Love is hate if Celerra NX4 is Unified Storage

Chuck Hollis' blog titled EMC Unified Storage -- Good Things Come In Smaller Packages left me confused.

Like EMC redefined snapshots to mean something else, EMC is redefining unified storage to mean something that no NetApp customer would ever recognize.

So let me clarify.

As I talked about yesterday there are two kinds of unified storage: a unified storage device and a unified storage architecture. Chuck has repeatedly and vociferously argued that a unified storage architecture is the wrong approach to storage. Therefore, unless black is now white, I am going to assume he meant that the Celerra NX4 is a unified storage device.

As I described a unified storage device has the following properties:

1. A piece of hardware that has CPU, Memory and disk
2. That supports FC, iSCSI, CIFS and NFS
3. That has a common management console for all storage functions that are not protocol specific
4. Has a single replication mechanism that is independent of protocol

And the value to a storage manager is that he gets a single device to support all protocols, does not have to buy or setup more than one device, does not have to learn different tools to perform the same task, and does not have to understand different replication mechanisms to do DR or backup.

So what is the Celerra NX4?

Well first we start with one piece of hardware the Clariion that has some CPU and Memory and Disk

 

Now that device does not support NAS protocols so we add a different device, a NAS gateway

And now both of those devices that are purchased, and configured as distinct devices are the hardware of a unified storage device.

Well maybe the management of the devices is the same even if the hardware is different.

Oops.

The NAS gateway and the Clariion have distinct User Interfaces ... Want to manage the unified storage device? Hope you enjoy looking at both UIs because you will...

Okay ... well maybe the replication is the same?

 

Oh ... right it's not.

So if a unified storage device looks like this:

Then the Celerra NX4 is not a unified storage device.

So what is a Celerra NX4?

So if you are a storage manager who wants a storage device that requires multiple distinct devices to be configured, that management for common tasks involves multiple distinct tools, that has multiple protocol and device specific replication strategies, then the Celerra NX4 is that storage device.

But that value proposition is most definitely not the value proposition of a unified storage device, regardless of what EMC would have you believe...

Because the value proposition of a unified storage device is:

A storage manager who wants a single device to support all protocols should not have to buy or setup more than one device, should not have to learn different tools to perform the same task, and should not have to understand different replication mechanisms to do DR or backup should buy a unified storage device.