Extensible NetApp: Thinking outside of the box

Just Use RAID-DP

When NetApp introduced RAID-DP oh-so-many-years ago, a bunch of folks wondered if it would make sense to release a SAN product that was built directly on-top of RAID-DP.

The concern was that getting NetApp's virtualization layer to perform for SAN workloads would be such a herculean task, that perhaps we could short-circuit our efforts.

After all RAID-DP, offers better reliability and no-compromise performance than RAID mirroring.

In the end, we decided that the path forward was to complete the herculean task ahead of us.

And we did.

And maybe our competition believed their own FUD, that WAFL or NetApp could never perform or scale, so they never bothered to figure out how to make RAID-6 perform in  a traditional array.

So here we are.

We offer equivalent performance, more features, and lower cost with better reliability for all of your storage workloads.

So if you have the time to carefully segregate your workloads, and you have the time to deal with the mistakes you will inevitably make, and you have the time to think through every provisioning request, because doing that is fun, maybe you'll find this advice on RAID-6 from StorageZilla to be useful:

• Don't use RAID 6 in random small WRITE intensive situations where you're pushing the metal to the wall.
• For systems using 1TB SATA or other such capacity dense drives RAID 6 is recommended
• For VMware RAID 6 performs great and works fine.
• For Virtual Provisioning RAID 6 performs great and works fine.

If you're a NetApp customer:

For all of your storage workloads, just use RAID-DP.

Spend more time thinking about how to add more value, like what your DR policy should be.

NetApp SnapLock Continues Working

There is nothing quite like reading a blog posting from your competitor that says:

               “ Very Important Product Doesn’t Work Says NetApp.”

In spite of the claims in the original post, NetApp SnapLock Compliance continues to work.

Why did we not communicate before now? We are certain that it would take malicious intent AND more architectural knowledge than anyone other than our own design engineers possess to exploit the issue. The flaw can not be exploited by accident.

Was Customer data at risk? Only if our customers have staff criminally intent on destroying data. It would become apparent very quickly at a customer site if the flaw had been exploited. In fact the key point of note is that no vendor can guarantee with 100% assurance that data will never be lost due to any circumstance.

The Compliance business is all about trust and due diligence. NetApp discovered the flaw during rigorous multi-product testing. We have fixed the flaw in a timely manner.

All software companies have bugs, some are more serious than others. If, in NetApp’s judgement, an earlier warning had been warranted, we would have published it. No customer has reported lost or corrupted Compliance data due to this flaw. This was not an issue which warranted earlier communication. That even a required upgrade notification can be so badly distorted, into an unwarranted assertion that the product was never compliant, only calls into question the motives and credibility of the poster.

Due diligence says customers should upgrade now that we have released versions which fix the flaw.