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     Users of NetBackup’s PureDIsk feature set may have gotten over the hump of the pain, but for the majority, they have ignored Symantec’s product because of complexity of software installation, software configuration, and performance configuration/tuning for a specific storage configuration. 

     Why does this matter?  Because today InQuinox is announcing the release of the SD3, a NetBackup PureDisk Appliance.  By announcement I mean general availability of this product.  So what does this mean for customers?  Typically, InQuinox (known for industry leading consulting services for Symantec products) is engaged to profile NetBackup installations, make recommendations for sizing and configuration of PureDisk, and ultimately contracted for the deployment and tuning of the PureDisk configuration.  While rich in consulting hours, many of the tasks are solved by the SD3 appliances.  These appliances are configured in a few different configurations (SD3-T1, SD3-T4, SD3-T32, & SD3-T96 – data sheet) based on performance and capacity requirements.  These appliances are pre-built with PureDisk installed (licensing offered via InQuinox or other sources, including Symantec), pre-configured with information from a customer’s NetBackup environment and shipped almost plug-n-play to the customer site.  With minimal onsite configuration, validation, and testing these appliances can be up and running in significantly less time then a services engagement.  The T1 and T4 versions of the appliances use captive storage configurations,  The T32 and T96 configurations are powered by ATRATO disk storage (which I’ve covered in the past).  The appliance itself is sourced as a powerful Corvalent hardware platform.  This isn’t just a “install PureDisk”  on a platform with storage play, InQuinox has put time and engineering effort into having options such as remote office solutions, ruggedized solutions, HA configurations, and scalability within the product models.

     Another great thing about this synergy of products simplifying PureDisk, is the recent announcement that PureDisk will be supported for BackUp Exec as well, which opens up a huge potential marketplace.  Claims of storage reduction via implementations of PureDisk are estimated between 40% and 90% depending on the implementation, backup policies, and application types.  For more information on PureDisk, support matrix, and features see Symantec’s website.

Updated: InQuinox Press Release: http://www.inquinox.com/media/news_release_10142009.php

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     Time for an update about storage protocols, I say protocols, because the transport layer is something that is in flux right now.  NFS, iSCSI, Fibre Channel, and FCOE (Fibre Channel over Ethernet) are storage PROTOCOLS!  It is pretty important to understand this as base knowledge when discussing storage connectivity to a VMWare environment.  So what does this mean for you.

     Recent published White Paper from VMWare shows in little detail the testing they did for these protocols.  However, this assumes that ALL storage and storage solutions are equal, which we all know NOT to be the case.  The white paper can be found here.  So let me first explore what they tested, and then we can look at some changes to the components.

The Storage:

     So I have when a software company does things like this, they take a “storage server” and emulate different storage protocols in order to test them.  This configuration used 9 disks, how it was configured, what type of “storage server” wasn’t disclosed, and how the LUNs were emulated wasn’t disclosed either.  So I can’t really make too many judgments, because they will end up being assumptions and we all know what you get from that.  I can however say that this was not “purpose built” and seemed to have been thrown together for this test, most likely using some Linux distribution.  The problem with this approach is it doesn’t take into account the massive development that a storage vendor has gone through either with hardware or software to get the most out of a protocol.

The performance:

     Looking just at the basic configuration, comparing GigE ethernet (with any protocol) compared to 4Gb FC doesn’t seem like a fare test.  Looking closely, VMware really was trying to prove out scalability regardless of storage protocol.  They also pointed out clearly that not using the VMFS might have a significant impact on performance, but they excluded it in order to not give a block level device an advantage over NFS mounted storage.  They also clearly pointed out that an update to this White paper was needed in order to consider 8Gb FC and 10GigE, which I think will be a much closer comparison of technologies.  If you look at the differences in performance, 4Gb FC was almost exactly 4x the performance of any of the 1Gb Ethernet used in the test, which I would expect.  It also showed that the packet size/block size was a significant differentiator because of the extra processing that needs to occur with a 1500MTU packet limitation on GigE.

The Point:

     The point is simple, why even bother putting out a “White Paper” that really proves nothing, well, it does prove something.  When using basic volumes iSCSI and NFS have pretty much equal performance over a single GigE connection.  NFS has more of a CPU overhead (minimally) then software initiator based iSCSI, and if you are counting clock cycles, then you really need to go with iSCSI or FC HBAs.  I would have rather seen NFS compared to VMFS over the iSCSI connections, that would have at least compared similar access functionality.

      So changes I would like to see, compare 1Gb FC to GigE for these protocols.  Use the best of breed NAS, iSCSI, and FC arrays for these tests (oh that would create a field day for us out here in the stoblogosphere).  Compare like functionality, NFS offers shared access, VMFS offers shared access.  In any case, someone has to write something over there, I would have named this What Paper, “VMWare 4.0 Scales Regardless of Storage Protocol”.

Comments always welcome.

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About a week ago I tweeted that I had been invited to a storage vendor’s event, was invited as a potential customer by two different parties.  Funny thing about email lists, people get invited that you wouldn’t expect to attend.  I took off my storage hat, put on my analyst hat and promised a few old friends that I would behave.  I’ve competed against Compellent in the past (sometimes very aggressively!).  I’ve also said some nice things about the technology as well.

Compellent

Strong storage player, public company surviving in a harsh IT economy, and locally here in Colorado working with some great internal talent and one of my favorite partners.  Basic premise of the storage technology is controller based disk array (controllers are commodity based architecture which I’ve mentioned before) with a plethora of storage software services.  The special part that they bring to the table is at the storage service level, Data Progression™, Fast Track, replication, etc.  They have a very compelling story, proven scalability and a growing revenue and customer base.  The recent introduction of SSD support brings what most like to consider as a Tier0 storage layer, and although they have SATA, I would really like to see a strong archival tier in the near future.

Lewan and Associates

Lewan, is one of my favorite local integrators.  They did a very nice presentation about how they have several lines of business, specifically broken into two main lines of business, the traditional printer/copier side, and the IT Solutions side.  Lewan was relatively recently acquired by Xerox, but remains a very independent subsidiary.  What I liked the most about Lewan’s presentation was that they get the whole IT picture, and to date have had some of the key technology partners to create best-of-breed solutions for customers in the Rocky Mountain region.  The quick elevator pitch from Lewan?  D.N.A. – Data Center, Network, and Application Delivery.  They cover it all, and do it not only from a pure product basis, but from a consultative model that keeps the customers coming back!

Latisys

Latisys was another sponsor of this event, and they have some great solutions to the remote data center/hosting/co-location problem.  The purpose of the presentation on this day was to talk about Compellent’s place within Latisys, specifically to offer a target for secure remote replication.  This is something that any customer should look at that is currently running a Compellent SAN, because it reduces the complexity and I would assume costs associated in owning your own remote installation of Compellent gear, while giving you a place to recover too.  The better play they are offering however, is the ability to bring up your VMware based environment in a disaster, which is something that is very powerful for business continuance.

The SAN Technologist

I felt like a spy, I got funny looks, got directly asked if I had any questions, but I behaved and while I made no promises, I learned, I liked the things I saw, and I could without loosing sleep write something that is meaningful about these companies.  It isn’t everyday that you get a chance to see old friends, not try to destroy them, and leave with friendship renewed.  Quick shout out to my lovely mother who will greatly enjoy the Wizard of Oz reference, although not Judy’s greatest role, it is a good one. 

Image by www.ericcastro.biz via Flickr

I while ago I poked fun at the NetApp 50% Guarantee.  The idea that most of the savings come from taking a RAID10 environment and switching it to NetApp’s RAID-DP (btw, they only guarantee 35% if you are using your own storage behind a v-filer platform), is something I’ve touched upon in the past.  Now they have released a $1M’s worth of, at list, hardware if they can prove the reduction vs. a non-NetApp customer’s current environment.  What you win:

4. Prize

a) The prize ("Prize") to be awarded is comprised of the following NetApp products, and will be based on NetApp’s published US price List: storage hardware valued at $850,000, Professional Services Deployment, valued at $100K, and Software, valued at $50K.

b) The Prize will be subject to the Winner’s agreement to be bound by NetApp’s standard commercial terms. No purchase will be necessary to utilize the Prize; provided, however, after the applicable warranty period has elapsed for the hardware, software and service elements of the Prize, additional charges may apply to any requests for repair and maintenance.

c) To become the winner, the selected corporation must agree, if needed, to allow its representatives to be filmed by a NetApp representative and the winner’s representatives must execute a release and consent form that authorizes NetApp to use the video in NetApp Marketing material and activities. The winner must also agree to have a third party, nominated by NetApp, to evaluate the winner’s virtualization environment, both prior and after the commencement of NetApp’s implementation services to confirm the agreed upon virtualization metrics. Winner shall also agree to adhere to NetApp’s recommended best practices and requirements, including having NetApp’s professional services personnel on site to conduct a virtualization requirements analysis.

d) The Prize is not transferable. No Prize substitution is allowed except at the discretion of NetApp Inc. If the Prize cannot be awarded due to circumstances beyond NetApp Inc.’s control, a substitute prize of equal or greater retail value will be awarded.

So you get all this good stuff!  This is really a great marketing idea.  Get a bunch of non-customers to tell you exactly what they are running (lead generation), pick a customer and make a case study of it (great P.R.), and finally, still get them, after all is said an done, to pick up support costs after warranties are expired and upgrades for other features they will want to use.  This is a win-win though, take a company that has legacy hardware that was looking to refresh, quick easy way to get into a NetApp solution.

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     What happens when your storage system is a “klunk”?   In the start-up/up-start space there are still numerous storage vendors, two recently have moved from that I would consider up-start to Corporations due to acquisitions.  These two companies are what I would NOT consider “klunks” in the Treasure Hunt vernacular.  These two companies were the $25k prize check for Dell and HP, who going against some odds took the risk to spend large sums of money for non-traditional storage companies.

     Now that I’m in a different storage game I can take a serious look at two competing technologies in the iSCSI space.  As my audience knows I did work for Equallogic, Inc.  What they may not know is that I spent a good amount of time interviewing and looking at LeftHand Networks prior to looking at Equallogic.  Now to be fair, it wasn’t Equallogic that kept me from going to work for LeftHand, and it wasn’t anything I found out about LH that made me go over to Equallogic.

     iSCSI, while that used to be a “name we shall not speak” it has become a household storage protocol in the past few years.  I can remember when Windows software initiators would literally bring a server to its knees when running any type of IO.  So, LH spent some serious time about a decade ago working on a proprietary network storage protocol, but quickly switched over to iSCSI as it was standardized.  Equallogic started down the route as a potential NAS device, but also moved quickly to the iSCSI block level standard.

     I discussed before the merits of hardware vs. server as a storage platform, and both of these entries to market have very valid attributes.  So I’m going to leave this alone.

     The PS4000 vs. the P4x00, I mean really?   Just as HP releases a formal product naming conventions (thank G-d they minimized the “starter-SAN” nomenclature), Dell releases an “entry” level Equallogic product called the PS4000.  I can’t wait to see online pricing for this product line, it looks like it will fit nicely in the “S” of the SMB space as well as the remote office/branch market.

     The future of these products will be very interesting considering the relatively small revenue % they drive for HP and Dell, but I really do hope the best for both products, and it is like two rival players each getting drafted to rival NFL teams.