The pointless debate about real FC

I started this blog in the hope of talking about how data gets managed by real storage architects. I started this blog in the hope that I would write about how storage should be managed, because I felt I had a unique perspective on the topic.

I am technical director at NetApp, which is kinda-sorta-like a distinguished engineer or principal engineer at other companies. I am not in product marketing. I am not in product management. I am technologist.

I engineer systems. I work with general managers and product managers to understand where we should be investing our precious resources to get the biggest bang for the buck. I am always looking beyond the horizon trying to figure out where we should go. I work with some of the smartest and most talented engineering teams on the planet who are singularly committed to adding value to storage customers.

I was hoping to spend my time bringing that technical insight into the storage blog-o-sphere.

But instead I find myself knee deep in a pointless debate about what is real FiberChannel.

So I don't get it.

I really don't get it.

Somehow whether a storage system does or does not directly map blocks from a LUN to physical locations on disk is of crucial importance to a customer.

It's not whether the system can perform. It's not whether the system is reliable. It's not what features the system does or does not have. It's not about whether a system brings more value to a customers infrastructure than another system.

Nope, I am arguing with someone in marketing at another company over whether or not the existence of a layer of virtualization between a disk and the LUN makes something real or not real FC.

I've tried to explain why that is irrelevant. And I've done that by appealing to notions of system design and architecture.

And the fact that I would waste my time on this debate embarrasses me. And the fact that our customers or any customer cares about that debate embarrasses me as a strategic IT vendor. The fact that customers care means that we, NetApp and EMC, stopped talking about how we add value, but are arguing over subtle points of no relevance. And that means that we, NetApp and EMC, no longer care about how to help customers, but care more about scoring meaningless technical points with our customers acting as referees to this silly debate.

No customer should care about how we, EMC, Equalogic, or HDS architect our systems. It's irrelevant to our customers. As long as the architecture meets the requirements that our customers have, why should they care about how it's built?

What is relevant is what value we collectively bring to our respective customers, not the mechanism of how we bring it.

And we should be arguing about the value, not the principles of the architecture of our respective systems.

So after wasting my time on this irrelevant discussion,  I realized something important:

I don't care what real FC is.

I care that the storage system we build brings more value to our customers than the FC system our competitors build. And if our system has something Chuck wants to call real or surreal or imaginary or spindle randomizing FC is of no interest to me. And I hope to you.

I am more interested in adding value than I am in arguing with someone in marketing over what term is the right marketing term. And maybe that's why I am engineer.

Comments

[Geert]

And still there is no end to this....

"...real FC dual-controller array implementation with real, physical drives..."

http://chucksblog.typepad.com/chucks_blog/2008/08/kicking-over-a.html

At least one sole on the planet "cares"....
;-)

[Geert]

Oh, and btw - don't think you as a technician have any exposure to "*real* performance intensive situations"...

That is only given to people in marketing....

LOL.