Maren, I beg to differ with Mr. Enger's analysis that EMC's solution as economically safe. EMC's software is also non-transferable just like NetApp. EMC charges a tremendous amount of money for software too. Both companies value their products on their propriety software and not the commodity hardware in sits on. This results in the same after market value for the hardware - scrap value or spare parts value.
If you do sell your NetApp gear, keep your gear on maintenance until the buyer accepts the gear on their site. This process should(?) avoid a costly NetApp recertification. I would also include NetApp professional services for de-installing the gear and re-installing as part of the sales price to the buyer. Combined with the maintenance contract this should avoid any recertification charges. Consider your systems as a big spare parts kits if you have to dispose of it.
NetApp gear has significant trade-in value on other NetApp gear from NetApp. EMC gear also has trade-in value on NetApp solutions.
My first hand experience with these two solutions was at a very large EMC customer in the telecommunications industry. NetApp was evaluated against installed EMC Celerra's and EMC Symetrix's.
Both solutions were evaluated in the following categories: - NetApp vs EMC * Time to install and get the tests running - 2 days vs 45 * Ease of installation - 5 hours vs 14 days * Ongoing support time required to keep the systems in operation - .05 FTE vs .33 FTE * Performance running Oracle, - .5 hrs versus 1 hour * Equipment costs, - roughly equivalent after heavy discounts * Direct labor costs, - ~6X given FTE load * Uptime over a 8 month test period, 100% vs about .5 crashes per week * Availability - 99.99+ vs 97%
All of this resulted in EMC loosing all future business in two major new projects.
Hunter
-----Original Message----- From: owner-toasters@mathworks.com [mailto:owner-toasters@mathworks.com] On Behalf Of John Enger Sent: Sunday, January 25, 2004 3:16 AM To: Maren S. Leizaola Cc: toasters@mathworks.com Subject: Re: Migrating from NetApp to EMC Celera
At 17:54 25.01.2004 +0800, you wrote:
So that you understand where I am coming from, I am 2nd hand equipment dealer who has paid and tried to get things work out with distributors and had no help. I've tried to work with NetApps distritibutors to stop an account not to migrate to EMC....
I absolutely agree with your opinion on many of these issues. The lisencing policies that Network Appliances use are totally horrid. My former employee chose EMC over netapp just for this cause. Once installed the value of the equipment is none, because it has no aftermarket whatsoever.
It's a crying shame, because NetApp is so simple and functional, and hosts so much power.
There was a discussion on this a while back, but I think that the Network Appliances administration are horrified that changing their lisencing policies will result in massive pritating of their software.
So they choose to serve the few who are willing to pay the horrid prices of new licenced equipment, and forget about the masses who chose EMC and other solutions for economical safety, and the aftermaket.
I think this is a pretty narrowminded way of thinking. Think of all the 2.hand equipment, and the ability for this to create a second revenue. I've seen netapps sell off ebay for just a couple of hundred bucks. I think they will be running pirated Data ontap versions. Just what Network Appliances seem to fear the most. The software are pirated in a big way, both by netadmins for private use and by small companies, because the alternative of getting a legal version is finacially synonymous with buying a new storagesystem.
Thanks for your time
J.