Backup Central

On Tue, Jan 10, 2012 at 12:43 PM, Timothy J Massey <tmassey < at > obscorp.com ([email]tmassey < at > obscorp.com[/email])> wrote:
Hello!

I'm in the middle of building a "Super" Backup server.  It will do the following:

Run BackupPC for file-level backups
Provide NFS share(s) for VMware snapshots
Provide CIFS share(s) for Windows snapshots and Clonezilla
Contains a removable SATA tray
Manage all of this from a GUI

I am currently doing each of these features on various different BackupPC servers already, but in each case it was done manually, by hand, and from the command line.  For this iteration, I would like to wrap a GUI around it.

In the case of BackupPC, it has a GUI and I will continue to use it.  However, *many* of the functions I would like to have the user perform do not:  NFS shares, CIFS shares, users, network settings, etc.  However, these are *EXACTLY* the standard function that a NAS does, and there are 1E6 of these already built.

So, my question:  is there a NAS GUI out there that can be added on top of "standard" Linux (preferably RHEL, but very willing to consider others) that will add most of these functions?  For example, something like the GUI for an Iomega NAS would be perfect.  (I thought about using them as the hardware and software base and adding BackupPC to them, but there's no built-in removable drive, and USB is awkward and slow.  Plus the Linux environment is... minimal.)

I would prefer staying based on a generic Linux install, but I've also thought about using a NAS-based distro as the base (such as OpenFiler).  In the specific case of OpenFiler, the current version in a bit of a bad place at the moment.  There is much concern that the base OS, which is based on rPath, will not be available for free users for much longer;  in addition the current beta version (2.99) has some known critical bugs in iSCSI (which I use), and there have been no updates since April.  So, it's not my favorite base to build on...  (Reference:  https://forums.openfiler.com/viewtopic.php?pid=26228)

And I'd vastly prefer to stay with Linux, which eliminates FreeNAS and Nexenta.

Many of the Linux-based NAS systems are designed as firmware for dedicated (and often vastly inadequate) hardware:  NSLU2 falls into this camp.  I am not running this on an embedded device:  It's a full-featured PC-based architecture.

I'm also willing to consider generic Linux system management tools such as webmin, but I'd prefer something more focused on NAS-type functions if I can get it.  It's been years since I've looked at Webmin, but a quick glance seems to show that it hasn't changed much:  it's little more than textareas with chunks of the configuration files dumped into them.  I'm hoping for something more polished if I can get it.

Like I said, I'm looking for the general interface provided by every NAS I've ever seen.  Of course, each of them is specific to their device.  I'm hoping there's a version out there for "generic" Linux.

Does anyone have any thoughts or suggestions in this regard?


The two players in the 'generic server GUI' space are SME server and ClearOS.   Both are sort-of generic Centos under the covers but you barely see it.  SME server has a long history but has slowed down progress in the last few years.  It works by having a web interface build snippets of config files and perl scripts that are processed with templates to rebuild the real config files.  If you want to make your own changes, you have to edit the templates, not the normal configs.  ClearOS has a much more modern ajax-y interface but I'm not quite sure what does the real work.   The delay in the CentOS 6.0 release set them back badly so you have to choose between a beta 6.x version or an outdated 5.x. 

Unless you have a lot of users or changing needs, this doesn't really sound like something that needs a web GUI to manage  - or at least not worth putting up with oddball/non-standard configurations to get.    If your hardware can handle a small amount of overhead and you can manage it from a windows client, you might consider VMware ESXi (the free version).  Then you can run a full GUI console of any OS remotely - and if you felt like it you could run one OS for file shares and a different one for backuppc.  In any case, having a VMware setup with some disk space is handy to try out new things since you can map a downloaded iso image on an nfs share as the DVD drive and install in a new VM without having to touch any real hardware.

--
   Les Mikesell
     lesmikesell < at > gmail.com ([email]lesmikesell < at > gmail.com[/email])

On 2012-01-10 18:43, Timothy J Massey wrote:
So, my question: is there a NAS GUI out there that can be added on top of
"standard" Linux (preferably RHEL, but very willing to consider others)
that will add most of these functions? For example, something like the GUI
for an Iomega NAS would be perfect. (I thought about using them as the
hardware and software base and adding BackupPC to them, but there's no
built-in removable drive, and USB is awkward and slow. Plus the Linux
environment is... minimal.)

Have you tried webmin? It's not specific to this, but it's about as close
to a CLI replacement as a generic Linux server has.

Regards,
Tyler

--
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not cleverness."
-- Randall Munroe

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I highly recommend OpenFiler. The code itself is open-source, but t's not very diligently supported by the community. However I was a total newbie to the world of Linux and have never needed any - it's been solid as a rock, and has every possible NAS feature readily available from web-driven GUI, obviously designed for the high-end corporate sector.

The previous version had an outdated stub of BPC installed, so they used to work together, but this would now need to be added manually.

I would recommend running BPC in a VM so as to disturb OF's "appliance" nature as little as possible.

Or in an ideal world, run your Filer standalone and BPC on a dedicated box. Both projects run well on low-end/older hardware - but note this doesn't mean I'm advocated consumer-grade hardware for mission-critical tasks. . .

On Wed, Jan 11, 2012 at 1:43 AM, Timothy J Massey <tmassey < at > obscorp.com ([email]tmassey < at > obscorp.com[/email])> wrote:
Hello!

I'm in the middle of building a "Super" Backup server.  It will do the following:

Run BackupPC for file-level backups
Provide NFS share(s) for VMware snapshots
Provide CIFS share(s) for Windows snapshots and Clonezilla
Contains a removable SATA tray
Manage all of this from a GUI

I am currently doing each of these features on various different BackupPC servers already, but in each case it was done manually, by hand, and from the command line.  For this iteration, I would like to wrap a GUI around it.

In the case of BackupPC, it has a GUI and I will continue to use it.  However, *many* of the functions I would like to have the user perform do not:  NFS shares, CIFS shares, users, network settings, etc.  However, these are *EXACTLY* the standard function that a NAS does, and there are 1E6 of these already built.

So, my question:  is there a NAS GUI out there that can be added on top of "standard" Linux (preferably RHEL, but very willing to consider others) that will add most of these functions?  For example, something like the GUI for an Iomega NAS would be perfect.  (I thought about using them as the hardware and software base and adding BackupPC to them, but there's no built-in removable drive, and USB is awkward and slow.  Plus the Linux environment is... minimal.)

I would prefer staying based on a generic Linux install, but I've also thought about using a NAS-based distro as the base (such as OpenFiler).  In the specific case of OpenFiler, the current version in a bit of a bad place at the moment.  There is much concern that the base OS, which is based on rPath, will not be available for free users for much longer;  in addition the current beta version (2.99) has some known critical bugs in iSCSI (which I use), and there have been no updates since April.  So, it's not my favorite base to build on...  (Reference:  https://forums.openfiler.com/viewtopic.php?pid=26228)

And I'd vastly prefer to stay with Linux, which eliminates FreeNAS and Nexenta.

Many of the Linux-based NAS systems are designed as firmware for dedicated (and often vastly inadequate) hardware:  NSLU2 falls into this camp.  I am not running this on an embedded device:  It's a full-featured PC-based architecture.

I'm also willing to consider generic Linux system management tools such as webmin, but I'd prefer something more focused on NAS-type functions if I can get it.  It's been years since I've looked at Webmin, but a quick glance seems to show that it hasn't changed much:  it's little more than textareas with chunks of the configuration files dumped into them.  I'm hoping for something more polished if I can get it.

Like I said, I'm looking for the general interface provided by every NAS I've ever seen.  Of course, each of them is specific to their device.  I'm hoping there's a version out there for "generic" Linux.

Does anyone have any thoughts or suggestions in this regard?

Thank you very much for your help!

Timothy J. Massey
  Out of the Box Solutions, Inc.
Creative IT Solutions Made Simple!
http://www.OutOfTheBoxSolutions.com
tmassey < at > obscorp.com ([email]tmassey < at > obscorp.com[/email])       22108 Harper Ave.
St. Clair Shores, MI 48080
Office: (800)750-4OBS (4627)
Cell: (586)945-8796

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Write once. Port to many.
Get the SDK and tools to simplify cross-platform app development. Create
new or port existing apps to sell to consumers worldwide. Explore the
Intel AppUpSM program developer opportunity. appdeveloper.intel.com/join
http://p.sf.net/sfu/intel-appdev
_______________________________________________
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Project: http://backuppc.sourceforge.net/

On Tue, Jan 10, 2012 at 2:59 PM, Tyler J. Wagner <tyler < at > tolaris.com> wrote:

So, my question:  is there a NAS GUI out there that can be added on top of
"standard" Linux (preferably RHEL, but very willing to consider others)
that will add most of these functions?  For example, something like the GUI
for an Iomega NAS would be perfect.  (I thought about using them as the
hardware and software base and adding BackupPC to them, but there's no
built-in removable drive, and USB is awkward and slow.  Plus the Linux
environment is... minimal.)

Have you tried webmin? It's not specific to this, but it's about as close
to a CLI replacement as a generic Linux server has.

Webmin doesn't really change the concepts much. You still need to
know all the details about the applications and their config files,
although it can help keep you from making stupid syntax errors. SME
server makes things simpler by combining concepts. For example you
can add a NIC mac address, an IP address, and a hostname in one
place, and it will configure the DCHP server to give out the right IP
to that device and the DNS server to resolve the name. You can
create a web/ftp and file share with one name - and create a group for
users and get both unix permissioning and an email group built.

--
Les Mikesell
lesmikesell < at > gmail.com

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Id highly recommend Nexenta. It is much more feature complete than Openfiler and linux. Futher to this, with my experiences, BackupPC performs much better on Nexenta than it does on linux.

On 11/01/2012 5:13 AM, Timothy J Massey wrote: Hello!

I'm in the middle of building a "Super" Backup server. It will do the following:

Run BackupPC for file-level backups
Provide NFS share(s) for VMware snapshots
Provide CIFS share(s) for Windows snapshots and Clonezilla
Contains a removable SATA tray
Manage all of this from a GUI

I am currently doing each of these features on various different BackupPC servers already, but in each case it was done manually, by hand, and from the command line. For this iteration, I would like to wrap a GUI around it.

In the case of BackupPC, it has a GUI and I will continue to use it. However, *many* of the functions I would like to have the user perform do not: NFS shares, CIFS shares, users, network settings, etc. However, these are *EXACTLY* the standard function that a NAS does, and there are 1E6 of these already built.

So, my question: is there a NAS GUI out there that can be added on top of "standard" Linux (preferably RHEL, but very willing to consider others) that will add most of these functions? For example, something like the GUI for an Iomega NAS would be perfect. (I thought about using them as the hardware and software base and adding BackupPC to them, but there's no built-in removable drive, and USB is awkward and slow. Plus the Linux environment is... minimal.)

I would prefer staying based on a generic Linux install, but I've also thought about using a NAS-based distro as the base (such as OpenFiler). In the specific case of OpenFiler, the current version in a bit of a bad place at the moment. There is much concern that the base OS, which is based on rPath, will not be available for free users for much longer; in addition the current beta version (2.99) has some known critical bugs in iSCSI (which I use), and there have been no updates since April. So, it's not my favorite base to build on... (Reference: https://forums.openfiler.com/viewtopic.php?pid=26228)

And I'd vastly prefer to stay with Linux, which eliminates FreeNAS and Nexenta.

Many of the Linux-based NAS systems are designed as firmware for dedicated (and often vastly inadequate) hardware: NSLU2 falls into this camp. I am not running this on an embedded device: It's a full-featured PC-based architecture.

I'm also willing to consider generic Linux system management tools such as webmin, but I'd prefer something more focused on NAS-type functions if I can get it. It's been years since I've looked at Webmin, but a quick glance seems to show that it hasn't changed much: it's little more than textareas with chunks of the configuration files dumped into them. I'm hoping for something more polished if I can get it.

Like I said, I'm looking for the general interface provided by every NAS I've ever seen. Of course, each of them is specific to their device. I'm hoping there's a version out there for "generic" Linux.

Does anyone have any thoughts or suggestions in this regard?

Thank you very much for your help!

Timothy J. Massey
Out of the Box Solutions, Inc.
Creative IT Solutions Made Simple!
http://www.OutOfTheBoxSolutions.com
tmassey < at > obscorp.com ([email]tmassey < at > obscorp.com[/email]) 22108 Harper Ave.
St. Clair Shores, MI 48080
Office: (800)750-4OBS (4627)
Cell: (586)945-8796


------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Write once. Port to many.
Get the SDK and tools to simplify cross-platform app development. Create
new or port existing apps to sell to consumers worldwide. Explore the
Intel AppUpSM program developer opportunity. appdeveloper.intel.com/join
http://p.sf.net/sfu/intel-appdev

_______________________________________________
BackupPC-users mailing list
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Wiki: http://backuppc.wiki.sourceforge.net
Project: http://backuppc.sourceforge.net/


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[/url] Petrosys Pty Ltd
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On Wed, Jan 11, 2012 at 8:18 AM, Chris Parsons <Chris.Parsons < at > petrosys.com.au ([email]Chris.Parsons < at > petrosys.com.au[/email])> wrote:
Id highly recommend Nexenta. It is much more feature complete than Openfiler and linux. Futher to this, with my experiences, BackupPC performs much better on Nexenta than it does on linux.



I'm sure it's solid for those with experience in it, and ZFS is great tech, but since Oracle killed its kernel upstream I personally wouldn't invest much in Nexenta myself; it hasn't has a new release for 15 months now.

Of course if OpenIndiana gains traction that's another story, but I tend to prefer mainstream choices for key infrastructure myself. . .

Les Mikesell <lesmikesell < at > gmail.com> wrote on 01/10/2012 02:54:12 PM:

Like I said, I'm looking for the general interface provided by every
NAS I've ever seen. Of course, each of them is specific to their
device. I'm hoping there's a version out there for "generic" Linux.

Does anyone have any thoughts or suggestions in this regard?

The two players in the 'generic server GUI' space are SME server and
ClearOS. Both are sort-of generic Centos under the covers but you
barely see it. SME server has a long history but has slowed down
progress in the last few years. It works by having a web interface
build snippets of config files and perl scripts that are processed
with templates to rebuild the real config files. If you want to
make your own changes, you have to edit the templates, not the
normal configs. ClearOS has a much more modern ajax-y interface but
I'm not quite sure what does the real work. The delay in the
CentOS 6.0 release set them back badly so you have to choose between
a beta 6.x version or an outdated 5.x.

I was vaguely aware of these, but neither came to mind. I will check them out. Thank you!

Unless you have a lot of users or changing needs, this doesn't
really sound like something that needs a web GUI to manage - or at
least not worth putting up with oddball/non-standard configurations
to get.

Yes, it does. *You* try selling tools without a GUI in 2012.

This is not for personal consumption. Like I said, I already have servers doing every one of these functions. I now want to make them available to the office manager. He needs a GUI to even consider it, even if he'll never change a single one of these features...

If your hardware can handle a small amount of overhead
and you can manage it from a windows client, you might consider
VMware ESXi (the free version). Then you can run a full GUI console
of any OS remotely

That doesn't add a thing for this solution. It's not the "remotely" part that I need, it's the GUI part they need. And ESXi doesn't help a *BIT* in configuring an NFS share... (Nor does ESXi give me any advantage in managing storage, which is all that this solution really is. In fact, there's a reason you really want to run a VM solution on *top* of a really good quality SAN... )

Tim Massey
Out of the Box Solutions, Inc.
Creative IT Solutions Made Simple!
[url=Arial]http://www.OutOfTheBoxSolutions.com[/url]
[url=Arial]tmassey < at > obscorp.com[/url] 22108 Harper Ave.
St. Clair Shores, MI 48080
Office: (800)750-4OBS (4627)
Cell: (586)945-8796

hansbkk < at > gmail.com wrote on 01/10/2012 08:00:45 PM:

I highly recommend OpenFiler. The code itself is open-source, but
t's not very diligently supported by the community. However I was a
total newbie to the world of Linux and have never needed any - it's
been solid as a rock, and has every possible NAS feature readily
available from web-driven GUI, obviously designed for the high-end
corporate sector.

It has been a solid performer: I've been using 2.3 for quite a while now. But there are a *lot* of questions moving forward: enough that I don't want to base a new solution on top of it.

Both the top-level project (OpenFiler) and the framework it's built on (rPath) are having visible problems.

I would recommend running BPC in a VM so as to disturb OF's
"appliance" nature as little as possible.

I'm a *huge* fan of VM, but there are times where you don't want the complexity, and get near-zero benefit from it. This is one of them. Think "appliance", not "server". This is a device for managing lots of *storage*. ESXi makes that much harder, not easier.

Tim Massey
Out of the Box Solutions, Inc.
Creative IT Solutions Made Simple!
[url=Arial]http://www.OutOfTheBoxSolutions.com[/url]
[url=Arial]tmassey < at > obscorp.com[/url] 22108 Harper Ave.
St. Clair Shores, MI 48080
Office: (800)750-4OBS (4627)
Cell: (586)945-8796

Les Mikesell <lesmikesell < at > gmail.com> wrote on 01/10/2012 08:12:10 PM:

On Tue, Jan 10, 2012 at 2:59 PM, Tyler J. Wagner <tyler < at > tolaris.com> wrote:

So, my question: is there a NAS GUI out there that can be added on top of
"standard" Linux (preferably RHEL, but very willing to consider others)
that will add most of these functions? For example, something like the GUI
for an Iomega NAS would be perfect. (I thought about using them as the
hardware and software base and adding BackupPC to them, but there's no
built-in removable drive, and USB is awkward and slow. Plus the Linux
environment is... minimal.)

Have you tried webmin? It's not specific to this, but it's about as close
to a CLI replacement as a generic Linux server has.

Webmin doesn't really change the concepts much. You still need to
know all the details about the applications and their config files,
although it can help keep you from making stupid syntax errors. SME
server makes things simpler by combining concepts. For example you
can add a NIC mac address, an IP address, and a hostname in one
place, and it will configure the DCHP server to give out the right IP
to that device and the DNS server to resolve the name. You can
create a web/ftp and file share with one name - and create a group for
users and get both unix permissioning and an email group built.

Exactly. Webmin is little more than webified configuration files. You use Firefox instead of ssh, but the process is nearly identical.

For now, Webmin is what I'm using, on top of CentOS 6.2. But if you've ever used a NAS, you know how *very* far configuring one of those is from Webmin.

Really, all I want is a standard consumer-level NAS, with two additions:

1) BackupPC
2) A built-in removable SATA tray.

#1 means I can't use the stock firmware as-is, and #2 means I can't use the stock hardware. So, I get the fun of rebuilding a NAS system just so I can stick a removable drive in it and run BackupPC on the same box.

In fact, in the past, we simply sold both a BackupPC server *and* an Iomega NAS to a client. The problem is, they get less space for both solutions and spend more on the two boxes than if we were to combine them. So, that's what I'm trying to do...

Tim Massey
Out of the Box Solutions, Inc.
Creative IT Solutions Made Simple!
[url=Arial]http://www.OutOfTheBoxSolutions.com[/url]
[url=Arial]tmassey < at > obscorp.com[/url] 22108 Harper Ave.
St. Clair Shores, MI 48080
Office: (800)750-4OBS (4627)
Cell: (586)945-8796

hansbkk < at > gmail.com wrote on 01/10/2012 09:11:09 PM:

On Wed, Jan 11, 2012 at 8:18 AM, Chris Parsons <Chris.Parsons < at > petrosys.com.au
wrote:
Id highly recommend Nexenta. It is much more feature complete than
Openfiler and linux. Futher to this, with my experiences, BackupPC
performs much better on Nexenta than it does on linux.

I'm sure it's solid for those with experience in it, and ZFS is
great tech, but since Oracle killed its kernel upstream I personally
wouldn't invest much in Nexenta myself; it hasn't has a new release
for 15 months now.

You got it: it's got all of the problems that I have with OpenFiler but worse (no recent releases, uncertain future), and add to it the need to port everything over to it (Solaris != Linux).

And while the tech of ZFS et. al. may be amazing, I do not overly need it with this solution. I need a way to access lots of raw space remotely. That's about it. (OK, block-level dedupe would be really nice. But not enough.)

Of course if OpenIndiana gains traction that's another story, but I
tend to prefer mainstream choices for key infrastructure myself. . .

And given Oracle's current stance in the computer industry ("It's my ball and I'm taking it home!"), I'm not holding my breath. Any community using OpenSolaris code will be completely on its own, and will diverge from Solaris no matter what.

Tim Massey Out of the Box Solutions, Inc.
Creative IT Solutions Made Simple!
[url=Arial]http://www.OutOfTheBoxSolutions.com[/url]
[url=Arial]tmassey < at > obscorp.com[/url] 22108 Harper Ave.
St. Clair Shores, MI 48080
Office: (800)750-4OBS (4627)
Cell: (586)945-8796

go with unraid. It has rsync capabilities , is free (with three disks) and works like a charm (version 4.7). Based on slackware.

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Timothy J Massey <tmassey < at > obscorp.com> wrote on 01/12/2012 02:02:32 PM:

Les Mikesell <lesmikesell < at > gmail.com> wrote on 01/10/2012 02:54:12 PM:

If your hardware can handle a small amount of overhead
and you can manage it from a windows client, you might consider
VMware ESXi (the free version). Then you can run a full GUI console
of any OS remotely

That doesn't add a thing for this solution. It's not the "remotely"
part that I need, it's the GUI part they need. And ESXi doesn't
help a *BIT* in configuring an NFS share... (Nor does ESXi give me
any advantage in managing storage, which is all that this solution
really is. In fact, there's a reason you really want to run a VM
solution on *top* of a really good quality SAN... )

A further point on this, seeing as "Use virtualization!" was a bit of a common reply:

Virtualization puts *really* heavy demands on the storage layer. ESXi by itself (free or otherwise) provides *very* little of what you want in that area. It' has *basic* tools, but it really expects these things to be taken care of by the storage layer *below* it. (Remember who owns VMware? A little company called EMC, who might be able to sell you some big iron to help solve those issues...)

And if you do try to use ESXi to do these things, you're pretty much locked into VMFS, unless you're on a very short list of high-end storage hardware (i.e. NetApp Filer). In a disaster situation, do you *really* want all of your backup data locked up in proprietary VMFS-formatted devices? I don't.

So, no: I do not want virtualization between my filesystem and my hardware in this case. On a file server: yes, yes, yes. On a backup server: no.

Tim Massey
Out of the Box Solutions, Inc.
Creative IT Solutions Made Simple!
[url=Arial]http://www.OutOfTheBoxSolutions.com[/url]
[url=Arial]tmassey < at > obscorp.com[/url] 22108 Harper Ave.
St. Clair Shores, MI 48080
Office: (800)750-4OBS (4627)
Cell: (586)945-8796

Michel Jacobs <majacobs < at > xs4all.nl> wrote on 01/12/2012 02:29:32 PM:

go with unraid. It has rsync capabilities , is free (with three
disks) and works like a charm (version 4.7). Based on slackware.

It is an interesting solution. One big problem: I *need* striped arrays. I will be dealing with single files that could easily approach (and possibly even exceed) the capacity of a single drive, and I will be rolling down multiple versions of these files. They need to be in the same filesystem.

Tim Massey
Out of the Box Solutions, Inc.
Creative IT Solutions Made Simple!
[url=Arial]http://www.OutOfTheBoxSolutions.com[/url]
[url=Arial]tmassey < at > obscorp.com[/url] 22108 Harper Ave.
St. Clair Shores, MI 48080
Office: (800)750-4OBS (4627)
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On Thu, Jan 12, 2012 at 1:24 PM, Timothy J Massey <tmassey < at > obscorp.com ([email]tmassey < at > obscorp.com[/email])> wrote:
Timothy J Massey <tmassey < at > obscorp.com ([email]tmassey < at > obscorp.com[/email])> wrote on 01/12/2012 02:02:32 PM:

Les Mikesell <lesmikesell < at > gmail.com ([email]lesmikesell < at > gmail.com[/email])> wrote on 01/10/2012 02:54:12 PM:


   If your hardware can handle a small amount of overhead
and you can manage it from a windows client, you might consider
VMware ESXi (the free version).  Then you can run a full GUI console
of any OS remotely

That doesn't add a thing for this solution.  It's not the "remotely"
part that I need, it's the GUI part they need.

There are GUI's, remote GUI's and web GUI's.  VMware gives you a remote console where you might run a GNOME desktop, etc.  Depending on the circumstances, that might be a usable GUI.


 And ESXi doesn't
help a *BIT* in configuring an NFS share...

Right, but it barely hurts.
 
 (Nor does ESXi give me
any advantage in managing storage, which is all that this solution
really is.  In fact, there's a reason you really want to run a VM
solution on *top* of a really good quality SAN...    )


A further point on this, seeing as "Use virtualization!" was a bit of a common reply:

Virtualization puts *really* heavy demands on the storage layer.  ESXi by itself (free or otherwise) provides *very* little of what you want in that area.  It' has *basic* tools, but it really expects these things to be taken care of by the storage layer *below* it.  (Remember who owns VMware?  A little company called EMC, who might be able to sell you some big iron to help solve those issues...)

And if you do try to use ESXi to do these things, you're pretty much locked into VMFS, unless you're on a very short list of high-end storage hardware (i.e. NetApp Filer).  In a disaster situation, do you *really* want all of your backup data locked up in proprietary VMFS-formatted devices?  I don't.

Don't think it really matters, but I like the remote access part - it's like getting a bunch of free remote KVMs and the ability to map NFS-shared iso images as DVDs.  I just set up a couple of systems in remote offices where the base system is ESXi and the hardware is 3 raid1 sets.  A Centos VM running backuppc owns one whole raid set for the backuppc archive (about 2 TB) plus part of one of the others for an nfs/samba share.   Part of the other space is for backup images of live machines that VMware's converter tool can write directly from running machines (and works amazingly well...).   I haven't had much of this sort of trouble yet, but I think I can swap any single disk out of that chassis, spin it up in another box running ESXi and access the data, and at the VM filesystem level I can remotely connect an ISO image as the CD, tell the VM bios to boot it, and use any bootable recovery tool.  All very handy stuff when the locations are on opposite sides of the continent.  And of course it was trivial to clone the setup built in my office to the other locations.

 
So, no:  I do not want virtualization between my filesystem and my hardware in this case.  On a file server:  yes, yes, yes.  On a backup server:  no.


So far it all seems to work great, and sticking a bunch of 2TB drives in a chassis that was being retired from some other service was a lot cheaper than setting up a SAN.  (2TB was as big as this controller would accept - on a new box I would have used 3TB drives.)

--
   Les Mikesell
      lesmikesell < at > gmail.com ([email]lesmikesell < at > gmail.com[/email])

well, i suppose you looked it up, but me thinks this solution would be perfect: you have the capacity of two disks of whatever size is available right now in ONE system. Do you have files that are larger than 1,5 terabytes?? If that's the case you certainly need striped..

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