Using MYSAN - Any experiences? Whats the Catch?

I have been using the Nimbus MYSAN software on my 2003 box. I have set
up several partitions, and attached to them both, using the MS
Initiator. I can only set up exclusive (Single Target to Single
Initiator). I assume I could share the ISCSI Volume on my ISCSI
Initiator, and then distribute the data that way.

Does anyone have any comments? I haven't used ISCSI on a production
environment. Am looking hard at SUSE Linux, setting up the ISCSI target
software that I saw. MYSAN seems pretty stable. And Free (I guess)?

What is the business model? Is there some other piece of the puzzle I
should be looking at? Just want your thoughts...thanks!

The Computer Dood wrote:
I have been using the Nimbus MYSAN software on my 2003 box. I have set
up several partitions, and attached to them both, using the MS
Initiator. I can only set up exclusive (Single Target to Single
Initiator). I assume I could share the ISCSI Volume on my ISCSI
Initiator, and then distribute the data that way.

+++ Mysan does not have support for "SCSI RESERVE/RELEASE" commands
set. So it will never work with clusters like MS cluster or
distributed file systems or lock manager like Dataplow SAN file
system. Try search VMware forums they also need this and no much luck
with Mysan.

Does anyone have any comments? I haven't used ISCSI on a production
environment. Am looking hard at SUSE Linux, setting up the ISCSI target
software that I saw. MYSAN seems pretty stable. And Free (I guess)?

+++ It's not stable. They publish RC1 (Release Candidate 1) one year
ago and it's still not release and no update. I've never able to run
Mysan for few hours with many data copied to and from the target. And
it cannot be installed on 64bit Windows at all. I had to install
Windows 2003 SP1 32bit only to run Mysan as experiment. If you run it
for fun you don't care much but for production i stay away from
Nimbus :-) You decide however.

+++ And it's not free. After 60 day you have to pay for support. And
there are lot of question :-)

What is the business model? Is there some other piece of the puzzle I
should be looking at? Just want your thoughts...thanks!

+++ I'd set up Linux with iSCSI Enterprise Target and throw Mysan
away. IET is free and you also no pay for the OS license.

-ichiro

wrote:
The Computer Dood wrote:
I have been using the Nimbus MYSAN software on my 2003 box. I have set
up several partitions, and attached to them both, using the MS
Initiator. I can only set up exclusive (Single Target to Single
Initiator). I assume I could share the ISCSI Volume on my ISCSI
Initiator, and then distribute the data that way.

+++ Mysan does not have support for "SCSI RESERVE/RELEASE" commands
set. So it will never work with clusters like MS cluster or
distributed file systems or lock manager like Dataplow SAN file
system. Try search VMware forums they also need this and no much luck
with Mysan.

Does anyone have any comments? I haven't used ISCSI on a production
environment. Am looking hard at SUSE Linux, setting up the ISCSI target
software that I saw. MYSAN seems pretty stable. And Free (I guess)?

+++ It's not stable. They publish RC1 (Release Candidate 1) one year
ago and it's still not release and no update. I've never able to run
Mysan for few hours with many data copied to and from the target. And
it cannot be installed on 64bit Windows at all. I had to install
Windows 2003 SP1 32bit only to run Mysan as experiment. If you run it
for fun you don't care much but for production i stay away from
Nimbus :-) You decide however.

+++ And it's not free. After 60 day you have to pay for support. And
there are lot of question :-)

What is the business model? Is there some other piece of the puzzle I
should be looking at? Just want your thoughts...thanks!

+++ I'd set up Linux with iSCSI Enterprise Target and throw Mysan
away. IET is free and you also no pay for the OS license.

-ichiro

Thank you ichiron, that tells me everything that I need to know. I am
just getting into ISCSI SAN's, so this is a great awakening for me. At
present, I am backing up all my MYSAN Target volumes, so that I can
retrieve the data if necesary. I will take you advise. What distro do
you recommend I use for the base Linux (RedHat, SUSE, Debian?) I have
used CENTOS, and it seems pretty stable. Am also looking at SUSE as well.

I use SuSE Enterprise and some JDM Linux installations you probably
don't need

-ichiro

The Computer Dood wrote:
wrote:
The Computer Dood wrote:
I have been using the Nimbus MYSAN software on my 2003 box. I have set
up several partitions, and attached to them both, using the MS
Initiator. I can only set up exclusive (Single Target to Single
Initiator). I assume I could share the ISCSI Volume on my ISCSI
Initiator, and then distribute the data that way.

+++ Mysan does not have support for "SCSI RESERVE/RELEASE" commands
set. So it will never work with clusters like MS cluster or
distributed file systems or lock manager like Dataplow SAN file
system. Try search VMware forums they also need this and no much luck
with Mysan.

Does anyone have any comments? I haven't used ISCSI on a production
environment. Am looking hard at SUSE Linux, setting up the ISCSI target
software that I saw. MYSAN seems pretty stable. And Free (I guess)?

+++ It's not stable. They publish RC1 (Release Candidate 1) one year
ago and it's still not release and no update. I've never able to run
Mysan for few hours with many data copied to and from the target. And
it cannot be installed on 64bit Windows at all. I had to install
Windows 2003 SP1 32bit only to run Mysan as experiment. If you run it
for fun you don't care much but for production i stay away from
Nimbus :-) You decide however.

+++ And it's not free. After 60 day you have to pay for support. And
there are lot of question :-)

What is the business model? Is there some other piece of the puzzle I
should be looking at? Just want your thoughts...thanks!

+++ I'd set up Linux with iSCSI Enterprise Target and throw Mysan
away. IET is free and you also no pay for the OS license.

-ichiro

Thank you ichiron, that tells me everything that I need to know. I am
just getting into ISCSI SAN's, so this is a great awakening for me. At
present, I am backing up all my MYSAN Target volumes, so that I can
retrieve the data if necesary. I will take you advise. What distro do
you recommend I use for the base Linux (RedHat, SUSE, Debian?) I have
used CENTOS, and it seems pretty stable. Am also looking at SUSE as well.