Red Hat and HP Establish Linux Storage Lab

Rob writes "Linux distributor Red Hat has teamed up with Hewlett-Packard to create a new performance test lab to help customers deploy enterprise storage across Linux environments. The lab will focus on performance and integration testing in order to produce best practices and solutions guides, the companies said, and will also enable customers to preview new technological developments."

Consolidation

[mysqlrocks]

It's interesting to watch the Linux market mature. With IBM putting so many resources behind Linux of course HP is going to want to continue to work with Red hat.

Re:Consolidation -even better...

[bogaboga]

...would be an option from HP, to buy the ability to buy a Linux desktop as easily as one can buy a Windows one from HP's website. I know HP does not want any kind of liability but Linux desktops could be sold without as much support as the Windows desktops...

...Or the ability to download Linux drivers for HP's printers, and other equipment from HP's website. I know there is http://linuxprinting.org/ [linuxprinting.org] for printers but I would like it from the horse's mouth - i.e. from http://www.hp.com/ [hp.com]

Is that too much to ask from a major computer vendor that claims to support Linux? I do not think so.

Re:Consolidation -even better...

[TripMaster Monkey]

Another option for HP could be selling a blank system, and let the end user worry about the OS. With this approach, HP neatly avoids any liability, and still can be seen to be tacitly suppporting Linux.

It's about time that...

[TarrySingh]

People start shedding fears of the penguin. It's an alternative and it's very much user friendly. I predict that soon the users community will shift/accept it even at home. Although I see Novell(suse) making more progress there. Red Hat recently announced that GFS is now supported by Oracle for use with Real Application Cluster database configurations, and has been certified for use with EMC's Clariion networked storage systems, and Celerra iSCSI network attached storage systems, as well as Network Appliance's SAN interfaces BTW HP has been offering RAC on RHEL already for a long time now. Althoug hte GFS will certainly avoid the need of running the HP clsuterware(I hope) tool.

Re:It's all about the GFS

[drdink]

I don't see how GFS can scale as well as something like OpenAFS [openafs.org]. With AFS, you get an entire infrastructure. I wish more people would be investing time and effort into improving filesystems like AFS, where all systems can share a common namespace without requiring the availability of a SAN. The two have slightly different uses, but it'd still be nice to see more force behind AFS now that it is opensourced.

Who will be the next OEM...

[Torinir]

to announce a Linux partnership?

It was almost a given that HP would team up with some major Linux distro, given that they have a fair sized share of the corporate market. I'd open my eyes a little more if Dell or another primarily HSB (Home and Small Business) OEM were to start to offer Linux systems.

Of course, it'd also be nice if some of those manufacturers would also add Linux support for their peripheral products. There's so few good drivers for printers/scanners/all-in-ones, especially from HP (which I do tech support for), and tbh I don't have the coding skills to build my own. It's probably a big reason that Linux use is still relatively light on the HSB side.

SATA disks possibly

[Anonymous Coward]

SATA disks is possibly true. To those of you who say "What??! Ordinary SATA disks on mission critical servers??!" - even high end enterprise storage systems (like EMC Symmetrix) use ordinary disks.

Re:Satan.

[Anonymous Coward]

I work with HP OpenVMS and HP NonStop platforms and they are one of the best systems out there. HP do make very good things, although they don't advertise it much. HP is and has been a strong supporter of Linux in many years by supporting and selling lots of Proliant systems with Linux.

Not exactly "linux" storage but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Since there will be some storage research going on...

Imagine you have several remote sites accessing files on a centralised storage server. Just as an example, say it is a samba server which remote computers accessing it over SSH (like this [webservertalk.com]).

If you have a slow upload link (who doesn't), working with such a remote storage solution quickly becomes a problem.

Is there anything in the way of:

• All the offices have a server and the same data is mirrored on all the servers
• When you access a file on the server (locally), the files becomes locked on ALL the servers
• When you are done with the file, data is updated on all the servers using something like bittorrent (only secure+encrypted)

If I'm thinking this one right, that would give you instantaneous read/write access to unlocked files on the server (since access is local), the only slow down being how long it takes to get a file updated/unlocked on all the servers.

Re:Consolidation -even better...

[bogaboga]

I have a fear for a blank system because HP could, on dancing to M$'s whims, load this blank desktop with very obscure hardware not fully unusable by the Linux kernel.

Barely supported..

[cybrthng]

You have to run 9.2 and use specific version. GFS 6.1 looks like a life saver, but it could be years before that is certified against Oracle.

Infact the entire Redhat/Oracle certificaition process is a nightmare.

Re:It's about time that...

[dmaxwell]

Wal-Mart is just about the only retailer big enough to NOT be pushed by MS. I think of that old koan that asks what happens if an irrestible force encounters an immovable object. Wal-Mart thinks they are the only ones who have the right to be pushy and obnoxious. If push came to shove, they'd probably give MS a taste of no access to their stores for a few months just to make the point. Not because of any love for the penguin mind but just to school them.

That could be awfully fun to watch.