FAS2050 Wins Award – What Else Is New?

Quite a bit actually. In fact that award was for a bakeoff among a dozen iSCSI storage arrays back in the summer of 2008. Since then NetApp has won many more mainstream awards while receiving continued analyst and customer recognition. NetworkWorld recapped their Best of 2008 today, which included the FAS2050. While there have been numerous hardware (disk, HBA, NIC) and software (Data ONTAP) updates since then, there was also one loose end exposed which we are about to close.

UPDATE March 6th: To quote Mark Twain, the Rumors of FilerView's demise are greatly exaggerated!

How old is too old?

As a global resource to NetApp customers and partners, I’m a frequent flyer. Over the years, I’ve developed a rule which basically amounts to not flying on an airplane older than I am. For example, that’s bad news for American Airlines.  You see, they’re accustomed to scheduling some very old TWA MD-80’s on flights into SJC – which means I am no longer a customer.

Applying that same logic to our aging HTTP-based FilerView Web GUI reveals that it has also worn out its welcome with me. I believe FilerView has been around NetApp about as long as I have, which means according to my ageism rule - it must soon be retired.

I am not alone

Despite choosing the FAS2050 as the overall winner of the iSCSI bakeoff, the NetworkWorld reviewer concluded that our FilerView element management interface was:

”… badly in need of a management overhaul”

Now it would have been easy to point out to the reviewer that he had overlooked our FAS Easy Start GUI in his estimation, but there are diminishing returns in coming off like sore winners.

(click on images for full screen view)

So, much like an (American) football team deciding how to react to a penalty against the defense after just scoring a touchdown, we declined.

Judging a book by its cover

NetApp systems are legendary for their simplicity, particularly the highly automated storage management built into our Operating System (Data ONTAP). Enterprise NetApp customers have been able to enjoy scalable Provisioning and Protection Manager GUI’s in our Operations Manager for some time now. (I actually highlighted the simplicity of a NetApp FAS enterprise provisioning workflow scenario in my blog here) Gartner rates these management tools as Visionary.  With the addition of our neighbor on that slide, I’m confident they will soon move up into the Leaders Quadrant! :)

But our newest customers or partners evaluating and deploying their FAS arrays one or two at a time also deserve a modern interface to help them come upto speed. In the 21^st century, that interface is most commonly provided by an administrative workstation running Microsoft’s Windows GUI.

Enter NetApp System Manager (NSM)

Here’s a preview of what NSM will look like, using the familiar Microsoft Management Console (MMC) interface with a clean and modern Windows 2008 Server look & feel.

I’m proud to announce it will soon be included with all FAS arrays (starting with the FAS2000 and 3000 families) at no extra cost. As a truly Unified Storage management tool – NSM will natively manage *all* protocols, instead of just the convenient ones loosely layered on top of unmanaged dumbed-down FC arrays.

NSM sports slick dashboards and clever integration with the Windows System Tray where it notifies the admin of any health issues amongst the NetApp systems being monitored.  NSM also makes an ideal companion to SnapDrive for Windows (featuring Thin Provisioning with advanced NTFS space reclamation) as a more Windows-user-friendly alternative to FilerView for system setup, configuration and volume provisioning.

Simplicity personified

The entire install package is smaller than a single MP3 song or raw photo from a modern digital camera. There are no other dependencies for Windows XP workstations running SP3 and higher. Initial setup time for a fully functional Unified Storage FAS array is estimated at 5 minutes (including NSM installation) and about 2 minutes for a new array once NSM is already in place. Active/Active controller configuration and legendary snapshot management are part of the equation, as well as automatically secure connections plus auto discovery for Active Directory / LDAP / DNS / DHCP / etc….

More than skin deep

NetApp’s ascendance from tiny startup to #2 in the enterprise storage marketplace over the past decade has largely been based on a fundamentally single architecture. That architecture has strived for simplicity and consistency across all unified storage protocols spanning primary, secondary and archival storage requirements. With the imminent release of System Manager, NetApp will soon bring harmony and balance back between our powerful storage operating system’s capabilities and the way new customers perceive them, or existing GUI-centric customers manage them.

UPDATE Feb 24th: I found out today that beta builds of NSM will soon be available on the NetApp online Beta Community!

Comments

[Calle Liljeholm]

Great news Val, this will sure come in handy to show the customers.

[Norm]

It's about time Val! The GUI looks great. When can we expect to see it?

[Chris M Evans]

Val

What's the interface written in? Please don't say Java. I'd be very interested to see this new software in more detail. Any chance of that?

Chris

[Val Bercovici]

Thanks Calle. We can't wait for customers to start using it either!

Norm - we're planning to release it during the Spring of this year - or Fall if you're down under :)

Chris - OK, I won't say Java :) Actually it's quite snappy and written in C# if that makes any difference to you. MS dotNET 2.0 runtime is needed if you're not running XP SP3 or above. It's also supported under VDI, Citrix and common other remote desktop presentation layers.

I'll have the product manager contact you.

[Chris M Evans]

Val, thanks. Yes it does make a difference!

You hit the nail on the head - quite snappy - all the java stuff is too bloated. If you're only going to write for Windows, why use Java??

Also, you've immediately provided a more streamlined GUI client - which doesn't have Java dependency issues for any other GUI management software on the same machine.

[Val Bercovici]

Yes Chris I wholeheartedly agree with you on a personal basis regarding bloated software. The good news is our product managers took this feedback to heart as well from many other NetApp GUI users and prospects.

Like most NetApp software, NSM will join a family of products which will evolve and integrate more deeply over time with other NetApp homogeneous and industry heterogeneous data management solutions.

[Vishwa]

Yeah, we have some nice features like automatic disk selection in aggregate creation, VMware wizard...etc etc.
Hoping it's going to Rock...

[Steve Klinkner]

Val,

Thanks for the plug. We have a few things to wrap up but are looking to ship NSM Real Soon Now.

I'll be covering lots of details in a series of posts on my Simple Steve blog

http://blogs.netapp.com/simple_steve/2009/02/netapp-system-m.html

Steve

[Roger Coltrane]

What about UNIX/Linux shops that don't have any Windows systems. Are they left out in the cold? One of the reasons why I like NetApp filers is that you don't need a Windows system to drive it. Will the FilerView interface be completely removed from newer models?

[Jonathan Hughes]

While this may be very nice for folks with access to Windows machines, and the interface may feel familiar to them, what about the rest of us?