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Our testing plan for these products was simple: Load them on our beefy Compaq Computer Corp. and Dell Computer Corp. servers and see what they could do. First, we got visualization on the local SAN, then on the remote SAN. We attempted to manage devices on both SANs to change configuration and launch vendor-specific tools.

We used Intel's Iometer to induce traffic in the network and see how the tools performed when the systems were under load; we then unplugged cables and introduced problems into the SAN. This helped us test the e-mail features and event logging. We also uninstalled both products, installed them on opposite systems, then installed them and ran them together on one system. Finally, we installed the client software for each system on a laptop and managed the products from another subnet. Although much of our testing was subjective, it was thorough. Our objective was to understand the total package from the perspective of the SAN administrator.

Our test-bed SAN contained:

>> One Dell PowerEdge 2400 running Microsoft Windows 2000 SP2

>> Two Intel Pentium III 600-MHz PCs with 512-MB RAM

>> Two 9-GB Seagate Technology hard drives, with Dell RAID controller

>> One Emulex Corp. 7000 SC Optical Fibre Channel HBA

>> One Compaq ProLiant DL580 running Windows 2000 SP2

>> Four Intel Pentium III 700-MHz Xeons with 1 GB of RAM

>> One 9-GB Seagate SCSI hard drive

>> One QLogic Corp. SANblade 2300 LC Optical Fibre

Channel HBA

>> One Dot Hill Systems Corp. SANnet Fibre Channel dual RAID array with 10 Fujitsu Fibre Channel hard drives

>> One nStor Technologies NexStor 18F Fibre Channel JBOD with 17 Seagate 18-GB Fibre Channel hard drives; dual copper Fibre Channel connectivity

>> Overland Data Neo Series LXN2000 5U Fibre Channelıattached automated tape library, using a Quantum DLT 8000 series drive

>> One QLogic SANbox-8 Fibre Channel switch with SC fiber and copper GBICs

>> One Vixel 8100 eight-port Fibre Channel switch with SC fiber and copper GBICs