EMC skating in the rear with IBM, HP (and Oracle/Sun) at the back of the capacity garantee derby

As Mike Riley points out on his Netapptips blog today, I was not exactly a fan of Netapp's guarantee program when it first came out, but now I am an unabashed supporter.  Sometimes other vendors come up with excellent ideas. 

Yesterday HDS announced their capacity guarantee program and although it depends heavily on the capacity differences between RAID 1 and RAID 5 (which is a little cheesy), they offer a contract and appear to be ready to put back the program with more than a hand wave. That leaves HP, IBM and EMC (oh wait - and Oracle Sun) as the major storage players who aren't offering a capacity guarantee for customers making a technology refresh on storage.

 The question is - are these programs just marketing ploys?    Sure they are, just as any customer satisfaction guarantee for any product is a marketing ploy designed to hook customers - whether it's soap, kitchen knives, bass lures, vacuum cleaners, etc, but these ploys and the products behind them are targeted directly at data center operators that are tired of over-spending on storage. All are serious products from some of the biggest names in the storage industry and proven technology leaders.  3PAR's thin technologies (provisioning, conversion, persistence, reclamation and zero-detection) continue to lead our industry.

Depending on the applications and requirements of your data center some of these products and programs will be a better fit than others.  All of them should save you money on capacity purchases, but there are other things to consider, such as required software and services.  The details of each vendors' programs are different. That said, if you are offered a contract to reduce your storage capacity costs, that's pretty strong negotiating leverage with any other vendor - whether or not they offer a guarantee.  And even if you are not ready to make a purchase now, you might want to know how these programs work so you can be better prepared when the time comes.

To find out more about 3PAR's capacity program, click the image below. 

Comments

[nate]

I believe NetApp's guarantee relies heavily on space differences between RAID 1+0 and RAID DP as well. And if I recall right it had to do with their primary data dedupe and significant restrictions on what kind of data was allowed(e.g. no jpgs etc), and certain I/O restrictions too, I may be confusing that with another one of their programs though.

I suppose that is where a lot of these programs can fall apart, the I/O requirements. Sure you can save a bunch of disk space if you go to RAID 5 with 8+1 or 10+1 or something higher from RAID 1. But will the system survive the load when you put it into production?

The HDS program is interesting in that they guarantee 20% space savings over competitor's RAID 5 offerings.

Myself I'm going to RAID 5 2+1(from 5+1) for the I/O. At 5+1 for the space now, I/O has grown to the point where 2+1 is a better fit.

[Ryan Sheldon]

Nice Article Mark,

I agree that HDS have been a bit cheesy with their messaging but hey, at least they have the balls to come out and give a customer some kind of promise.

I look forward to reading Chuck's comment because we all know he cant resist. Im sure he will make some sly remark and then turn it into an attack on 3par like EMC's typical mentality.

Keep up the great work, your point of view is refreshing

[Alex McDonald]

@Nate

Our 35% guarantee doesn't rely on RAID-10 vs RAID-DP; and all the terms are up front. I've complained that 3Par seem to hide theirs behind registration, but no joy so far. http://blogs.netapp.com/shadeofblue/2010/01/the-cosmetic-san-liposuction-anyone.html

[marc farley]

Ryan, Chuck did respond to the trend for vendors to offer capacity guarantees, here: http://chucksblog.emc.com/chucks_blog/2010/02/of-storage-guarantees-and-other-shenanigans.html