Hi,

We'll start shortly a partial virtualization of our infrastructure and consolidate a dozen servers into virtuals instances. We'll also add some client application virtualization into the mix for good measure. Two HP DL 380 with the new xeons 56xx and 96 GB of memory each running xenserver + xenapp will then take charge of most of our IT needs.

So far, so good.

One element that is missing from the picture is the storage part. We need some sort of shared storage to enable live motion and other HA features. We have an IBM DS 4300 SAN that we can use for that. But since it's in production since 2005, I'm not sure about such a critical role for a 5yr old part. So my question is: What is the reliability of this kind of equipment after 5 yr ? Can it last 10 yr with no or few problems ? Since our budjet is tight, not buying another SAN will be a big plus.

This lead me to another question: FC disks cost an arm and a leg from IBM. When I type the replacement # in google (for example IBM 300GB 15K 4GBPS FC HDD 42D0410), I can find it at a fraction of the price at various sites. So am I stupid to buy from IBM or naive to trust 3rd party reseller ??

Thanks,

Chris