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#1
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state of third-party vendors support for Microsoft's VDS/VSS architecture?
I have from time to time scanned the storage vendors support for VDS and
VSS, more specifically I've been looking for downloadable binaries for VDS and VSS provider software. So far, the results have been quite slim. A while ago, HP was quite open and although it wasn't obvious you could find and download VDS/VSS providers for most of their storage products. When I recently was checking around for any updates on HP's site the binaries had been pulled and no real explanation to why and when or if we'd see them again. I little investigation showed me the binaries were pulled due to "issues", but were still available (maybe) on a case-by-case basis. I found this site in my searchings: http://www.microsoftstoragepartners.com/. Looks like a useful site in these matters, although a bit thin on information if you're not actually a storage partner, for obvious reasons. However, I did find out that according to this site only EMC has any VDS and VSS support in their Symmetrix and Clariion lines. To me, this was a disappointment and led me to the question whether there ever will be any broad support for VDS/VSS amongst the storage vendors. Searching EMC, HDS and STK to a name a few very little comes up, and what you do find usually involve some NAS product based on Window Storage Server 2003 which of course has support for VDS/VSS, but not as hardware provider. Does anyone here have any practical experience with VDS/VSS and hardware providers? I've read some documentation and although it appears useful I'm a bit wary as to putting software in my Windows servers giving them maybe complete control of my storage systems. Using VSS for integrating snapshots in storage with backup applications appeals to me, but am I right in assuming VSS does not integrate metadata for me? That is, if I use VSS to take a snapshot of a production volume on a production host, mount it on a backup server (assuming I get the transportable LUN feature working) will VSS itself handle the metadata for the VSS requestor or will the requestor (backup application) have to do that itself. Taking a guess, I'd say the requestor would have to handle the metadata integration by itself. Which leads to another question, which if any backup application has this feature today? Or is it the other way around, to call yourself a VSS requestor worth it's salt, the metadata integration must be built in. Many questions on this sunday, any comments appreciated. /charles |
#2
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On Sun, 09 Jan 2005 10:41:44 GMT, "Charles Morrall"
wrote: I have from time to time scanned the storage vendors support for VDS and VSS, more specifically I've been looking for downloadable binaries for VDS and VSS provider software. So far, the results have been quite slim. A while ago, HP was quite open and although it wasn't obvious you could find and download VDS/VSS providers for most of their storage products. When I recently was checking around for any updates on HP's site the binaries had been pulled and no real explanation to why and when or if we'd see them again. I little investigation showed me the binaries were pulled due to "issues", but were still available (maybe) on a case-by-case basis. I found this site in my searchings: http://www.microsoftstoragepartners.com/. Looks like a useful site in these matters, although a bit thin on information if you're not actually a storage partner, for obvious reasons. However, I did find out that according to this site only EMC has any VDS and VSS support in their Symmetrix and Clariion lines. To me, this was a disappointment and led me to the question whether there ever will be any broad support for VDS/VSS amongst the storage vendors. Searching EMC, HDS and STK to a name a few very little comes up, and what you do find usually involve some NAS product based on Window Storage Server 2003 which of course has support for VDS/VSS, but not as hardware provider. Does anyone here have any practical experience with VDS/VSS and hardware providers? I've read some documentation and although it appears useful I'm a bit wary as to putting software in my Windows servers giving them maybe complete control of my storage systems. Using VSS for integrating snapshots in storage with backup applications appeals to me, but am I right in assuming VSS does not integrate metadata for me? That is, if I use VSS to take a snapshot of a production volume on a production host, mount it on a backup server (assuming I get the transportable LUN feature working) will VSS itself handle the metadata for the VSS requestor or will the requestor (backup application) have to do that itself. Taking a guess, I'd say the requestor would have to handle the metadata integration by itself. Which leads to another question, which if any backup application has this feature today? Or is it the other way around, to call yourself a VSS requestor worth it's salt, the metadata integration must be built in. Many questions on this sunday, any comments appreciated. /charles I've done such development. THis information should help you - MSFT provides the SDKs under non-disclosure agreements only. They are NOT designed for end-users, or even VARs, they are designed for use by storage manufacturers, or storage management (typically backup or snapshot software vendors). You're probably looking at a six-figure development effort by the time it is all done to write the provider code. (This assumes your hardware meets the requirements of VSS and/or VDS in the first place. A lot of hardware won't meet the requirements of VSS, but VDS is pretty vanilla. For example, VSS allows for numerous methods of hardware-assisted snapshots, so safety, ease-of-use, metadata, etc, is implementation dependent as well as storage hardware dependent. There are numerous Terms and Conditions that MSFT places on their deployment. Unfortunately my NDA prevents me from saying more, but I am aware of several potential legal issues that might cause HP to remove them from a download site. If you are trying to get enough information to make a business decision as to whether or not you should write provider code (and get it certified), then you really need to get the SDK from Microsoft and do some reading, or maybe even send somebody to MSFT University to take a class, or at least go to their WinHEC conference. Davidatsantool scom |
#3
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"David A.Lethe" davidATsantools.com skrev i meddelandet ... On Sun, 09 Jan 2005 10:41:44 GMT, "Charles Morrall" Does anyone here have any practical experience with VDS/VSS and hardware providers? I've read some documentation and although it appears useful I'm a bit wary as to putting software in my Windows servers giving them maybe complete control of my storage systems. Using VSS for integrating snapshots in storage with backup applications appeals to me, but am I right in assuming VSS does not integrate metadata for me? That is, if I use VSS to take a snapshot of a production volume on a production host, mount it on a backup server (assuming I get the transportable LUN feature working) will VSS itself handle the metadata for the VSS requestor or will the requestor (backup application) have to do that itself. Taking a guess, I'd say the requestor would have to handle the metadata integration by itself. Which leads to another question, which if any backup application has this feature today? Or is it the other way around, to call yourself a VSS requestor worth it's salt, the metadata integration must be built in. If you are trying to get enough information to make a business decision as to whether or not you should write provider code (and get it certified), then you really need to get the SDK from Microsoft and do some reading, or maybe even send somebody to MSFT University to take a class, or at least go to their WinHEC conference. Davidatsantool scom Thank you for your comments. However, I'm not representing a hardware vendor, and I'm certainly not in an endevour to actually crete a VDS/VSS provider. I'm only looking for experience in their practical use in the field with backup applications and hardware assisted snapshots, but perhaps what you're saying is indicative of the difficulties and cost each hardware manufacturer has to commit to to be able to stamp yet another compliance stamp on their box (SMI-S anyone? ) and therefore there's slow uptake on Microsoft's initiative. /charles |
#4
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On Tue, 11 Jan 2005 06:16:49 GMT, "Charles Morrall"
wrote: "David A.Lethe" davidATsantools.com skrev i meddelandet .. . On Sun, 09 Jan 2005 10:41:44 GMT, "Charles Morrall" Does anyone here have any practical experience with VDS/VSS and hardware providers? I've read some documentation and although it appears useful I'm a bit wary as to putting software in my Windows servers giving them maybe complete control of my storage systems. Using VSS for integrating snapshots in storage with backup applications appeals to me, but am I right in assuming VSS does not integrate metadata for me? That is, if I use VSS to take a snapshot of a production volume on a production host, mount it on a backup server (assuming I get the transportable LUN feature working) will VSS itself handle the metadata for the VSS requestor or will the requestor (backup application) have to do that itself. Taking a guess, I'd say the requestor would have to handle the metadata integration by itself. Which leads to another question, which if any backup application has this feature today? Or is it the other way around, to call yourself a VSS requestor worth it's salt, the metadata integration must be built in. If you are trying to get enough information to make a business decision as to whether or not you should write provider code (and get it certified), then you really need to get the SDK from Microsoft and do some reading, or maybe even send somebody to MSFT University to take a class, or at least go to their WinHEC conference. Davidatsantool scom Thank you for your comments. However, I'm not representing a hardware vendor, and I'm certainly not in an endevour to actually crete a VDS/VSS provider. I'm only looking for experience in their practical use in the field with backup applications and hardware assisted snapshots, but perhaps what you're saying is indicative of the difficulties and cost each hardware manufacturer has to commit to to be able to stamp yet another compliance stamp on their box (SMI-S anyone? ) and therefore there's slow uptake on Microsoft's initiative. /charles Yes, I am referring to relative difficulty & cost from perspective of a vendor. As your concern is from an end-user perspective, then rest assured that both VSS & VDS "work", and are just as solid as microsoft operating systems -- which you can read anyway you want CA, Legato, and other vendors have add-on software, but that is not required unless you want add-on features. The real trick is to get hardware that uses VSS and or VDS. VDS is pretty easy and you'll find many vendors that have hardware that support this. Heck, your internal disk drives support VDS. VSS is another story entirely, as you are going ot pay a premium for the type of fibre channel host attached external RAID subsystems that bundle the provider code. Then you also have to consider what kind of snapshot is appropriate for your dataset. Do you need block or volume-based snapshot, what policy do you have to deal with files that are open 100% of the time for write access? How much scratch data do you need for buffer space to deal with stale data that gets created during course of backup? What is throughput of your backup. What I'll offer is that VSS is reliable, safe, and robust. Was there "slow uptake" -- clearly yes, but that was then and this is now. Just as SMI-S based storage management software and hardware is available on all of the Tier-1 and many of the tier-2 hardware vendors. You have to decide if they are appropriate for your environment, but these packages are no longer vaporware and are used in the real world, and are by no means the only options available to you. |
#5
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The microsoft.public.storage newsgroup is a good place to get information
about VSS/VDS storage developments. It's monitored by Microsoft people who can give you more information about which vendors have implementations, etc. |
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