Huawei OceanStor vs. Longhorn Block Storage

We connect the Huawei OceanStor SAN device directly to the Huawei Fushion Servers, without using the SAN Switch, with 16 HBA cards in MESH topology. Each of the two controllers has four 16 HBA inputs under the name of SMART IO. In addition, there are two 8 GB extension ports. VMware virtual machines are running on hosts. Our ERP applications, critical DBs, and business applications are running in these. Again, we use another SAN under a different cluster in the disaster recovery section.

Incentivized

Longhorn is performing well as storage for databases and in almost any solution that uses exclusive access to volumes (ReadWriteOnce in Kubernetes nomenclature). When write access is required from many clients (ReadWriteMany) Longhorn Block Storage covers its volumes with NFS (file-based) access. Longhorn Block Storage also is well fitted in every architecture where data security (snapshots, backups, multiple replicas) is more important than access speed (in terms on IOPS and MiB/s).

• The Huawei OceanStor Dorado All Flash NVMe storage array provides maximum performance.
• The OceanStor Dorado is ideally suited for use with databases, Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI), Virtual Machines, and file server environments.
• The capital and maintenance costs were very competitive for a similar storage system at other storage vendors.

Incentivized

• Creates read-write many (RWX) volumes
• Longhorn Block Storage is an easy to deploy solution
• Scheduled and on-demand volume snapshots can be created using web GUI
• Volume backups can be stored offsite on any S3 compatible storage solution
• Backups and snapshots can be restored using web GUI

• Support desk to be available.
• Implementation to new people is not that easy.
• Setting of the advance features on Huawei OceanStor may not be easy to all users.

Incentivized

• ReadWriteMany Longhorn volumes are still using NFS (file-based) protocol in the core.
• Using iSCSI as main protocol instead of FC ties Longhorn to Ethernet-based LAN which is in most architectures much slower that FC-based SAN.
• Longhorn could implement S3 as alternative access protocol to its volumes.
• Backups, and snapshots configuration could be configured at each volume-level by administrators (maybe from additional CRD object?), because currently is configured at storage-class level which is not granular enough.

Longhorn is mature software defined storage solution that is still developed and receive new functionalities. From the beginning every Longhorn volume have multiple (at least two) replicas, can leverage manual or automatic snapshots and backup to external S3 volume. Longhorn provides nice and clear GUI for administrators, but also can be managed from CLI.

When purchasing support for your Huawei OceanStor system, there are two support options offered by Huawei (i.e. Hi-Care and Co-Care). Huawei Hi-Care service is when Huawei responds to your technical requests for remote troubleshooting and advance hardware replacement in the shortest possible time. Hi-Care provides onsite technical support to help you maintain a more efficient and stable network environment and improve network productivity. Whereas, Huawei Co-Care service is a collaborative solution delivered by Huawei certified partners. Depending on the capability of your Huawei support partners, I would recommend Hi-Care for mission-critical environments since this ensures Huawei takes responsibility for meeting the support SLAs. If you have very capable Huawei support partners, then Co-care could be a more cost-effective support option.

Incentivized

All Flash NVMe SSD technology is currently at the top of this business. Its disk structure is hundreds of times faster than traditional mechanical SAS systems, but also compared to today's SSD systems! It has a much more affordable price than the devices of the same class. In addition to these, we had a lot of hesitation when we decided to give up the competitor brand and buy a product that works reliably and smoothly, but we researched and learned very well. We made the right choice.

Incentivized

GlusterFS was first Persistent Storage solution used in our Kubernetes-based clusters. It is file-based what in some usages led us to many data corruptions. CEPH is object-based persistent storage which can be used as file-based Persistent Storage in Kubernetes. It is also is much more resource-hungry than other solutions including Longhorn. Dell PowerScale (or Isilon) is a hardware-software solution, that provides volumes that can be accessed by file-based NFS and CIFS protocols. Recently was added access to its volumes with object-based S3 protocol. Longhorn is in the middle. It is block-based, it is build on industry standards like iSCSI, performs very well on 10Gbit or faster LAN and commodity hardware (or in virtual machines)

• Searching of information is effective and faster.
• Different data type storage.
• Analytics provided are valuable.
• Reporting is easy.

Incentivized

• It has provided a highly available storage solution for almost all our Kubernetes deployments
• We can deploy new app versions with peace in mind because we have working data backups
• Application development is faster because devs can play with data and easily restore it when needed