NetApp opinions?

Can't complain much, it's featured packed, loads of options, reliable and reasonably fast. The downside, it's expensive...

The snap manager for virtual infrastructure is great with VMware and the snap manager for exchange product is quite nice too. If you have the budget it's difficult to find a reason why not.

Only issue we've had is fragmentation of snapshots, which netapp are well aware of but haven't fixed yet as far as I know...
 
If it's a single site the costs are comparable with the rest of the market.

Licenses will be charged per head (therefore double for HA) which is fine until you want a DR site... especially with more HA (therefore 4 lots of licensing).

Caveats are the same for whichever vendor so just do your research well.

Apart from that, good kit, good name but don't believe the hype. Everyone just wants your pennies.
 
Shaz]sigh[;12219188 said:
If it's a single site the costs are comparable with the rest of the market.

Licenses will be charged per head (therefore double for HA) which is fine until you want a DR site... especially with more HA (therefore 4 lots of licensing).

Caveats are the same for whichever vendor so just do your research well.

Apart from that, good kit, good name but don't believe the hype. Everyone just wants your pennies.
Click to expand...

For a single site I can get equivalent performance cheaper from half a dozen reputable vendors. All depends what features you need...
 
bigredshark said:
For a single site I can get equivalent performance cheaper from half a dozen reputable vendors. All depends what features you need...
Click to expand...

That would depend on your discount level though surely?

For example, NetApp offered an end of year discount which was quite hefty (well over 50%), whereas EMC offered an end of quarter discount which was closer to 100% than 50%.... if you get me.

HDS are very reasonable too... in a manner of speaking.
 
Yup, just been released

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/080805/netu044.html?.v=57

Now 64 bit so more everything and usual hardware upgrades such as more power processors, more memory. main features worth noting:

Largest array now peaks at 960 drives capacity.

SSD Flash drives: One flash drive = the performance of 30 x 15k spindles.

Benchmark of 99.999% availability, same as the other ranges.

Both FC and iSCSI in the same box. Now has Ultraflex where you can add these ports as you feel the need. Also means as new technology is released (10Gb Ethernet or 8Gb FC for example) you can add these to the array.

Loads more like Thin Provisioning, policy based drive spin down to save power, integration with VMWare Site Recovery Manager, adpative cooling, etc.

There will be upgrade paths. As you might know Von you can upgrade your CX600 to a CX3 Clariion and then likely to a CX4, however it's probably best to start fresh for maintenance cost reasons - but this just shows there is always a strong upgrade path.

All on top of the usual stuff such as replication, clones, virtual lun, etc.
 
Correct me if I'm wrong but this just means it does much what the Netapp offering did already? Personally I prefer the Netapp software offering for VM ware and Exchange to what EMC are offering so I'm not sure it's such a big deal.

Oh, and flash drives, thats nice work, but I suspect Netapp will be able to furnish me with some by the end of the year.

Don't get me wrong, nothing especially wrong with EMC, I just decided I prefered the Netapp software offering so thats where our investment is.
 
Very true and that's why storage is becoming commoditised.

But basically it fits in to a roll between the 2050 and 3040.

The 3020 is 32bit/old tech, the CX4-120 is not...

At the end of the day it's down to the price, the account manager and the caveats.
 
The whole market is one vendor leapfrogging the other. They spread FUD about eachother and there are true down sides to some features. At the end of the day you pick what is right for you there and then and go with it.

Let the vendors know they're fighting eachother, it will only benefit the buyer by driving the price down.

With regards to what Netapp do today it's very different, they have some additional features and EMC others. Ultraflex - today with Netapp you need downtime to add I/O modules, they're not hot pluggable and maxing them out will eat into backend connectivity. Then there is the fact that it is not on all of the range - only the very high end. A small difference but important.

Also Netapp make no statements about uptime or availability (99.999%). No drive spin down, no adaptive cooling, no ability to move luns internally without needing remote replication software or a separate appliance, no Flash drives, etc.

Still very different arrays and the above is just talking about the new features. The point I always make overall is don't listen to the vendors. See what the market is doing, read IDC, Gartner and suchlike reports. Look who is leading the respective markets.

EMC love this as Clariion is the mid range market leader by far and with regards to VMWare the 2007 IDC Virtualization study showed around 50% of VMWare storage resided on EMC hardware (and growing heavily) and only 4% (yes 4% and slightly growing) on Netapp. Not the best published figures for a vendor who shouts about their VMWare relationship.
 
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