In response to Philip Thomas's question below:
Dell plans to resell some of NetApp's filers. The products will be offered under the Dell brand and therefore will have new bezels. They plan to use their own disk subsystem with the filers instead of NetApp's, but this doesn't change the function of the product at all. It's still "Network Attached." Dell will continue to offer their own server attached products as well.
All of NetApp's functionality, including Snapshot, should be available on the filers from Dell. Dell's focus for the filer product line is the Windows market and thus the CIFS protocol. We'll have to wait until they formally announce their products to see if they also offer the NFS protocol as an option.
Charlie Simmons VP Marketing Network Appliance
-----Original Message----- From: Philip Thomas [mailto:thomas@act.sps.mot.com] Sent: Friday, February 26, 1999 8:38 AM To: toasters@mathworks.com Subject: DELL<->NetApp deal?
Can NetApp provide some more details on this DELL <->NetApp announcement? http://www.dell.com/corporate/media/newsreleases/98/9811/04.htm http://www.netapp.com/news/level3b/news_rel_981104.html (a) Are they going to take say, a 740 stick Dell label on it and sell? (b) Is this going to replace Dell's disk subsystem? In which case the NetApp/disks are no longer a "network attached" system. Am I right? (c) Will this NetApp disk system from Dell loose any of NetApp's features, namely '.snapshot'.? (d) I would assume Dell system; no speak NFS??
Philip Thomas Motorola - PEL, M/S M350 2200 W. Broadway M350 Mesa, AZ 85202 rxjs80@email.sps.mot.com (602) 655-3678 (602) 655-2285 (fax)
They plan to use their own disk subsystem with the filers instead of NetApp's, but this doesn't change the function of the product at all. It's still "Network Attached." Dell will continue to offer their own server attached products as well.
I.e., if the question in
(b) Is this going to replace Dell's disk subsystem? In which case the NetApp/disks are no longer a "network attached" system.
is interpreted as "will a NetApp filer be plugged in where a Dell storage system used to be plugged?", the answer is "no" - Dell's current PowerVault systems appear to be *disk* subsystems, with a RAID controller but with no file system or file access protocol, while NetApp filerss are *file system* boxes, accessed via NFS or CIFS rather than via SCSI or Fibre Channel.
Thus, Dell will presumably continue to sell PowerVault boxes as *disk* subsystems, but will also sell NetApp boxes as *file servers*.
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guy＠netapp.com -
Simmons, Charlie