Storage talk...(not much around here these days...)
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>SCOTT TYLER SHAFER & MARIO APICELLA "Storage Insider"
>INFOWORLD.COM
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>
>Tuesday, February 18, 2003
>
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>BEYOND PERFORMANCE
>
>By Mario Apicella and Scott Tyler Shafer
>
>Posted February 14, 2003 12:00 Pacific Time
>
>The pride and self-praise displayed by EMC during its recent
>announcement of the Symmetrix DMX storage arrays was
>understandable. The new product line, built around an
>architecture that offers internal, many-to-many, and
>independent connectivity paths between disk devices, cache
>memory, and server ports, lures customers with transactional
>and data analysis benchmarks that, according to EMC, leave
>comparable bus- or switched-data transport solutions in the
>dust.
>
>Obviously, DMX has even greater performance gains on EMC's old
>Symmetrix models, which poses an interesting dilemma for
>current customers: Update current hardware for performance
>(announcements to that effect should follow later this year)
>or plan for a mass replacement of their high-end storage
>arrays?
>
>Given enough budget and depreciation time, many customers will
>probably choose the latter because the new DMX arrays break
>EMC's well-earned and admittedly pricey reputation with a
>cost per terabyte in the 4- to 8-cent range. In the words of
>David Donatelli, EMC's executive vice president of platforms
>operations, that's "bringing our prices down to meet the
>market."
>
>A storage array that outperforms competing alternatives by a
>factor of three or more and offers a better price/capacity
>ratio -- all the while maintaining compatibility with
>existing software -- has the numbers to attract the interest
>of customers and the attention of Wall Street analysts.
>Moreover, DMX's matrix architecture bears a coolness factor
>that resonates well with parallel trends in the computer
>industry, such as grid computing and blade servers.
>
>Performance specs of the Symmetrix DMX line are impressive;
>depending on configuration, the three models offer internal
>transfer rates ranging from 17.5TB to 42TB per sec. However,
>we would like to focus on a less glamorous but financially
>significant aspect of the EMC announcement: preserving
>hardware investment.
>
>All recent EMC storage arrays, from the entry-level Clariion
>CX 200 to the top-of-the-line DMX 2000, are centered on the
>same 15 drive-capable, rack-mountable disk array module.
>Think of this module as a building block that can be moved
>across different Clariion and Symmetrix models, preserving
>data integrity and consistency, and perhaps more importantly,
>preserving the dollars spent creating your databases on those
>disks.
>
>Now imagine a fast-growing company starting from an
>entry-level Clariion with just one module and, as its storage
>appetite increases, transplanting the same disk array (though
>that will require replacing some components) to various CX
>and DMX models.
>
>It's doubtful that any customer will ever follow each step of
>that upgrade path, but many will appreciate the flexibility
>of moving their data in bulk to the next array. In the long
>run, the modular architecture of the new storage arrays could
>be more rewarding to EMC than sheer performance.
>
>
>Mario Apicella is a senior analyst at the InfoWorld Test
>Center. Scott Tyler Shafer is a senior writer at InfoWorld.
>Contact them at storage_insider@infoworld.com.
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