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Technology Stocks : Network Appliance -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Arby who wrote (411)	11/4/1998 9:40:00 AM
From: DownSouth	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10934

>1. Does NTAP's SW have an advantage over Inktomi's? I hear that Inktomi's software is quite complex to install and operate. On the other hand, NTAP's NetCache software, which has its roots in the original web proxy public domain product, is extremely simple to install and is supported on WINTEL and Unix platforms or on the NetApp "filer" platform. NetCache also has some unique clustering capabilities that makes it extremely scalable, but still easy to administer. What really makes NTAP's NetCache unique in terms of performance, is the fact that you can buy an appliance which is a HW/SW bundle. The HW is the NetApp filer which is much more fast/simple/reliable than any WINTEL or Unix platform. (See the Netapp web site.) >2. Is there a significant performance and/or operating advantage to NTAP's HW? Oh yes! Realize that Netcache is a small part of NTAP's revenue stream. The Filer, which is "network attached storage" is comes in several models and is considerably faster/simpler/more reliable than equivalently priced Unix or Wintel server platforms. Plus it supports NFS (UNIX) and CIFS (Microsoft) file protocols concurrently and with SECURE file sharing between the two environments. (Netcache runs on the filer platform in its "appliance" configuration.) >3. If NTAP's advantages are overwhelming, why is Inktomi doing so well in this area? Is this simply a matter of customers trying out the concept with a less costly commitment (SW from Inktomi on reusable HW)? I do not know what portion of INKT's revenues are from caching software. They get a huge portion of their revenues from portal services. Again, remember that the product that NTAP is making its big bucks on is its filer. Netcache is a growing revenue stream. I realize that my answers are less quantitative than you may desire. I encourage you to look at Netapp's web site. They have well-documented third party performance statistics for all of their products.