Usage of NetApp products with Linux

[rsarraf]

I'd like people to share their views, experiences, pain points, success stories on using NetApp products with Linux (Any Distribution - Any Feature).

Plan is to try figure out how our customers are using NetApp products with Linux and what are the Challenges they face.

[evilensky]

Distribution:  ours is RHEL 4.x and 5.x, but this probably applies to any.

There is not a single place / set of commands to do storage (re)configuration!

As an example, I can point to the insanity of this documentation piece:

http://www.redhat.com/docs/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/5.2/html/Online_Storage_Reconfiguration_Guide/index.html

[rsarraf]

I agree that there are pain point in the current way one is required to

configure the storage stack in Linux.

Part of it is:

• Real Bugs (Stale multipath entries, for example)

• Integration (Storage Stack isn't well integrated. Take SCSI + DM + FS)

• Libraries (No single robust library to interact to the Storage Stack)

• Multiple Choices (Partitioned vs Un-Partitioned LUNs)

On many of the points, we are closely working with the vendors, but it still

will take some time to reflect in the Enterprise Releases.

Ritesh