Free Cheese from EMC

EMC's Barry Burke seems mighty pleased to announce that Virtual Provisioning (what everyone else calls thin provisioning) is now "free" (at least on the V-Max and DMX4 storage arrays but not on the CLARiiON).

I'm having a remarkably similar argument with HP folks on their assertion that the software on their LeftHand storage arrays is "free", even though there's a big difference in the price of similarly specified servers and the P4000 based on the same tin. The same with Sun; their "free" software on the the Sun 7210 array costs a lot. The system is based on a Sun X4540, which is much cheaper.

And Barry's challenge "We'll see if others follow suit" line is just so, well, yesterday's news. There are any number of storage vendors that have thin provisioning at no additional cost, including NetApp FAS systems; since 2004 to be precise.

What Barry means by free is at no additional cost, and it's an important difference. And I don't  think buyers are fooled by this use of the word. It's the total cost that you need to look at, including the free. He eventually gets there; right in the last-but-one paragraph where it's "all at no extra charge".

Free? There's always free cheese in mouse traps, but the mice there aren't best pleased.

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Comments

[tony]

Alex,

As a current EMC customer I can certainly confirm your "Free Cheese" theory. The only problem for us is we don't get the free cheese or the option to purchase any cheese. I'm left with an "investment" in CX3 arrays and no such thing as "Virtual provisioning" which is an important part to storage management in our heavily virtualized environment. I'm starting to see the light and assuming you're company continues as it has we will certainly be a NetApp customer in the near future. In the meantime I'll continue to manage my storage in the same old, boring, inefficient manner.

Tony

[Alex McDonald]

Tony

Here's what amazes me about paying for thin provisioning on a CLARiiON, or any other array for that matter. All you get for your money is the appearance of a bigger space. It isn't bigger, it isn't faster, it's just more expensive per real TB.

Take a look at a V Series. That can make your CX3 look like a Netapp FAS system. It's not free, but it's very cost effective.

Thanks for commenting.

[Chuck Hollis]

Alex --

How can you seriously compare any NetApp product to any large scale enterprise array such as the V-Max, DMX or Hitachi's USP-V?

If you don't know the difference, just say so and I'd be more than happy to explain.

Either way, I think you'd be doing your customers and prospects a service by focusing your comparisons on reasonable market alternatives to NetApp filers, such as Isilon, Compellent, 3Par, etc.

Best regards --

[Just a Storage Guy]

@Chuck-

It seems to be that you are the one who doesn't understand that most of the things that EMC/HDS tout as being unique of their 'enterprise arrays' are really feature sets for shrinking markets (MainFrame, etc).

In my line of work, I have moved many customers from Mainframe-class arrays to Modular- what was the result? Happy customers saving lots of money.

A little business 101 Chuck- you don't define your competitors, your potential customers do. And if you don't think the DMX & V-Max are competing with Modular (even your own Clariion) you are sorely mistaken.

[Alex McDonald]

@Chuck

You've mistaken a discussion about EMC's "free cheese" software offering for a discussion about hardware and the V-Max mousetrap in particular. Good try though.

And I think you'd be doing your customers and prospects a service by focusing your efforts on improving the CLARiiON or Celerra.

Have a nice day.

[Chuck Hollis]

So, Alex --

Nothing from nothing, but it seems your blog has quite the team of mysterious sympathetic commenters -- but don't feel the need to identify themselves or their affiliation.

What's with that? :-)

Regarding your specific point, the first thing I thought of when you mentioned "free cheese" was NetApp's recent parade of hilarious "guarantees".

Now, there was a mousetrap that all mice should have considered very carefully!

Or, at least they should read the multipage disclaimer :-)

As far as EMC improving its products, you're right, there's always more to do, isn't there? And we're focusing on that each and every day.

But -- fortunately -- each of these EMC products has #1 share in their respective market category, according to IDC. Still, always more to do!

So, what everyone wants to know is -- where does NetApp go from here? Not many attractive options, according to many writers.

I think that's a much more interesting topic for you to cover in your blog, rather than lobbing rocks at competitors, don't you think?

Best regards!

[tony]

@Chuck

I'm assuming your comment was directed towards me being one of the "mysterious sympathetic commenters". If it wasn't then please disregard my comment. My name is Tony Williams and I work as a Network Administrator for a 911 call center in Central Texas. We are a mid-sized EMC customer interested in deploying features such as thin provisioning and deduplication on our existing CX3 arrays in an effort to stop buying more disks and to be smarter with what we have. I'd be more than happy to e-mail you from my work address to provide more details to you. I'll even take a picture next to our CLARiiON arrays if you would like. :-)

Tony

[Alex McDonald]

@Chuck

Puhleeze! A liitle balance here. Your blog has been a blizzard of boulders on several occasions. I get the distinct impression that my well-aimed pebble appears to have hit you squarely between the eyes.

[kostadis roussos]

@chuck

Reasonable market alternatives to a DMX?

That's what the dinosaur told the mammal, why don't you focus on your niche?

The problem with the DMX etc is that architecturally they are optimized for a technology era, servers with limited memory and requiring read optimized storage, that is dead.

The good news is that the transition to dead will take a long time in the absence of any asteroid, but still inevitable.

To argue that the DMX will permanently occupy the commanding heights of storage is laughable. But then again, your blog serves to entertain.

kostadis

p.s. I made the case here for my DMX comments

http://blogs.netapp.com/extensible_netapp/2009/06/how-flash-killed-the-tla.html

[Paul P]

Chuck, for someone that does not think NetApp is a 'competitor' to your own solution - you sure do spend a lot of time talking about NetApp both on your own blogs and over here. What's with that?

[Mike Riley]

I read Chuck's blog religiously. I know - NetApp guy saying this - but I'll tell you why: I like listening to Joe Biden, too. It's entertaining. You just never know what's going to come flying out of their cake holes. What makes it fun is I don't think Tucci or Obama knows what these guys are going to say next either. I just imagine that Tucci and Obama have that same pained look on their faces when someone burst into their office and says, "You're not going to believe what the VP just said!"

Is Chuck's blog serious analysis? No - far from it - but it is entertaining. If it was serious analysis someone would at least hand Chuck the EMC roadmap every now and again so he doesn't suffer from writers whiplash so often. Usually after NetApp makes an announcement, Chuck will follow with a blog on how off the mark NetApp is and then EMC will announce the product themselves in a few weeks. That was the M.O. during the Data Domain tussle and it has been for...well, since Chuck started posting. He has a little NetApp Derangement Syndrome, that's all. I had a feeling that Chuck's blog would play out like this when he at first said he was reluctant to talk about competitors directly and then his next 17 blogs were on NetApp. Fun stuff so - have at it Chuck!

[Arjen]

Guys, have a look at 3PAR if you need a mid/high end alternative . That's real TCO saving. Next will be "free Space recovery" by hardware.

[Arjen]

Of course 3PAR is only SAN...

[Alex McDonald]

@Arjen

Free space recovery "in hardware"? What does that mean?