SAN Options

RSR

RSR

RSR

Soldato
Joined
17 Aug 2006
Posts
10,053
Hi Guys,

I am just after a few opinions here.

We current run a NetApp 3020 clustered SAN with around 20/30 TBs of space. As these are coming up to their 3rd year in our environment in April the maintenance costs are going to go through the roof for the support renewal for this year. So I am currently looking at my options for new a new SAN and what do with the old one. Currently our backend storage traffic runs over an iSCSI and I may look at changing this to FC is the costs are low enough. I also have a NetApp 2050 running in a DR site, so this may be replaced as well. However, this is currently under review.

I am currently looking at the HP EVA 4400/6400 models and the Blue Arc Mercury 50 / 100 models and the likewise NetApp models.

Has any moved from a NetApp to HP/Blue Arc etc…? How did they find it? Has anyone moved from HP etc… to NetApp and what where there reasons why?
Does anyone know if you can get a 3rd party support for NetApp filers? (Just another option)

Thanks

Andy
 
DustyMiller said:
I have just put a pair of netapp 2020's plus a ds14 for each filer in, and looked at year 4 & 5 support costs, and the quote i got was not earth shattering in the slightest. In fact there was not much difference from years 1-3 to be fair.
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The difference is the 2020's are in NetApp's current line. The NetApp3020c and the FC disks (72Gb 10k 144Gb 10k 300Gb 10k) are using are all EOL i believe.

I should have mentioned this in my above description.
 
Vanilla said:
You should engage both and let them fight it out. To be honest the difference between them is slight and they leapfrog from eachother with regards to features. The point in getting them both involved is to drive the price down.
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That's going to be my overal plan.

Just looking at the pro's and con's at the moment.
 
They are all very valid points and ill take that on board.

The logical step would be to move to the NetApp 3100 series filers, but i am just looking at what the other market players have to offer.
 
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bigredshark said:
Don't underestimate the familiarity you already have with netapp, it's good kit and the only reason to move to anything else would be to save money - it's not cheap!
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I am not buy any means. Ideally id like to see whats on offer. :)

However, our current kit has gone EOL and NetApp and the support costs are through the roof and its the main reason to see whats on the market.
 
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Just had one quote on a pair of NetApp 3100 series heads and its coming in roughly around 150k. However, this is the RRP price and it also doesn't include any new storage. We have HP coming in today to have a chat about the HP EVA series and see what they can offer us. I need to arrange a meeting with EMC as to compare their offerings as well. Does any one recommend any good resellers for EMC?

Also on a interesting side note, the film Avatar was redendered using Blue Arch filers as they have excellent I/O performance.
 
Just had a meeting with a vendor about the HP EVA solution and within the first 5 minutes of the meeting HP has been ruled out. It doesn't support all the tools that’s we have become accustom with. Yes it does support snapshots and that’s about where the comparisons end against the NetApp it offers very little in terms of application support like we have no with the Snap Mirror, Snap Manager tools for example.

We have also been advised that Blue Arch solutions are really all about high I/O's and doesn’t really have the NetApp feature set.

Also another plus point is NetApp seems to have simplified the options you have when you buy the products and broken it down so that’s another bonus. However, NetApp do offer a discount on the application packs for the NetApp 2000 series but that’s not a huge help to us as a 2070 NetApp filer would be a step down in terms of performance and the current 3020c is on the limit of its current IOPS performance.

The current favourite at the moment is a clustered pair of NetApp 3140's with a possibly PAM Shelf and a combo of FC and SATA disks to replace the Store vaults we have at the moment as well.
 
bigredshark said:
It basically boils down to a few options in my opinion -

- Netapp / EMC are excellent all round but are fairly expensive

- HP / various others are good enough at the basics and reasonably priced

- 3PAR / Pillar / Others are very good in some niche applications and can occasionally be a better option than Netapp/EMC at a favourable price too

If you want something our of left field, look at HP's (acquired) lefthand networks 'brick' storage product. It's really innovative and might be the future of low end SANs (particularly for use with virtualisation).
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I've been told pretty much the same thing from a number of suppliers. However, EMC are more costly when it comes to renewals then NetApp.
 
iaind said:
Interesting thread - I thought this forum was mostly full of people installing 2k3 on a desktop in their loft :) Not seen an ML115 reccomended yet :D

My 2p, although I dont have direct experience of much of the kit in question - but if the NetApp has proven to be good kit for you and been reliable then I'd stick with NetApp; especially if you are experienced in administering it. Maybe look at negotiating a 5 year service plan if that's become the main issue?

Alternatively, why not look at getting a third party to support it?
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To give you a idea of the cost of renewing the support on the NetApp 3020c and shelf’s for another 3 years is in excess of 400K :eek:

The problem with NetApp and i guess other storage vendors is they have a pretty much set price when it comes to renewals, so they don't have the figures to play around with like new equipment.

Ideally i am pushing to stay with NetApp; it’s just a question of getting the right price for the accounts department to be happy with.
 
iaind said:
Is the existing kit suitable or are there other factors pushing you to upgrade?

Just that I've seen a few third parties (big companies) offering support for NetApp
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Ive done abit of looking about for break fix type warrenty but there just isn't the market for the UK like there is the US.

Well its much cheaper to buy new kit thats more powerful also the old kit is just about coping with the demands place upon it.
 
bigredshark said:
The trick isn't making the netapp cheap so much as making the alternatives cost comparable anyway. How much productivity would be lost due to unfamiliarity with a new product, what are the costs of training, loads of things get bundled in here...

Usually gets rid of the accounts department when they start moaning...
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That's very true :)
 
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