outlet.

Note, by graphing stats from the above two items with MRTG or similar you can often spot problems before they happen. Bing swings in packet flow and power draw can be worth investigating.

Also, an IP KVM, or similar, for the machines will likely come in handy one day at 3AM...

In regards to Rack U space, keep in mind it is often very difficult to achieve 100% utilization of rack space. If you're adding up to 22U of equipment or less it probably doesn't matter much. If you're getting north of 30U it's time to really start thinking about your layout.

UI
Undisclosed Integrator #1
Mar 29, 2013

Thanks for the input guys. I am looking into the remote control PDUs. Do you have any recommendations for models you have used in the past and had good fortune with?

I’m getting the APC KVM0216A lined up for the KVM.

I'm also looking for some type of remote server monitoring program. Something that will email me if we lose a drive or a server has fried a motherboard, or a raid card is not functioning.

John, I am looking for anything that will help. Our customer has reduced the number of cameras so storage has come way down but they are concerned with system health and keeping the database intact. As of right now i will be running Milestone Corporate with 1 - management server, 2 - recording servers (1 with DAS and one for failover), 3 - 33TB DAS servers, 1 - hot spare on site if a DAS server fails. I'm hoping to take the drives from the bad server and plug them into the hot spare and bring everything back up. The server manufacturer says this will work but I'm a little uneasy about it.

HB
Harris Bond
Mar 29, 2013

Undisclosed,

for remote control PDUs we use Digital loggers because they have auto ping which is very important for us. They are also quite cheap. Other similar solutions exist from Aviosys, Dataprobe Iboot and probably many more. If you do not need autoping then Tripplite and APC have solutions and actually some of their UPS will also allow you to control power outlets.

Regarding remote server monitoring I would like for something like Passler PRTG, maybe even Spicework? We are testing Cisco Onplus but it is more for network and internet monitoring, I am not sure if it can provide server information. It

New discussion

Ask questions and get answers to your physical security questions from IPVM team members and fellow subscribers.

Newest discussions