1. The article, while making some valid points about the industry in general with regards to FC SAN and TCP/IP NAS, misses a lot of significant points about Network Appliance. Furthermore, in making generalized statements about the NAS market (most platforms of which are tuned Win2K Advanced Server devices or some-flavor-of-Linux), these would mis-characterize filers if applied to them. When comparing NetApp filers to competing SANs the important comparisons to make are between WAFL and NTFS/xFS. For instance, when addressing the scalability requirements for large enterprises, The Clipper Group states, "[NAS] will likely require, over the long run, much more IT staff involvement than [SAN]," the argument being that it takes more resources to manage many small (their characterization) filers than fewer behemoth SANs. I think most on this list would refute that point for many reasons.
2. Without understanding the requirement you seek to address, it's hard to make pertinent comparisons between EMC's IP4700 and NetApp filers (I assume this is the comparison you're making, not Celerra vs NetApp). However, some general points to consider: - if you're doing anything other than home directories and general purpose file sharing, you should consider the level of application support for the two platforms (I believe you will find NetApp is more likely to have certified support on their filers, although in researching this I was surprised to find EMC had certified Oracle on IP4700; nonetheless, from my point of view EMC will want you to do anything other than home directories and file sharing on a Sym). - IP4700 RAID5 / NetApp RAID4 -- inherent dynamic RAID set expansion advantages to NetApp - IP4700 RAID set sizes are restricted to 5- or 10-disk multiples -- less user configurable - no competing offering to NetApp's SnapMirror from EMC for the IP4700 platform
3. Getting back to your specific question about admin... Generally speaking, EMC supports their own products. This support is surely world-class, but it also carries a world-class price tag. As an administrator you won't be adding storage capacity, loading patches or performing other typical tasks -- they will (unless you get and maintain expensive certification training).
In today's bloody market (EMC lost over $1B last quarter) vendors are doing everything they can to move product. Getting demos should be easy from both (now that manufacturing has had time to catch up with the response to Sept 11 -- for a while all demos and stock from a number of h/w vendors were redirected to NYC and DC for disaster response). Get 'em both in your lab and try 'em out for yourself. Let us know what you find.
Just my $.02.
Joe
-----Original Message----- From: Mark Johnson-Barbier [mailto:mjb@mj3.org] Sent: Wednesday, October 17, 2001 1:02 PM To: Toasters (E-mail) Subject: Re: NetApp and EMC Comparisons
This is a good write-up about NAS vs. SAN in general. I got the link from EMC, but the recommendations seems to favor NetApp for the needs of my company.
http://www.clipper.com/bulletins/sanvnasfinal.pdf
----- Original Message ----- From: "Killion, Brent (ZB7217)" Brent.Killion@pinnaclewest.com To: "Toasters (E-mail)" toasters@mathworks.com Sent: Wednesday, October 17, 2001 8:12 AM Subject: NetApp and EMC Comparisons
Fellow Filer Admins-
Can anyone point me to any white papers comparing the EMC
NAS products with
Network Appliance NAS solutions? Specifically, I'm looking
for comparisons
of ease of use and ease of administration.
Thanks.