I’m pleased to say that NetApp have become the 9th Qualified EVO:RAIL Partner (QEP) to join the group. I think this great news for customers and for those folks who are from a storage perspective aligned to NetApp is their preferred vendor. This means I will have to have good old sweep through my powerpoint decks and do some logo adding!
Like with a lot of the other EVO:RAIL partners, NetApp have agreed to add-value and differentiate themselves in the market place. So you might have seen that Dell and SuperMicro have partnered with Nexenta to provide their software on top of EVO:RAIL. Whereas HP have a bundle which includes their StorVirtual VSA. Whilst EMC have yet to release their EVO:RAIL, Chad Sakac on his virtualgeek blog has indicated that they are likely to include Recover Point and Avarmar Backup functionality. In fact in the EVO:RAIL team were working on a new version that enable our partners to intregrate this added value into their primary ‘configuration” workflow. More about that in good time, when the new version of the EVO:RAIL engine is released.
The way I’m seeing it is every EVO:RAIL is the same (RAM, Disk capacity, CPU, Networking) but every EVO:RAIL is different – depending on how the QEP choses to add-value or differentiate themselves in the marketplace…
In the case of NetApp they will be bundling along side the EVO:RAIL their own storage. This is physically a separate 2U NTAP FAS appliance which will be bundled with a NetAPP branded EVO:RAIL appliance that is based on vSphere and Virtual SAN – total footprint of both appliances in a rack is 4U. The NTAP FAS unit will ideally connect into the same TOR switch that the NTAP branded EVO:RAIL appliance will connect into. NTAP and the channel may also decide/choose to bundle in a TOR switch. EVO:RAIL will expose a link and launch capability that NTAP can leverage (as well as other QEPs) from within the EVO:RAIL DCM Engine to rapidly deploy/configure/integrate the NTAP FAS unit with the NTAP branded EVO:RAIL appliance.
So to say in a nutshell – if folks choose to source their EVO:RAIL from NetApp they will have the choice and flexiblity to use both VSAN and NTAP FAS unit. I think Chuck Hollis (http://chucksblog.typepad.com/chucks_blog/2014/12/evo-rail-vsan-and-netapp.html) has it right on the money. For me its all about the same, but different viewpoint. From a hardware perspective the EVO:RAIL offers the same specification from partner-to-partner. How they chose to take that to their customers is really their decision. They know their customers and their requirements, and it isn’t for VMware to go about dictating to those partners what secret sauce they choose to bundle. So find this concept an odd one, but I don’t. I guess in life folks like to go about making strict catagories – Converged is this. Hyper-converged is that. Allowing for little or no innovation for something that might be something in between. I guess the desire to make very descrete catagories is an attempt to “make life simple”. After all there is so much going on in the world of IT now, who wouldn’t want to put everything in neat little boxes. But I actually think its more interesting to have those assumptions questions. So will folks find the NetApp flavour attractive. Perhaps to early to tell. But what I do believe is more choice and variety is better news for customers to have that choice, than none at all…
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