Spectacular post on EMC vs NTAP, stolen from another thread and posted on the EMC thread here on SI. I post it in its entirety, because it offers perspective I haven't previously appreciated; and because Storage is so important as an Internet Infrastructure play.
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To: Bill Fischofer who wrote (11097)
From: TraderEd Tuesday, Sep 12, 2000 7:02 PM ET
Reply # of 11111
This response taken from the Fool.com message board and was presented by a individual with screen name "browne4".
First off, forewarning -- a doozy of a post follows:
jaysea/chad and the EMC board in general:
It looks like you and other folks are perfectly justified in being unaware of a Celerra product not requiring a separate Symmetrix. I know that the Celerra SE exists because in my job consulting on Cisco/Microsoft/EMC products, I have come across them and seen presentations on them.
The Celerra SE is a current EMC product. I made the assumption that it would be specifically advertised on the web site. I should know by now never to assume, but I was in a hurry on Friday and didn't check. At any rate, it looks like they just advertise the base Celerra and not the Celerra SE or the Celerra Media Server (another variation).
In short, the Celerra SE as Cintos correctly posted is a Celerra unit that can contain 6 Data Movers (each equivalent to a NetApp Filer) and 32 drives (choice of 18, 36, and 50 GB) for scalability up to 1.6 TB in a singular Celerra SE cabinet (no external Symmetrix required).
A normal Celerra (the variety described on the web site) can contain 14 Data Movers and uses an external Symmetrix for all of its storage. That Celerra can scale to 28 TB of storage (using current 50 GB disk availabilty).
Anyways, the Celerra SE basically uses the same architecture as the Celerra -- it just uses half of the cabinet to place the storage component in the same footprint. This saves on cost and on tile space and fits more in NetApps niche.
Anways, the long and short of my point was that there are Celerra solutions that are closer to the pricepoint of a NetApp filer than some would make out.
BTW, I did not mean to direct a post at anyone in particular. I had a few minutes, saw the huge thread on this post -- eyeballed a bunch of them quickly and responded to some of the points that I knew to be untrue. I am usually more thorough in my referencing.
I have taken the time to reread the posts, many of which were both thoughtful and thorough. I also now (unlike on Friday) have the time to respond more thoughtfully myself.
As usual, I will try to avoid bits, bytes, and who has the fastest double-bit-mo-yang-dinger type discussions.
Regarding the NetApps and NAS being a "disruptive" technology thread of the discussion. NAS is not a recent occurence, nor did NetApps create it. Sun Microsystems evolved NFS (network file system) a great deal of time ago to better share files between the various flavors of UNIX. Wa-la, NAS was born.
Years later (around 1994/95), IT departments, in an unrelated incident to the creation of NAS, were beginning to feel the pain of the "distributed computing" experiment. They wanted their mainframes back. Or rather, they wanted centralized control of their information and business processes back. Storage Area Networks are born (interestingly enough SANs are newer than NAS in this respect). One would usually think of a "disruptive" technology as something new. More on this later.
SANs solve many of the problems that are inherent in a distributed environment. Without going into it too far, let's just say that managing a centralized data asset is much simpler than managing multiple and distributed data assets.
Fast forward a few years, and NAS experiences a rebirth for its ability to help attain this renewed desire for centralized data management. NetApps, to their great credit and benefit, emerges as a major player. They dethrone Auspex and others in this effort. By the way, during NetApps rise to fame, EMC has had a NAS offering that many technical pundits (myself included) would state outclasses NetApps offering from a performance, manageability, and scalability standpoint. This, however is an entirely different discussion that this board may or may not be the appropriate forum for.
Anyways, back to my original train of thought. A couple of reasons I think NetApps has experienced extraordinary success, and why some might call NAS "disruptive."
While NAS itself is old, this pain people are feeling from the distributed computing experiment is entirely new. So an old technology (NAS) is being used in a new way to solve a new problem.
So, in this sense, what you have is your standard adoption cycle of new technology (though again NAS itself is not new). Usually, the technology adopters cycle follows a bell curve pattern from left to right including: visionaries, early adopters, the masses, late adopters, skeptics.
The names of those groups may not be exact (they are from memory) but you can get the idea. Anyways, a couple of important things to remember. One: it's a bell curve. Two: We are currently transitioning from the early adopters into the central, masses part of this bell curve.
This is to say NAS has moved from bleeding-edge, to leading-edge, to mainstream technology. It is ready for consumption by the masses. It is no longer being relegated to experimental or visionary uses. It is being used in more-and-more of the enterprise. It turn, it is being used for more and more mission-critical purposes.
Some thoughts on this:
NetApps, from a pricepoint and ease-of-installation apsect, is/was a great NAS solution. It allowed visionaries/early adopters to put NAS through its paces and see how it fit/streamlined their business processes.
NetApps made a great deal of inroads and created a lot of mindshare along the way in selling to these organizations. Now, that NAS is ready for public consumption (the largest and most lucrative portion of the bell curve), this mindshare and pricepoint are NetApps major assets (and those aren't bad assets to have).
So, why do I continue to post that I am fearful for NetApps future, and very high on EMC's future? And, more importantly, why do I make a further vote with my money by continuing to invest in / hold EMC, whilst avoiding NetApps?
Well, as I have stated above:
1.NAS essentially is trying to accomplish the same goals as SAN (i.e to centrally manage and store your data).
2.NAS is moving into the public consumption arena and being used for more and more mission critical purposes.
3.EMC is not late to the NAS market, they are late to marketing their NAS.
So, a couple of things on the above numbered points:
1. NAS & SAN are just a different way to connect to centrally managed data. What does this mean? Well straight-ahead, it means the investment in software functionality and hardware reliability that EMC has made over the past 10 years applies whether it is NAS or SAN connected data. And when it comes down to it, connectivity to data is only 10% of the battle. Actually managing and protecting that data is the other 90%. This is why EMC has so consitently demolished the storage market regardless of the price delta. It is because CIOs/CEOs realize that the cost of acquisition is nowhere near the cost of management.
To this end, EMC is the fourth largest software company in the world. They have made a tremendous investment in creating intelligent storage functionality that is unmatched in the industry. NetApps simply can't compete here -- or rather they have a tremendous amount of work to do to catch up, and that would be assuming EMC would stand still rather than earmarking another 1.5 to 2 billion in R&D over the next two years (more than NetApps current revenue stream). So, in my mind EMC is not in a defensive posture from a technical standpoint. They've go that down. They just need to compete from a mindshare standpoint.
2. Which moves us into point 2. NAS is ready for public consumption and is being moved into more and more mission critical areas. As NAS becomes more and more central, and a good portion of an enterprise's data is on NAS -- the tools to manage this data and leverage become as important or actually more important than just plain connectivity to it.
This is where it will become more and more difficult for NetApps to succeed as, they have made nowhere near the investment in storage management that EMC has. NetApps offers quick-and-dirty connectivity. When the novelty of that wears off, businesses are really looking for more than connectivity. And NetApps has a tremendous amount of catching up to do with EMC here.
This is why I have said it really is irrelevant whether NAS will or will not replace SAN. NAS/SAN, all this really speaks to is connectivity to an intelligent (hopefully) storage subsystem. There is no great technical mystery or mastery there. As to which will win, it depends on which is faster, more reliable, offers differentiating features, etc.
As of right now, until the connection medium of NAS becomes more reliable/predictable, it will continue to be used predominantly for file services. Databases and the like will still mandate the use of direct-attached storage and/or SANs.
But, as I have stated before, if NAS succeeds wildly and does become the de facto standard for connecting your storage subsystems, this does not mean the death of EMC. It more likely means growing pains/death for NetApps.
Here is why I say this. If NAS takes over the world and moves into Enterprise levels for all types of storage -- well, in short, NAS will have reinvented itself into EMC's market, rather than EMC reinventing itself to fit the NAS market.
All the value-add that EMC brings to this market still applies. All that NAS has changed is the means of connectivity to that intelligent storage functionality.
3. On to point three -- EMC is not late to the NAS market, they are late to marketing their NAS.
As I have stated in earlier posts, EMC does not need to catch NetApps from a technical perspective, they only need to catch NetApps from a mindshare and, in the middle marketspace, possibly pricepoint perspective.
Where this becomes relevant is if NAS doesn't supplant SAN connectivity, but only continues to compliment it. This is, by the way, what I think is the most likely course for the next two or three years at least. Networks are not yet fast enough / engineered to the level to maintain the necessary amount of reliability / predictability required by databases and other business intensive data streams.
So let's say that NAS just grows in importance, becomes a larger share of the growing storage market. How does EMC compete with NetApps in this segment of the storage industry? Well, as stated above, EMC doesn't need to make a great technical investment to do so. That investment has already occurred.
The Celerra was not something that was patched together to respond to a NetApps offering. It existed previously to address Enterprise-level NAS requirements. Whereas NetApps grew up fo fulfill Department-level NAS requirements.
In the Enterprise-NAS area, which is growing very quickly now that we are in the middle of our technology adoption bell curve, NetApps has the catching up to do. The only way NetApps can scale to the level that EMC Celerra does is by adding multiple filers and taking up a great deal of floor space. This is increasingly important as organizations continue to co-locate and are charged by floor tile. It is also important as data center space becomes more and more of premium. From this level, EMC has continued to lead, and I feel will continue to lead.
At the Department-level NAS arena, NetApps has done very well. From a pricepoint perspective, they can get in without requiring high-level CEO sign-off or the like. Certainly, a scaled-down Celerra or Celerra SE can fit in this market space, but it is an area that has not been EMC's traditional bread and butter. That said, I am aware of a number of Celerra installs in the 300 GB to 500 GB range where NetApps most often plays. Obviously, companies are finding reasons to pay the delta between NetApps and EMC even in this space. Equally obvious from NetApps success in this area, EMC has not done the job they need to to address this market yet.
So, high-end NAS has traditionally gone MORE OFTEN to EMC and low-end NAS has traditionally gone MORE OFTEN to NetApps. Note my emphasis on MORE OFTEN. I know there are exceptions to both of these statements, and do not offer them as an all-encompassing blanket, but rather as a general trend. From my engagements, NetApps has the harder fight in the Enterprise space and EMC the harder fight in the Departmental space.
So for EMC to better compete with NetApps in the low-end, they first need to determine if this is a market they want to go after. If it is a market they want, they need to compete from a pricepoint perspective. If it isn't a market they want to address, I think that is much like their current stance on SANs -- though the acquisition of Data General changes this somewhat perhaps.
In turn, for NetApps to better compete with EMC in the high-end market, they have significant R&D to do. They have to make up for ten plus years of software development, storage subsystem development, et al that plays very strongly in this market. EMC's success in general should be proof enough of how well there technologies are valued in the enterprise market.
However, it very-well may be the emerging public consumption middle-ground space, where the clear winner has yet to be determined, that will become increasingly important.
To that I would say that EMC has done very well in moving SAN's into this market despite the cost of acquisition delta because of the strong value-add proposition they make to managing and protecting the data. For them to move NAS into this market, the rules don't really change. Contrary to popular belief, a central tenet of NAS is not "It's cheap."
As NAS supports more mission-critical processes, the acquisition cost becomes less important than the reliability, etc. The argument kind of becomes, "You're about to have heart surgery tomorrow. Do you want the guy who can do it cheapest but is still working out the kinks of getting it right, or do you want the guy that's done the surgery thousands of time, but costs a little more?" That is EMC's ball-game, not NetApps. NetApps has made its inroads using the "quick, easy, and cheap" mantra. This is great to an extent, but it eventually stops being as relevant as other concerns, when your business' lifeblood is going to be running on a NAS solution.
The way I see it, whether it be NAS or SAN, the middle to enterprise level has gone (SAN) / will go (NAS) to EMC. As to the low-end market, who can say if EMC will find it relevant or not. Who can say if they need to. At any rate, I'm not sure it will be enough for NetApps to continue the growth pattern they currently have, if EMC takes away the top half of the marketplace.
So, in short (right, too late for that isn't it ;-) I don't see NAS as disruptive because in its current iteration, it is not a replacement technology for SANs. Further, in order to replace SAN, NAS would have to basically add some of the attributes of SAN to its capabilities. As (rather IF) it does this, it reinvents itself into EMC's marketspace rather than vice-versa.
To that end, if NAS reaches the level of "disruptive" in a future iteration (i.e. as it matures) I see EMC as better prepared to take advantage of this change. Really, at the end of the day, NAS/SAN is just connectivity to data -- the management of that data is where the true value-add is at, and that is where EMC excels.
Lastly, if NAS continues forward in its current "complimentary" role to SANs, I see EMC keeping/taking market share in the middle- and enterprise marketspace. Which, if you look at their current performance/track record, that market space is what really matters from a company performance standpoint. They haven't really made any inroads into low-end SANs, and it very well may not be necessary to do so in the NAS arena either. |
