Leverage LSI to Open Source MegaCli
400
points posted to Servers and Storage by jeremycole
06/06/07
We are professionals. We love Linux. We love Dell.
Dell makes some awesome and affordable hardware. Many new Dell machines have the PERC 5/i SAS RAID controller, which is a rebranded LSI MegaRAID SAS.
LSI makes some nice RAID cards. Dell likes LSI. Dell made a deal with LSI to provide the chips for their fancy new PERC 5/i cards.
We buy machines with these cards in them. We need to monitor our RAIDs, rebuild them, and do all manner of other maintenance tasks. We do not expect LSI to provide perfect tools. LSI is a hardware vendor, and it's understandable that they provide terrible *software*. What is NOT understandable, though, is why LSI's terrible tools are closed source.
What is further incomprehensible is why Dell is willing to accept this situation on behalf of their enterprise customers. Has anyone from Dell even tried to use the tools LSI provides, and Dell recommends, to manage a RAID array on Linux?
MegaCli is the worst command-line utility I have ever seen, bar none. But, we don't expect LSI to make it better, we expect LSI to OPEN SOURCE it. That way we software professionals can spend our own time to make them better. We need better tools. We are willing to work for free. Give us the source, or give us good documentation, but give us something.
We're willing to provide infinite amounts of value to both Dell and LSI. Dell has enough clout with LSI to make this happen. Please make it happen.
Signed,
Jeremy Cole
Open Source Database Guy
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