ASK THE EXPERT: - Storage Technology Magazine
Q: Why doesn't my mail client software create a lock for e-mail files if it's reading it off a NAS device?

A: The use of the locking mechanisms in NAS requires a degree of cooperation by the software application that uses it. If the software doesn't explicitly state that it works with NFS or Common Internet File Systems (CIFS) locking semantics, it may not operate as advertised and you'll run into some interesting - and very frustrating - anomalies when you have shared access to data. An e-mail client is a prime candidate for these types of problems.


Q: Which non-EMC NAS devices provide a gateway to connect to an EMC Symmetrix SAN?

While not a NAS head or gateway, Veritas' ServPoint for NAS supports Symmetrix as a storage system attached to a Sun server. Many other NAS gateways could use Symmetrix, but they aren't qualified with it, meaning that it hasn't been tested and isn't supported.

Randy Kerns, Evaluator Group Inc.

Additional Questions:
July 2002:

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What does storage pooling mean? What do you think of it?
May 2002: What is the difference between a NAS gateway and a SAN appliance?
Is tape still the best for archiving media files? Does it offer a lower TCO than disk?
Apr 2002: In terms of feed speed, what does that measurement refer to? Is it from the primary storage to the secondary storage? Does it stop at the write speed on the tape drive?
Mar 2002: How can you use solid-state disk (SSD) to accelerate SAN performance?

This was first published in August 2002