-----Original Message----- From: Shaun T. Erickson [mailto:ste@research.bell-labs.com] Sent: Monday, November 15, 1999 8:27 PM To: Norman, Paul Cc: toasters@mathworks.com Subject: Re: FC-AL: Onboard vs. PCI Adapter Card
"Norman, Paul" wrote:
Over the last couple days, there has been some discussion
about on-board FC-AL
in our filers. This summer, NetApp started shipping
filers with an FC-AL
adapter card rather than the on-board FC-AL to improve
reliability and
performance. We did this because we found errors which,
though recoverable,
potentially effect performance and loop stability. The
problem effected a very
small fraction, just a few percent, of the installed base.
Thank you for your reply. However, you didn't address the main concern/perception of many folks here: that NetApp apparently shipped many F700 series systems with onboard FC-AL controllers that had hard failures shortly after being put into production, after which NetApp
Perhaps I missed some e-mails, but I didn't see anyone suggesting that there were "many F700" filers that had "hard failures shortly after being put into production". As I said the number of filers with instability problems was quite small. We've shipped on the order of 5,000 F700 series filers, the vast majority of which run fine on on-board FC-AL. About one percent of these exhibited instability on the on-board FC-AL and not all of those the instant they were put into production.
All that being said, as I look back on how we handled this problem I think NetApp should have been more aggressive in alerting the installed base. You can't be a chicken little crying the sky is falling every time you have a hiccup in the production line, but you also have to recognize when an issue is not just temporary problem.
apparently started sending out new filers with the PCI card pre-installed, to be used in place of the onboard controller. That's quite different from what you just described.
Can you elaborate on and clarify this issue for us, please?
I think I've been pretty clear, but please feel free to call me tomorrow if you want to discuss further. 408 822 6288 is my direct line.
TIA, -ste
-
Norman, Paul