Booting Windows 2008 directly off iSCSI (diskless system)

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jjcrandall
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Joined: Sat Apr 07, 2012 8:06 pm

Wed May 16, 2012 3:44 am

Excellent. Sorry, I wasn't thinking when I said cow on the second post :oops: It's very interesting, and quite competitive after reading the link that starwind went with ROW. most competitors (from what we've noticed in testing) implement COW, which we've noticed causes some stuttering even on a high performing san during heavy I/O.

for the TFTP & DHCP, is it in the 5.9 beta? I think i must be looking in the wrong place, because I can't seem to find it anywhere.


Thanks for the update.

PS - We have been using xen server specifically because we get better support from Citrix & our Citrix reseller. We use ESXi for anything non xen-app/xen-desktop.
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anton (staff)
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Fri May 18, 2012 8:20 am

NetApp uses ROW with WAFL from the very beginning of their history. EMC indeed uses COW.

Not in this V5.9 build sorry for this :( Checked within QA team they will run some post-check tests next week so you have good chances to see iSCSI-boot related stuff in beta builds in 2-4 weeks from now.

Sorry again for misinforming you..............
jjcrandall wrote:Excellent. Sorry, I wasn't thinking when I said cow on the second post :oops: It's very interesting, and quite competitive after reading the link that starwind went with ROW. most competitors (from what we've noticed in testing) implement COW, which we've noticed causes some stuttering even on a high performing san during heavy I/O.

for the TFTP & DHCP, is it in the 5.9 beta? I think i must be looking in the wrong place, because I can't seem to find it anywhere.


Thanks for the update.

PS - We have been using xen server specifically because we get better support from Citrix & our Citrix reseller. We use ESXi for anything non xen-app/xen-desktop.
Regards,
Anton Kolomyeytsev

Chief Technology Officer & Chief Architect, StarWind Software

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jjcrandall
Posts: 9
Joined: Sat Apr 07, 2012 8:06 pm

Sat May 19, 2012 8:24 pm

Thanks for the update. We've been looking at iSCSI SAN products that we can boot a fleet of physical workstations and potentially servers off of. The hardware is all the same, but it would be good if they could all connect to the same target, and then have their writes redirected. It looks exactly like the CDP stuff in Starwind, except multiple initiators connect & have their own ROW space.

I'll keep watching. :)
jjcrandall
Posts: 9
Joined: Sat Apr 07, 2012 8:06 pm

Sun May 20, 2012 4:44 am

Quick question. The feature that is being proposed, does it allow multiple initiators to connect to a single target, and each initiator receives their own individual journal for redirect?

If you need more information around the question, please let me know.
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anton (staff)
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Mon May 21, 2012 1:01 pm

This is called "golden image" and we technically can do it but we'd prefer to serve such a feature with deduplication engine for a lot of reasons.
jjcrandall wrote:Quick question. The feature that is being proposed, does it allow multiple initiators to connect to a single target, and each initiator receives their own individual journal for redirect?

If you need more information around the question, please let me know.
Regards,
Anton Kolomyeytsev

Chief Technology Officer & Chief Architect, StarWind Software

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jjcrandall
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Joined: Sat Apr 07, 2012 8:06 pm

Mon May 21, 2012 2:14 pm

Good to know the terminology. My focus isn't really around servers either, it's around iscsi booting clients in libraries, public kiosks, and thin clients. We have several libraries across the US with 1k+ nodes that would benefit from common images (and one change point, better support as well.) We've looked at Citrix Streamed Desktops to the endpoint, but they do charge a fortune for their products.
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anton (staff)
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Mon May 21, 2012 3:05 pm

If we'd do the same with dedupe would it solve your task? Or you have pre-configured volumes you just boot and share?

Can you drop me a message to anton@starwindsoftware.com so we could talk a bit about business point of view? :) Need your opinion / feedback here.
jjcrandall wrote:Good to know the terminology. My focus isn't really around servers either, it's around iscsi booting clients in libraries, public kiosks, and thin clients. We have several libraries across the US with 1k+ nodes that would benefit from common images (and one change point, better support as well.) We've looked at Citrix Streamed Desktops to the endpoint, but they do charge a fortune for their products.
Regards,
Anton Kolomyeytsev

Chief Technology Officer & Chief Architect, StarWind Software

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