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bort posted:This is the truth. I also think support in general has declined in value. There isn't the money in a hardware/software company to staff phones with anyone really excellent. They need to save the hotshots for the pre-sales and the pretty-good people for implementation and chasing the angry customers. If I could buy an option where I could search their internal knowledge bases and download everything, I'm pretty sure I'd never talk to anyone on the phone. They just do what I'd be doing, less efficiently. The quality of support has declined but the cost hasn't. EMC still has their lovely "charge the customer more for maintenance than it would cost them to purchase a new array" strategy. Seriously that company employs so many great engineers but their customer relationship strategy is 100% douchebag. DEC was the best about this - that's why everyone used to buy DEC servers. It was great when you would call them for support on a network card and they would route you to the guy who wrote the driver.
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| # ? Nov 23, 2011 01:08 |
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| # ? May 20, 2013 03:21 |
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Spamtron7000 posted:The quality of support has declined but the cost hasn't. EMC still has their lovely "charge the customer more for maintenance than it would cost them to purchase a new array" strategy. Seriously that company employs so many great engineers but their customer relationship strategy is 100% douchebag. I see a lot of this frustration around support cost at every vendor and quite often it's easily explainable by three facts. One obvious and two that kinda result in an 'ohhhhh' moment. 1.) They want you off the old kit and spending money on new kit (grande improtante, let's not kid around) 2.) A lot of difficulty comes from when people take the post coverage fees from the original array quote but don't bother adding in the fees from subsequent upgrades. THey then get a shock when they see the maintenance bill. "Well, you're not extending the maintenance on a 2 Engine VMAX with 200 disks! It's now 3 years later and an 8 Engine VMAX will 1400 old disks isn't it!!" (Explaining the above - Get a normal quote for an array or upgrade from EMC. At the bottom of every EMC quote there is an additional field that says 'Post Coverage maintenance fees'. This is the maintenance cost for additional years and you'll find they're not any more expensive than anyone else. 3.) Maintenance cannot be discounted heavily by major vendors. If maintenance looks proportionally more expensive than the product at time of purchase or upgrade it's because you're getting a great product discount....but sales people can't discount the maintenance to anywhere near the same level so the maintenance looks expensive. Maintenance is protected because more products mean more support and also a fund is created so that in the event a company goes bust they can still honour their support agreements (like gateway computers). Quite often the money from maintenance extensions and maintenance costs beyond year 1 or 2 is not counted towards a companies revenues. In any event the maintenance costs are not made up on the spot and shouldn't ever be a surprise as they're clearly documented.
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| # ? Nov 23, 2011 06:56 |
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Quick question: the company's ReadyNAS 4200 reports that SMART's "reallocated sector count" has risen from 0 to 33. This is for drive #7 in a RAID6 array of 12 disks. Should I replace the drive immediately?
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| # ? Nov 23, 2011 10:27 |
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I'm not saying I'm surprised at the costs of support. I'm saying I'm getting less for my money than I used to and I'm looking at support usage a lot more carefully than I used to. Where five years ago, I'd include it on almost everything I bought without even thinking about it, now I'm seeing if I can reduce costs, for example, by stocking some spare parts. Not sure I agree with 3, though, Vanilla. They can discount anything and have the option to charge me less or nothing for maintenance. As for claiming the revenue, typically they can claim the revenue from a contract based on the percentage complete it is. If you sign a three year contract, you can certainly expect them to claim 33% of the revenue in year 3.
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| # ? Nov 23, 2011 12:32 |
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kyuss posted:Quick question: the company's ReadyNAS 4200 reports that SMART's "reallocated sector count" has risen from 0 to 33. This is for drive #7 in a RAID6 array of 12 disks. I would replace it, especially if this happened in a short time period.
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| # ? Nov 23, 2011 13:23 |
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My LeftHand had a bad drive that needed replacing. It's been warning about this for a while. A month to be exact  Apparently HP Remote Support tool that's supposed to take SNMP traps and send emails to HP about this so they can send me a new drive was broken. After calling around to HPs support I found out that apparently LeftHand support isn't handled by the storage team, but is most likely a server issue. They think.  I'm still kinda impressed that it kept on trucking, but I guess that's what RAID5 + Network RAID 1 is for.
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| # ? Nov 23, 2011 18:20 |
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hey everybody an old coworker buddy of mine is at a new startup where they intend to produce "a lot" of video. They brought in a storage consultant who quoted 300k and he's balking. I told him its probably at least close to reasonable, but I'd look around for a second-opinion consultant. Anybody know anyone good in the NYC area?
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| # ? Nov 23, 2011 18:47 |
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StabbinHobo posted:hey everybody 300k for what? Whether or not it's reasonable depends on what kind of speed your old coworker needs, dedup or not, interface, capacity, and fault tolerance.
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| # ? Nov 23, 2011 20:04 |
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evol262 posted:300k for what? Whether or not it's reasonable depends on what kind of speed your old coworker needs, dedup or not, interface, capacity, and fault tolerance. I can't comment one what he is getting for that, but video editing is the one area of storage that has demands for large amounts of space and large sustained throughput. This combination is one that doesn't benefit from the usual tricks of cache and memory. You need spindles and bandwidth, both of which are expensive. When we did our SAN, I explicitly told both the company owners that if they expanded the video side they were toying with, it was a whole separate discussion, because there was no way to 'build in' and future support for video without enormous (wasted) upfront costs. Ask a storage consultant about video, and their eyes will light up $_$.
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| # ? Nov 23, 2011 21:43 |
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EoRaptor posted:I can't comment one what he is getting for that, but video editing is the one area of storage that has demands for large amounts of space and large sustained throughput. This combination is one that doesn't benefit from the usual tricks of cache and memory. You need spindles and bandwidth, both of which are expensive. That's not true... get a NetApp system with one shelf to start with and scale out as more space is required and scale up as the low end $10k controller you're running runs out of grunt. When people say "a lot" I can pretty confidently say not very much at all, since if they can't tell me their requirements in IOPs then I know they aren't a big player. Seriously, just NetApp that poo poo... As to EMC, man I dunno, I just don't get why people even bother with them. I hope I never have to work with their systems again.
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| # ? Nov 24, 2011 03:47 |
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StabbinHobo posted:hey everybody As already said above - more info needed. I don't know a consultant but as for platforms to look at - Look into Isilon, spent the day racking one and setting up to see how it worked. loving fastastic and used by practically everyone in the media space.
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| # ? Nov 24, 2011 05:20 |
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bort posted:
They can do things to hide the maintenance but in the background it's always coming off their bottom line. This is typical with big accounts but not 95% of the business. For them maintenance stays set. I think you're right about the maintnenace revenue thing come to thin kabout it.
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| # ? Nov 24, 2011 05:23 |
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I've been dealing with 2 EMC resellers for my new storage and I swear one of them just didn't read the tender. The other one's completely fine. IDGI, do you not like money?
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| # ? Nov 24, 2011 14:59 |
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evil_bunnY posted:I've been dealing with 2 EMC resellers for my new storage and I swear one of them just didn't read the tender. The other one's completely fine. IDGI, do you not like money?
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| # ? Nov 24, 2011 16:02 |
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adorai posted:Only one of them is going to get the preferred pricing from EMC, you will never get competitive quotes from different sales vendors on a single manufacturer of gear. There is no preferred pricing when tenders are involved. The preferred pricing is given to the reseller who registers a non-tender deal first so that the finder has an advantage.
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| # ? Nov 24, 2011 21:50 |
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Does anyone know of a free or low-cost Windows-based tool (preferably <=$100) for backing up (spanning) volumes to tape? I don't need scheduling or restore functionality, just something reliable and widely supported for making one-time backups. Incremental backup functionality is a plus as well. My research on backup software has come up with stuff like CommVault, BackupExec, etc. which are all way outside of my price range as a home user. I know Microsoft no longer supports backing up to tape in Windows Server 2008, would it be worth installing Windows Server 2003 simply to use NTBackup to accomplish this? How robust/reliable is the tape backup functionality in older versions of Windows server?
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| # ? Nov 28, 2011 17:17 |
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So the production databases where I work are heavily IO bound (pretty normal I guess). We currently have a bunch of Sun Storagetek disk arrays for them. Dual controllers, battery backed, 1 gig of cache, and so on. They use standard enterprise SAS disks and have decent performance. However, since Oracle bought them the price on staying with that line/technology is pretty loving huge. We're considering moving to Dell MD3* arrays, as we have a bunch of those as well and they're no bullshit and fairly solid. What I would rather do though is move us completely to SSD storage. We currently have database sizes under 1TB in each of the servers. I was thinking of buying a pair of these for each host: http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Produc...N82E16820227724 And mirroring them. Yes, I know, gently caress OCZ, etc. I'm going to look at PCIe based drives from other vendors as well, but for that price 1.2TB of usable storage is pretty awesome. So my question is - are there any flash-based disk arrays out there for non-Enterprise customers? I priced out some of the Dell MD arrays with SSDs, but they literally want 3500$ for each 150GB drive.
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| # ? Nov 29, 2011 18:48 |
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I like the fact that HP has made it as painful as possible to try to download new software for LeftHand, outside of using the Java management crap. Unfortunately the GUI won't download updates for whatever reason and I'm having a hard time trying to figure out with WireShark what FTP server and port it's trying to fetch from so I can open the firewall for it (since it's running on the vSphere machine which has a buttload of network cards, so about 10 loaded interfaces to try...) Anyone know where I should start looking to get downloads to work? My liver doesn't like this problem.
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| # ? Nov 29, 2011 22:18 |
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Attach shark to the nic in the VM?
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| # ? Nov 29, 2011 22:27 |
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CMC isn't running in a VM, it's running on a physical machine that also runs the vSphere server. Or do you mean the LeftHand FOM VM? Is that the one doing the downloading and not the CMC app itself? Which seems weird, since CMC downloads to a local folder (and FTP seems to be working so I have no idea why this piece of poo poo software isn't working) Edit: Figured out a way to run tcpdump on it. It's contacting ftp.usa.hp.com, but over HTTPS. And then failing. Guess I'm going to have a field day with my HP contractor tomorrow. luminalflux fucked around with this message at Nov 29, 2011 around 23:33 |
| # ? Nov 29, 2011 23:05 |
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luminalflux posted:CMC isn't running in a VM, it's running on a physical machine that also runs the vSphere server.
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| # ? Nov 30, 2011 05:02 |
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Sorry about that, I was extremely tired and frustrated. By "the vCenter server" I meant the windows server that VMware vSphere is running on (the product that makes ESXi actually useful, handling vMotion et c). We use that machine's console via RDP as our primary management interface, and run CMC on it since we don't have VPN connections to the SAN machines. Apparently the problem was that someone configured the download URL to use HTTPS, which wasn't working for some reason (even though I could navigate to it in explorer). When we found the preferences file and commented it out the line with the URL the upgrades started working. Then again, it's going a lot slower downloading in the client than if I download with Explorer. gently caress this poo poo.
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| # ? Nov 30, 2011 09:26 |
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If you'd said vCenter, misogynist probably wouldn't have been confused. vCenter is a specific application, vSphere could mean any random part of this. Terminology is important when discussing VMware's offerings, because everything sounds roughly the same. God help you if you get into the acronyms; I opened a trouble ticket about the vCSA (vCenter Server Appliance) and VMware's own support staff did not know what I was talking about. They use different acronyms internally.
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| # ? Nov 30, 2011 13:33 |
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Mierdaan posted:If you'd said vCenter, misogynist probably wouldn't have been confused. vCenter is a specific application, vSphere could mean any random part of this.
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| # ? Nov 30, 2011 14:18 |
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Misogynist posted:Based on the Windows bit, 100% of my effort went into trying to determine if he was even talking about vSphere at all or if he had confused it with Hyper-V.
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| # ? Nov 30, 2011 15:16 |
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Sorry, I tend to mix those up. All these v-Names... Even better, the LeftHand FOM runs in a standalone VMware Server on the same machine as vCenter. Anyway I got my patches downloaded finally, mostly by manually downloaded via Right Click Save As in my browser. What a wonderful piece of software that complicates the simple task of "downloading a bunch of files"
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| # ? Nov 30, 2011 18:03 |
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I work for a small company and we're about to move forward with a NetApp 2040 filer. This is our first forray into consolidated storage and I'm looking forward to clustering and virtualization. Is it going to be as awsome as I think and hope it will be? 
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| # ? Dec 1, 2011 21:46 |
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Nothing wrong with Netapp but the price really, from what I've seen so far. What kind of software features did you grab?
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| # ? Dec 1, 2011 23:04 |
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evil_bunnY posted:Nothing wrong with Netapp but the price really, from what I've seen so far. What kind of software features did you grab? The new 2040 pricing is very low, and is probably the lowest quote you'll get from any enterprise SAN vendor. EMC really doesn't compete in that space that often (~$10-20k).
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| # ? Dec 1, 2011 23:30 |
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yeah an entry level iscsi only 2040 would be great to start with for a small business.
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| # ? Dec 1, 2011 23:38 |
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adorai posted:yeah an entry level iscsi only 2040 would be great to start with for a small business.
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| # ? Dec 1, 2011 23:57 |
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Yeah we were pretty surprised when we requested an updated quote and learned that the 2020 we were looking at was recently phased out. The 2040 dropped to 2020-level of pricing so its a pretty big unexpected bonus. We're getting the "complete" pack, as we look forward to the SQL snap manager capabilities, anticipate moving towards vmware, and ideally will be adding another geographically distinct unit for replication next year. Another reason we were looking at the complete pack was the different protocols we needed to use (we still have production Alpha servers) but apparently the 2040 now includes all of the protocols rather than you having to buy them individually.
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| # ? Dec 2, 2011 00:24 |
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j3rkstore posted:We're getting the "complete" pack, as we look forward to the SQL snap manager capabilities, anticipate moving towards vmware, and ideally will be adding another geographically distinct unit for replication next year.
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| # ? Dec 2, 2011 00:54 |
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What's the general opinion of 3PAR kit? I'm not the SAN guy, but we're looking at replacing our 2 NetApp 3020's with a single larger unit and hopefully saving on maintenance costs. I think the 3020's are going into year 4 of production and they're maxed out shelf wise. My boss has mentioned the maintenance renewal on these is borderline robbery. According to my VAR HP is being ultra aggressive with 3PAR right now, especially when unseating the incumbent SAN in a company and really wants to get them in front of the SAN guy and our boss, but I'm hesitant to recommend they talk to them without doing some homework. Right now we're in talks with NetApp for a larger unit...I'm assuming something along the lines of a 6040 unit.
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| # ? Dec 2, 2011 02:18 |
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madsushi posted:The new 2040 pricing is very low, and is probably the lowest quote you'll get from any enterprise SAN vendor. EMC really doesn't compete in that space that often (~$10-20k). Naaaaaa bro, the VNXe has been in that space for aaages. Starts at 10k http://virtualgeek.typepad.com/virt...e-packages.html
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| # ? Dec 2, 2011 05:26 |
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Vanilla posted:Naaaaaa bro, the VNXe has been in that space for aaages.
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| # ? Dec 2, 2011 05:34 |
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Vanilla posted:Naaaaaa bro, the VNXe has been in that space for aaages. Why is no one mentioning Dell? When we went for shared storage my boss went with a Dell MD3200. Is there a reason no one seems to be touching these (in these forums) for smb storage solutions?
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| # ? Dec 2, 2011 05:35 |
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skipdogg posted:What's the general opinion of 3PAR kit? 3PAR arrays are pretty good. They always come top in the 'would buy again' rankings. It has good features which Netapp does not (multiple heads, data movement) and a lack few features that your Netapp arrays do have (dedup, integrated file, etc). I read in the register recently that Netapp were giving away a load of PAM cards with each 6xxx unit, worth checking into. To be honest I have found that HP are NOT aggressive with pricing, the 3PAR arrays have been priced up there with the tier 1 VMAX and HDS arrays. They are bringhing out an agressive pricing pack but this is for the lower end model, not the higher end model you would likely need if you're looking at arrays as big as a FAS6xxxx. Things to be aware of - 3PAR are behind the curve a bit on VMware integration and features. They still have a very small footprint in the industry (had 0.5% of storag e market share when HP bought them), it's a capacity licensed array, it's yellow, no Qos, no dedup, commercial grade SSD drives and no PAM cards or extended cache capability. Few down sides but by all means is a pretty good array. I think pricing will shock you personally. Just invite all the vendors (especially Dell) and watch the prices drop. Some vendors even will do a buy back on your old kit (often quite a bit of $$ and saves you disposal costs).
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| # ? Dec 2, 2011 05:37 |
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Moey posted:Why is no one mentioning Dell? I have two MD3000i and a 1220 and like them. We also have two EqualLogic PS4000X (one purchased in dec 2010 for $29,999.99 inc tax. One purchased in March 2011 for $27,800.00 inc tax )
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| # ? Dec 2, 2011 07:15 |
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| # ? May 20, 2013 03:21 |
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Moey posted:Why is no one mentioning Dell? Also, cheap (well, SAN cheap) SSD tiers.
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| # ? Dec 2, 2011 09:36 |
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