Dell, EMC, and NetApp Storage News

Dell Inc. and EMC Corp. unveiled the availability of new entry-level storage area network (SAN) solutions geared to the SMB market. In other storage related news, Network Appliance Inc. (NetApp) announced it is acquiring Onaro Inc., a storage service management company.

Focal Points:

• EMC, and its OEM partner Dell, announced entry-level storage arrays for small and mid-sized businesses. EMC unveiled the array as its Clariion AX-4 while Dell has labeled it the Dell AX4-5. These offerings are basically the same, with minor variances in features, support packages, and price ranges. The new arrays utilize EMC's CX3 architecture, which is proven to be 99.999 percent available, according to EMC. The storage is designed to be affordable and scalable, ranging from four to 60 drives or 600 GBs to 60 TBs. The storage can be configured for Fibre channel or iSCSI networks, with support for mixed drive configurations within the array itself – SAS (serial-attached SCSI) drives for high performance or SATA (Serial ATA) drives for better capacity. The arrays and associated software is certified for and integrated with VMware environments, including VMotion, VMware HA, and Site Recovery Manager.
• Pricing from the vendors is about the same. For a four hard-drive system, with a maximum 3TB SATA capacity with up to 10 hosts and a medium-range service support package, both will have an asking price of about $12,000. Additional features, such as replication and data migration are also available at extra cost, as are three levels of support. There is a three year warranty that comes with the "Enhanced" and "Premium" support packages, EMC stated. EMC also offers a basic configuration that features three hard drives and slightly less capacity for about $8,600 whereas the high-end configurations, which can connect up to 64 physical or virtual hosts, can soar to up to 10 times that amount.
• NetApp stated it was purchasing Onaro, a privately held storage management company out of Boston, MA. The acquisition is expected to close in the first quarter of 2008. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Onaro's software, which is use at 16 Fortune 50 companies among others, enables IT managers to gather real-time information about data center components such as controllers, servers, storage arrays, switches and others. Managers using this software can get an e-mail every morning telling them exactly what went on the night before. The software helps with change management, deployments, provisioning, and other issues. NetApp expects to retain most of Onaro's 65 employees and plans to add the operation to its storage management and application integration business unit, according to officials at NetApp.

 Experton Group believes the use of CX3 technology in the arrays designed for the SMB market marks a continuation of the trend to repackage high end technology and commodify it for the general market place. Executives can expect to see this trend intensify, as major vendors such as Hewlett-Packard Co. and IBM Corp. are now structured to innovate for both large enterprises and SMB firms. NetApp's acquisition conforms to its strategy of building its data and storage management software portfolio. The new storage service management and change management portfolio will help the company strengthen its penetration by offering a more compelling, competitive set of offerings to customers. IT executives should evaluate how solutions such as these can reduce the cost of data operations while improving service levels. Executives need to understand and remain current on where they can replace existing solutions with more economical operational environments comprised of commodity products.