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I think you're missing the value prop of the BigStorageCos like EMC and NetApp. If all they provided was a disk shelf and loose cluster coupling, nobody would
by nathanb 13y ago
I think you're missing the value prop of the BigStorageCos like EMC and NetApp.
If all they provided was a disk shelf and loose cluster coupling, nobody would buy that.
The big win (for those companies which consider it a win) is in data management and namespacing. Storage virtualization, if you will. I can have a hundred disks spinning behind a storage controller which lumps them together into three storage volumes. I can serve file data off two of them (say, NFS on one and CIFS on the other) and stick some LUNs on the third and serve blocks (iSCSI). I can dedupe, snapshot, and migrate these data at will.
FWIW. Not belittling the Seagate announcement. Just clarifying why the article is correct in suggesting that EMC and NetApp aren't particularly worried about the announcement.
- astrodust 13y agoObviously EMC, NetApp and others in that space provide value, but what they do with existing drive technology is simply out of reach of most startups. The barrier to entry is way too high. With this new technology it opens the door for innovation in this space. Using commodity components you can build out new EMC-type systems with a different focus. The amount of hardware engineering you have to do is minimized, and more of it can be done strictly in software. Lower cost, more rapid iteration, all that. I'm not saying this will happen tomorrow, but in ten years the storage market could be turned inside out by this approach.