Posts by LarryF

TCO = Totally Contrived Opinion?

Say it ain't so Chris - the TCO argument in this article is totally contrived. So many errors, so little time:

1) Cost of 16 month cutover from 7-mode to C-mode system ($622,000). Really? 16 months for one storage system? In my experience 1 month would be more than enough time.

2) Cost of planning, upgrading skills, and testing ($275,000). Unique to C-mode? Nope - upgrading to any new storage platform, even ZFS, would incur this cost.

3) Additional cost benefit of C-Mode Migration: How about nondisruptive operation? Zero planned downtime? Seamless scale out and scale up? Access to a universal data fabric? Multi-cloud data mobility? Hmm, there must be some $$ value there too.

IMO you can take at least $1M from the Wikibon 6-year C-Mode costs and show a payback of 12-24 months. Anyone that wants to do a more realistic TCO analysis - ask your Rep or SE to run a TCO report @ www.netapprealize.com.

Cheers,

Larry@NetApp

Apples and Oranges

Agree with AC, this is a dubious comparison. Any reasonable enterprise server with a dozen SSDs and loaded up with DRAM will show "amazing" SPC-1 numbers. As I recall, SPC was created primarily to make a realistic comparison of performance metrics between enterprise storage arrays that could scale out to hundreds of TBs.

Larry@NetApp

Too Many Storage Array Lines?

"Dell/EMC will lose some storage array lines and meet fresh problems on their way to the merging"

Michael: "Joe I think we have too many data storage lines, I just counted 16 of them."

Joe: "What? Sorry I can't hear you, the top is down on my Ferrari. I'll have to get back to you."

Dell Fluid File System

Dell MD Series

Dell NX NAS Appliance

Dell PowerVault

Dell (EqualLogic) PS Series

Dell (Compellent) SC Series

EMC Atmos

EMC Data Domain

EMC ECS

EMC Isilon

EMC Vblock

EMC VMAX

EMC VNXe

EMC VNX

EMC VNX-F

EMC XtremIO

What problem are we solving again?

If your problem is inefficient data silos, you are in serious need of a refresh. Over the past 5-10 years all the major storage vendors have offered virtualized storage pools that seamlessly move data between arrays and tiers. If your problem is lack of ability to set policies and QoS limits, call your local storage vendor and chances are they have a solution for that too (NetApp does). As far as I can tell from the Tech Field Day video (link below), 1) there are quite a few technical concerns from the experts around the table and 2) DataSphere only supports two storage OS's - NetApp's ONTAP and Isilon's OneFS. Doesn't seem all that compelling unless I am missing something here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BmfzwiG4aY

Cheers,

Larry@NetApp

HDS and Oracle are the remaining 'tier one' storage vendors that still do not have true AFA products, I'd keep an eye on them as acquirers. Otherwise, wouldn't be surprised to see the smaller flash players merge as they run out of cash and need to consolidate operating costs.

my 2 cents,

Larry

Clear as Mud

This is the most confusing clarification since #DeflateGate.

ViPR Controller 2.2 does not support ViPR Data Services components...But to use ViPR Data Services on file arrays, you must be running ViPR Controller version 2.1.x, with a ViPR Data Services package.

Where is the Virtual Geek when you need him?

http://virtualgeek.typepad.com/virtual_geek/2015/01/2015-what-to-expect-and-this-i-believe-part-ii.html

"SDS (ViPR SRM, ViPR Object, ViPR Controller, ScaleIO) are growing like wildfire - and 2015 will be huge"

Really?

Larry

The HDD in your mirror is much larger than it appears

"To reach 20TB by 2020, the 500GB/platter drives will have to increase areal density 44 times in six years. It isn't going to happen."

Huh? to reach 20TB by 2020, areal density would need to double a little more than 5 times in the next 6 years. (.5TB / 1TB / 2TB / 4TB / 8TB /16TB), not 44 times. All right, this is not gonna happen either.

More likely that we'll 4 or 5 platter (or maybe 6 platter) 3.5" HDD's at 40TB by 2020, which only requires 2 generations of capacity doubling, as vendors put the HAMR down.

Larry @ NetApp

Huh?

I don't see anything on Violin's website that indicates the 7000 is a front-end cluster controller for 6200 arrays. Its simply shown as a dual-controller box with up to 4 storage shelves and up to 280TB. Is this some top secret project thats now not-so-secret?

Larry@NetApp

Fiscal vs Calendar explains it

NetApp's fiscal Q1 falls in Calendar Q2, so its natural to see a drop from FYQ4/Q1 i.e. CYQ1/Q2 - I can only remember one CYQ1/Q2 sequential gain in the 7 years I've been here. But hey how about NetApp's 8.6% year-over-year growth, and the fact that EMC and NetApp are the only ones growing in tough storage market!

Larry

Nexsan is not "one of the myriad storage statups", but rather found itself competing with a myriad of startups. Might explain why Imation got them on the cheap.

Larry @ NetApp