Your desire to have an IBM-only solution aside, I'll add some additional
color.
You say NetApp bought Alacritus to get into the VTL business. They're
the only major disk vendor to do so. Everybody else (including IBM) is
just reselling somebody else's gear. (IBM, Sun, EMC, Copan = Falconstor,
HP = SEPATON, HDS = Diligent) I would say that NetApp buying their own
VTL shows commitment, where the other guys haven't figured out if VTL is
part of their strategic direction or not.
If you reference the de-dupe discussion, you'll notice that one thread
that came up is scalability. The NetApp solution is a multi-head design
that allows you to have as many heads as you need, while still having
all your "tape drives" inside one VTL. The IBM (Falconstor) solution
requires at least one VTL instance per head, so each new head you buy
will mean another tape library represented inside TSM. While I think
that you could make the argument that the latter doesn't hurt its
scalability, I don't think you could make the argument that the IBM
system is inherently more scalable than the NetApp solution.
As far as de-dupe, neither IBM nor NetApp have announced their
intentions in this space. (I'm not saying they're not working on it.
They're just not telling anybody what they're doing.) Given that there
are de-dupe VTLs/IDTs in GA (some for quite some time now), I think that
buying a non-de-dupe VTL at this point is wasting your money -- whether
we're talking 20:1 or 10:1 it still makes sense. So if you're going to
consider either the NetApp or IBM solution for other reasons, I would
make them commit in writing to their commitment to de-dupe.
---
W. Curtis Preston
Backup Blog @ www.backupcentral.com
VP Data Protection, GlassHouse Technologies
-----Original Message-----
From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU] On Behalf Of
Strand, Neil B.
Sent: Tuesday, September 04, 2007 7:17 AM
To: ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
Subject: Re: [ADSM-L] TSM and NetApp VTL700
Tom,
If scalability is an issue, you may consider the IBM TS7520.
The NetApp VTL does not use WAFL so you may want to consider the
implications of support and your house knowledge. Netapp purchased
Alactrius in 2005 to get into the VTL business.
I just purchased an IBM TS7520 and enjoy an all IBM solution - AIX,
TS7520, TS3500, TS1120. Not much room for finger pointing.
You may want to review the discussion on data deduplication in this
forum and consider how that technology may or may not integrate in your
TSM puzzle.
Cheers,
Neil
-----Original Message-----
From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU] On Behalf Of
Thomas Rupp
Sent: Tuesday, September 04, 2007 5:30 AM
To: ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
Subject: [ADSM-L] TSM and NetApp VTL700
Hi TSM-ers,
we are thinking about a NetApp NearStore VTL 700 for our new TSM
environment.
Anything I should consider with this piece of hardware?
Thanks in advance
Thomas Rupp
Vorarlberger Illwerke AG ein Unternehmen von illwerke vkw
Rechtsform: Aktiengesellschaft, Sitz: Bregenz, Firmenbuchnummer: FN
59202 m, Firmenbuchgericht: LG Feldkirch, UID-Nr.: ATU 36737402
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