Hi,

I have some experience with EMC's Celerra product and some exposure to
Netapp filers but not really enough to speak to the technical
advantages of one compared with the other. At first glance Netapp seems
to offer a superior product but at a premium price.

Could anyone provide an overview of either product's technical
strengths compared to the other?

Thanks in advance,
Vic

[ Post a follow-up to this message ]

On 24 Sep 2005 14:34:33 -0700, "victor.engle@gmail.com"
<victor.engle@gmail.com> wrote:

>Hi,
>
>I have some experience with EMC's Celerra product and some exposure to
>Netapp filers but not really enough to speak to the technical
>advantages of one compared with the other. At first glance Netapp seems
>to offer a superior product but at a premium price.
>
>Could anyone provide an overview of either product's technical
>strengths compared to the other?
>
>Thanks in advance,
>Vic


Well, if you go to NetApp's website you can get all the specs for
their filers; hardware, software, features, etc...

The short answer is that NetApp is quite superior to EMC's NAS.
Personally I think it's far superior to almost all NAs products out
there right now, at least in the overall sense.  You can get cheaper
NAS and faster NAS but nothing to date has all the features and
functions of a NetApp filer with the performance.  But as you noted it
all comes at a fairly steep price.  Although their latest platform is
a little more competetive in the midrange.

As to EMC's NAS though, it fairly blows.  The only thing it has going
for it is price, which if the budget is tight then that's alot.  But
there are alot of other NAS vendors out there that are about the same
price and alot better.

I am a little biased towards NetApp no doubt, but I have never worked
for them not do I own stock (though I probably should).  I just
haven't found a NAS product out there that is everything the filer is,
and I keep my eyes open.  No blinders here, honest.

Next gen NAS (Isilon, Panasas, Polyserve, Ibrix, et al) are very cool
and extremely fast, but the feature set is nowehere near the filer
yet.  Not to say it won't be but for now NetApp still owns that
aspect.

Hope that helps.

~F

[ Post a follow-up to this message ]

Faeandar (mr_castalot@yahoo.com) wrote:
: Next gen NAS (Isilon, Panasas, Polyserve, Ibrix, et al) are very cool
: and extremely fast, but the feature set is nowehere near the filer
: yet.  Not to say it won't be but for now NetApp still owns that
: aspect.

Isn't Panasas an OSD block storage architecture with the accompanying
file system that knows how to talk to it rather than a true file based
NAS? Although, if it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck I guess
you might as well think of it as being a duck.

Dave


: Hope that helps.

: ~F

[ Post a follow-up to this message ]

On Thu, 6 Oct 2005 22:49:06 +0000 (UTC), dbs@rtl.rose.agilent.com
(Dave Sheehy) wrote:

>Faeandar (mr_castalot@yahoo.com) wrote:
>: Next gen NAS (Isilon, Panasas, Polyserve, Ibrix, et al) are very cool
>: and extremely fast, but the feature set is nowehere near the filer
>: yet.  Not to say it won't be but for now NetApp still owns that
>: aspect.
>
>Isn't Panasas an OSD block storage architecture with the accompanying
>file system that knows how to talk to it rather than a true file based
>NAS?

It is.

>Although, if it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck I guess
>you might as well think of it as being a duck.

That's how I see it too.

~F

[ Post a follow-up to this message ]