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How Doomed is NetApp?

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Re: How Doomed is NetApp?

#41

Post by drieddust »

hyuen wrote: post #37
drieddust wrote: post #25

I am currently struggling with NetApp support. After 2 weeks of constant effort they finally admitted of disk latency. More digging revealed that they sold an under performing system at a inflated cost to run MS exchange 2010. NetApp do not add any value since Exchange do not need or actually utilise any of the features. NetApp's WAFL( write anywhere) and insistence on using 4k block for disk io is the biggest design…

I think you should take a look at nimble, especially at the slide for exchange efficiency, it is on a microsoft page btw. Disclaimer I wrote the plugin to backup exchange at nimble.

Thanks I think we will keep this in mind for next iteration. Currently we are neck deep into NetApp due to an idiot of a CTO.

Re: How Doomed is NetApp?

#42

Post by ChuckMcM »

As a former NetApp person this makes me sad. I really respect Robin's opinions and have been following Storage Mojo for years. That Brian Pawlowski left to join Pure[1] is perhaps the saddest thing. During my tenure there he was pretty much the heart and soul of engineering. That he left to join a company that is succeeding with a product that he was tasked with building back at NetApp [2] boggles my mind.

Connecting the dots on that one leaves me quite amazed.

[1] http://www.channelnomics.com/channelnomics-us/news/2402365/p...

[2] http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeanbaptiste/2013/02/19/how-neta...

Re: How Doomed is NetApp?

#43

Post by squiguy7 »

I still think NetApp has a shot with large storage solutions. I got the chance to intern at one of the newer companies last summer and most of their products revolved around a hybrid solution of flash and hard disk. One of the customers kept asking about a storage heavy solution as opposed to having more flash. Their solution was to buy more appliances which may not be ideal for everyone.

So at the end of the day, if you still need lots of disk, I suppose NetApp has a lot to offer.

Re: How Doomed is NetApp?

#44

Post by acdha »

Twirrim wrote: post #22
KaiserPro wrote: post #17

There is one thing that Netapp does very well, which nobody else can really deliver: A file server that can serve over NFS & CIFS, whilst simultaneously be able to serve block traffic over FC, SAS and 10/40gig ethernet. With snapshots, decent performance, and once setup, can be left for 3 years (at which point its either too small or needs a new maintenance contract.) Nimble, they can do small, cheap and easy to conf…

I spoke with both IBM and NetApp vendors several years ago, just seeking an appliance. We didn't want phenomenal capacity, but needed something with good performance. I've never dealt with such completely incompetent salesmen before. Other vendors I've engaged have had salesmen relentlessly pursue me for the sale, even when it was very likely a small contract to them. Both NetApp and IBM left me having to do the chas…

The reverse is true, too. After IBM couldn't even send a quote for a seven-figure purchase, we went with Sun's amd64 servers. For years, they got additional business because the process was to email or call & wait 10 minutes for a detailed quote which was correct on the first try. Every so often we tried to get IBM or HP involved but their sales guys talked us out of it within the first 15 minutes.

Re: How Doomed is NetApp?

#45

Post by rsync »

omerh wrote: post #5

All I can say is that I am moving everything I can to cloud object storage from my Netapp because of 2 cents vs. $2 for GB of storage. Also Netapp wouldn't be my third chios on the next purchase of storage

"All I can say is that I am moving everything I can to cloud object storage from my Netapp because of 2 cents vs. $2 for GB of storage."

Where are you getting 2 cents ?

S3 is ~3 cents, glacier and nearline are 1 cents ... what are you buying that costs 2 cents ? (genuinely curious)

Re: How Doomed is NetApp?

#46

Post by hrez »

Sure, if all you need is block or object storage there are many alternatives. But if you need NAS which satisfies basic requirements (performant, NFS, HA, snapshots, writable snapshots) it's hard to find better than Netapp. All I've seen is poorly integrated NAS gateways on top of block storage. Perhaps Oracle ZFS is somewhat close.

Re: How Doomed is NetApp?

#47

Post by KaiserPro »

cenal wrote: post #33
KaiserPro wrote: post #17

There is one thing that Netapp does very well, which nobody else can really deliver: A file server that can serve over NFS & CIFS, whilst simultaneously be able to serve block traffic over FC, SAS and 10/40gig ethernet. With snapshots, decent performance, and once setup, can be left for 3 years (at which point its either too small or needs a new maintenance contract.) Nimble, they can do small, cheap and easy to conf…

Nexenta can do all this on on commodity hardware. Also checkout what http://www.ixsystems.com is up to if you want to see what they have done with FreeNAS.

I have several peers who use nexenta, whilst I love ZFS, unless I had the staff budget I'd never recommend it. Considering its just a thin wrapper round samba and linux(or illumos, I can never remember), the support should be much better.

Re: How Doomed is NetApp?

#48

Post by parasubvert »

rodgerd wrote: post #20
nate_meurer wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you talking about? Oracle's main goal with the Sun acquisition was to bolster their Engineered Systems business. The result so far has been quite successful: - http://www.eweek.com/servers/slideshows/oracle-continues-to-... - http://www.forbes.com/sites/oracle/2015/03/31/how-engineered...

So successful Oracle keep missing their numbers and refuse to tell anyone how their divisions break down, leading analysts to assume it's because the hardware and OS division is a money sink.

Oracle is a massive company, mostly software; it's very hard to keep engineering growth in enterprise software given most innovation is driving prices down.

Keep in mind Oracle's hardware division is a little over $5b, or 14% of their annual revenue. Not likely the reason for their problems. Most of the press has been pretty positive on how they've leveraged hardware compared to their competition (IBM, HP, Dell). [1]

[1] http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/01/27/oracles_sun_microsys...

Re: How Doomed is NetApp?

#49

Post by KaiserPro »

nasalgoat wrote: post #40
Twirrim wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I spoke with both IBM and NetApp vendors several years ago, just seeking an appliance. We didn't want phenomenal capacity, but needed something with good performance. I've never dealt with such completely incompetent salesmen before. Other vendors I've engaged have had salesmen relentlessly pursue me for the sale, even when it was very likely a small contract to them. Both NetApp and IBM left me having to do the chas…

I was spending almost $2 million on a 1PB solution and I couldn't get NetApp to call me back. EMC knew the name of my senior admin when they called me back in 2 hours. Guess who got my money?

Heh, I had the almost direct opposite experience. However we only had the netapp for VMware and home directories(and some cache stuff). only added up to about 300tb. The petabytes were scratch built jobbies. (as no appliance maker used the super dense 60 drives in 4u cases, despite Netapp making them)

Re: How Doomed is NetApp?

#50

Post by KaiserPro »

chronophage wrote: post #23
KaiserPro wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Different products for different things. Netapp are not growing like they should, but its not cleversafe knicking the money. What cleversafe do that is unique is create a global encrypted, highly available, redundant namespace. If you want a fast safe redundant backup system (and don't mind using API access) then cleversafe is your goto product. Netapp doesn't do anything similar.

You don't think that the shift from traditional RAID / NAS to object storage isn't really what's hurting them?

not really. I think its Nimble and the like. Much cheaper, better interfaces.
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