FalconStor - Anyone use it?

[imsuchageek]

I've been thinking about FalconStor possibilities. I haven't used it yet, but I'm trying to grab a trial.

Has anyone used FalconStore's Virtual Appliance, or any of the others available? I'd like to hear your thoughts.

Thanks

 

[NetJunkie]

I did a pretty cool design using FalconStor physical appliances in a stretched cluster...but that's it.

 

[imsuchageek]

Did it work well? Any thoughts on performance?

 

[zEp]

I've been thinking about FalconStor possibilities. I haven't used it yet, but I'm trying to grab a trial.

Has anyone used FalconStore's Virtual Appliance, or any of the others available? I'd like to hear your thoughts.

Thanks

We implemented them for two different customers. The concept is good but the software was subpar and the support was even worse. We found it extremely difficult to get it setup correctly for snapshots (that worked) and moved on quickly.

 

[NetJunkie]

Did it work well? Any thoughts on performance?

They loved it. Actually gave me a demo of it by failing a production LUN from one array to the other in the middle of the day. The VMware boxes never noticed. Had SANs at two campus locations each front-ended by a FalconStor box. Used it for failover and replication. I designed out an 18-node split-cluster configuration.

EDIT: They really loved the price...very cheap. It's not Vplex but it wasn't bad. It's not a true active/active storage configuration (like Vplex).

 

[CEpeep]

Support is bad, but the price is right (you get what you pay for, I suppose). You're going to have to do troubleshooting and support on your own, mostly, since their own techs don't even know how to use the software they support. Considering this, it might be more effective to just go with open source stuff. You'll still do your own troubleshooting and support, but there won't be any up-front licensing costs.