EMC CLARiiON AX4-5 Competitive Analysis

Strengths

•  Strong FC SAN vendor partnerships
• Resells through Dell as a channel (30% of revenues)
• Virtual LUN capability; ability to non-disruptively migrate LUNs internally (Virtual LUN) and externally (SANcopy)
• Cache de-staging
• Support for consistency groups with remote mirroring function
• PowerPath host multipath software for path and workload management

Positioning

• Aimed at small to medium businesses (SMBs)

• AX4-5 key claims:

• Performance, scalabilty, ease of use

• 4Gb/s end-to-end architecture
• Connectivity with iSCSI or FC

Simplify the IT environment and support VMware infrastructure

• High Scalability
• EMC claims high raw capacity utilization
• I/O optimization via PowerPath MPIO host application
• Virtual LUN Technology
• Data movement between FC & SATA
• Resiliency & Availability
• fully redundant with cache des-stage to disk
• Dual controller option to provide HA
• Snap & Mirror Consistency
• Supports both sync and async replication, as well as consistency groups

Weaknesses

• legacy design, requires disruption to scale up (CLARiiON CX range)
• SAN only; FC (Fiber Channel) or iSCSI, not both
• Management gaps; limited integration of management software
• No single operational workflow for managing both the system and its data.
• Limited product breadth and scalability
• Double-parity RAID-6 protection not available
• No multi-protocol support in a single array; NAS support for file data requires expensive, add-on gateway controllers  requiring  other mgmt
• No thin-provisioning, no data deduplication
• Snapshots copies – copy-on-write / performance penalties (see SPC-1)
• No support for SnapView clones
• Limited number of Snapshots (1 per LUN); limited number of Snap Sessions per LUN (1) and per system (16)
• No SnapSuite-like benefits; EMC Replication Manager provides an integrated environment for managing point-in-time copies, remote mirroring, and data migration services; but no Operations Manager.
• No Oracle HARD support (vs. NetApp SnapValidator)
• No integrated compliance solution (SnapVault, SnapLock, LockVault)
• Requires 4 pre-allocated drives for OS; using for data impacts performance
• External battery backup to destage cache is weak link

Why NetApp FAS2020 vs. EMC CLARiiON AX4-5

• Higher performance under snapshot (SPC-1), capacity utilization (RAID-DP, Thin Provisioning & Deduplication) & data protection (SnapSuite)
• lower total cost of ownership

• NetApp easier to install, configure, deploy, and manage

• Flex and Snap-suite dramatically simplify administration and allocation of storage

• Staff only needs to be trained in one technology for the complete storage infrastructure, reducing training costs and skill levels required

• NetApp enables Business Agility with:

• Greater versatility with multiprotocol support and upgrade paths in a single storage system
• Cascade original investment into new technologies as released by NetApp; for example, deduplication
• Common compatible architecture across the entire product range

• Gaps in functionality require customers to use disparate pieces of non-integrated software to address key areas of management, including…
• Files, Archives, Disk backup (D2D), Security, SRM
• Challenges in provisioning and re-provisioning capacity
• AX offers poor volume mgmt and limited disk pooling
• MetaLUNs must be configured based on strict guidelines — a labor-intensive and inflexible process.
• Performance impact can be negative as LUN count increases and existing LUNs are re-provisioned.