I have recently evaluated their NS600, which is basically a small Celerra (same O/S, same FS). The only products that I can think of that NetApp has where EMC does not have a competing product are VLD, MultiStore, VFM, and SnapVault. But EMC has a TON of software that NetApp does not have such as HighRoad (basically will send large NAS requests over the SAN to speed up transfer), OnCourse (in-band multi-platform migration tool), FULLY functional WORM software/hardware, Legato, Documentum, VMware, .... EMC is the closest company, that I can think of, to having a complete Information Life-cycle Management solution. Do most people need all this software, nope, but it's nice to have these options. As G- said there are a lot of, "...piece(s) of 'value-added' crap from EMC." (I love that!). With that said, NetApp is so "open" that you can incorporate their filers into most other vendor's product solutions. EMC hardware is also better supported in more vendor's storage software solutions. As of 6 months ago nobody that I know of except NetApp had software that would adequately manage a NetApp; hence the cool perl scripts that we all create to manage the filers. I was also surprised to see that EMC was about 40% less expensive than NetApp (I got as close to an apples to apples comparison as I could).

Now for the bad news, management. There is a reason EMC makes SO much money in professional services. When it comes to building and managing a storage environment, EMC is to NetApp what a Colorado Rocky Mountain double black diamond is to a Illinois glacier flattened mountain's green circle. I was amazed at how much they improved the Celerra O/S and it's management software. But to get to the point were you would know how to take full advantage of everything would take 50x longer than it would with NetApp's filers. Also, there is not just one item to manage. You have to manage the linux workstation, the data mover(s), and the disk controller with different tools. The linux workstation and data movers are somewhat linked, but you need a separate software license for Navisphere (?), which we had to install on a separate Windows workstation. Now you have to manage that workstation as well. So not only is the management of each item more difficult but there are 4 items that need to be managed separately instead of just 1.

Since I only evaluated this equipment I have no idea how reliable it is. I can tell you it took 3-5 EMC techs 4 days to set this up to the point were I could copy data to it. The NetApp took me about 40 minutes to install and start copying data to the NetApp. Since this was an eval you know EMC put it's best foot forward. They were very nice about everything but my clients would rather get their space today as opposed to 4 days from now, even if it is accompanied by a warm hug. DART OS updates also took 4 times longer with 3 times as much down-time when compared to DOT.

To sum up, IMHO EMC is going in the right direction but they have a long way to go before they can compete with NetApp's NAS solution. As of right now (and discounting reliability which I can not speak to) both EMC and NetApp have great NAS solutions; EMC is better for HUGE environments (100's of TB) and NetApp is better for small to large environments. EMC will be less expensive, but NetApp will have a much lower TCO. EMC is better for they-manage-it tech groups, and NetApp wins in we-manage-it groups (until you learn EMC's solution which could take years, at which point it's a tie). Speed is too difficult to get an even comparison, but it's close enough so that only a few environments would actually see a measurable difference. Reliability, can't say for sure but it would be hard to beat the NetApp uptime in our environment. As for support, their help desk's are both good, SE's are both great, I like powerlink.emc better than now.netapp, but EMC does not have toasters. I like being able to learn from other companies environments. I should also say that about 90% of the people I've met up the EMC chain were very intelligent and dedicated. Same with NetApp, but considering the complexity of the EMC environment I've met 40 people over there from SE's to Directors/VP. As many of you probably know, there are too companies that employ people that don't have a clue what there talking about.

And finally to answer the original question: there may not be any problems or features lost, but get ready to spend about 6 months reading manuals.

Thanks, -J

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