I think the reasoning here is not quite thorough enough. If I buy a Compaq server and then I install a 3-Com ethernet card, I still expect, and get, full support from Compaq. This has been the case in the clone, or Intel world for quite awhile. I know that it is less true the more proprietary you get, but still is essentially the case, even in the IBM mainframe world and in the UNIX world. I am now in the middle of an issue between Network Appliance and Microsoft and I would NEVER buy another filer if NetApp tried to deflect response to the fact that I use Microsoft products and therefore I should debug the Microsoft side first. Whether I like it or not, and whether NetApp likes it or not, multi-vendor environments MUST be supported
- there is no option.
There is one BIG difference as far as interface cards go. Any driver code is part of ONTap. If ONTap does not have code to support a particular card, there's absolutely no way the card will work in a filer (unless it is a perfect clone of a card that netapp does support). And there is no way for a card vendor to supply you with a "driver" that will work on a netapp filer. They would have to provide you with a custom version of ONTap.
Steve Losen scl@virginia.edu phone: 804-924-0640
University of Virginia ITC Unix Support