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How Doomed is NetApp?

storagemojo.com

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Re: How Doomed is NetApp?

#51

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.

Re: How Doomed is NetApp?

#52

Post by parasubvert »

SniperOwl wrote: post #4

Nimble, Pure and Nutanix are delivering easy to use, high performance storage/compute for a fraction of the cost of EMC and Netapp. This is reason why Netapp is losing clients to Nimble, and EMC is losing to Pure. Cisco should stay on their toes with Nutanix line of Software defined hardware.

EMC XtremeIO is giving Pure a strong run for its money.

EMC's biggest problem in storage isn't on the All-Flash side (XTremeIO is working as intended), it's that there's fewer reasons to buy the high end, high margin (VMAX) storage these days, and EMC needs to come up with a big margin patch... which it thinks it might have with DSSD [1] [2].

[1] https://storagemojo.com/2014/11/11/pure-vs-emc-whos-winning/ [2] https://storagemojo.com/2015/02/18/dssd-hiring-is-exploding/

Re: How Doomed is NetApp?

#53

Post by Ecio78 »

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 agree with what you said. I used Netapp around 2007 in one bank as iSCSI storage for a SQL Server solution, and later on in 2008 we selected it for a small online bank (80 employees,500 financial advisors, 20-30k customers) as crucial part of our infrastructure. We were able to design the IT infrastructure around it using it as CIFS file servers for internal Windows users, NFS datastore for the VMware infrastructure (we were almost all virtual) and iSCSI block access for some special machines (e.g. SQL Server) with relevant software in place for backups and with full sync metrocluster replica between the two sites. No FC host-access. It was clearly expensive, maybe not that exceptional performance-wise, but I'm quite sure even today you can't do it with all the new fancy storage vendors.At that time, we could have done it with EMC, but our experience with the sales process was opposite to the one reported by some here: during the 1st purchase for SQL, I was able to find a Netapp pre-sales technical guy that was very competent, while I struggled to get the right replies from an EMC reseller.

EDIT: I think I should probably add that the competent Netapp pre-sales guy moved to DataDomain, then Fusion-IO and now he's in PureStorage..

Re: How Doomed is NetApp?

#54

Post by Ecio78 »

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…

NetApp do not add any value since Exchange do not need or actually utilise any of the features.

I never used Exchange on Netapp, but aren't they supposed to have a "SnapManager for.." tool to coordinate the Exchange backups with the storage snapshot process? I was using it for SQL Server.

Re: How Doomed is NetApp?

#55

Post by omerh »

rsync wrote: post #45
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)

got the price a bit wrong sorry. I use at my company S3 at 3c per GB

and I am starting to try out Google Cloud Storage, I think that they out preforms AWS

Re: How Doomed is NetApp?

#56

Post by omerh »

KaiserPro wrote: post #19
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

So what do you do when you need fast local storage?

Running on premis VMWare (but sadly my Netapp isn't that fast FAS2240)

Re: How Doomed is NetApp?

#57

Post by Ecio78 »

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

what are you doing with your storage?

I don't get all this relationship between "cloud object storage" and the dawn of Netapp as stated in the storagemojo article. For me Netapp is, like said by KaiserPro, a multi-purpose system where I can do FC, iSCSI, NFS, CIFS, with HA, snapshots etc., where I can host my VMs, my Windows files, my block-access disks for Databases etc.. It's not the place were I'd just put files that I'll serve via a S3-like API interface...

Re: How Doomed is NetApp?

#58

Post by omerh »

liveoneggs wrote: post #35
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…

Yes. NetApp products tend to be really great but dealing with their sales guys directly sucks. Next time contact an VAR like Vandis who will size it, sell it, and help (or just do) set it up.

I agree, I had to chase them for more than 2 weeks to get a disk shelf quote which was overpriced around $3k competing with a local vendor that buys from them. I bought from a vendor and not directly from Netapp

Re: How Doomed is NetApp?

#59

Post by omerh »

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…

Yes, Netapp does CIFS alot better than the rest. But you can always setup a File server cluster and run it on any storage you want. A bit of a hassle on setup but there is an alternative.

Re: How Doomed is NetApp?

#60

Post by qthrul »

SniperOwl wrote: post #13
simonebrunozzi wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about Simplivity? Do you have any experience/opinion on them?

I do not! Would love to hear more info, I am really only commenting on the hardware I know/own. But I have heard pretty good things about their replication and how they are neck and neck with Nutanix. I have UCS for my main sites, and Nutanix for my Remote offices and its working great!

If you have any UCS C240 M3's then you may have SimpliVity options to explore. https://www.simplivity.com/products/omnistack-cisco-ucs/
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