Xyratex and others misunderstand Xiotech's abilities re bad drives

A Xiotech contact mailed this to me:-

Notwithstanding everything you've pointed out so far, I think there is a fundamental mis-understanding about the drives being configured for ISE and that is this: Xiotech Firmware and Software IP recognizes, tracks, and analyses 100s of metrics about drive internals and reports them out to a specialised server. We collect more information about disk drives than anyone on the planet, Chris. Additionally, even if a "bad batch" were to be deployed, they would never get past our QA/QC processes -- and if they did, they would be replaced or remanufactured in place.

Yes, the last statement is 100% verifiable: remanufactured in place.

Notwithstanding, there may be disagreements about one thing or another, but the fact remains that, as deployed, ISE are more reliable than any single drive and we've proved it over 1000s of installations. The arguments by Barber et al are red herrings but not surprising considering Xyratex is a legacy storage OEM only. We've already forgotten more than Xyratex ever knew about disk drives and controllers -- no brag, just fact backed up by Richie Lary, Steve Sicola, Clark Lubbers, Ken Bates and the rest of Xiotech's rockstars.

However, I recognize that facts often stand in the way of reality and vice versa.

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Chris.

If I didn't think of it it can't possibly work.

(Full disclosure: Xiotech Employee) The above seems to be the mantra of storage manufacturers. I don't disagree with the conclusions drawn in your article about the hesitancy surrounding a single source of hardware, but the reality is all array manufacturers utilize single source hardware in their arrays (controllers, chips, drive bays, switches, sfp's, etc). This is one of the reasons the enterprise will often have two different manufacturers in their data centers. Of course, you don't hear Xyratex or the big three letter companies suggesting that customers purchase a competitive product in addition to theirs so the customer is protected from single source problems. I wonder why?

The point being missed by some is how the technology deals with "bad batches" of hard drives that might appear. The self healing capabilities of the ISE invoke Seagate proprietary technology to refurbish drives without removing them from the enclosure. As such it goes a long way toward completely mitigating concerns over "bad batches" of hard drives (even though these events are rare to begin with). These capabilities are exclusive to Seagate drives and are not available from other, smaller manufacturers. Unlike the conventional enclosures mentioned in your article, the ISE addressed the issues with the first 1TB hard drives and continued to work brilliantly whereas others who didn't have the ISE were brought to their knees.

Xiotech is working hard to educate the industry in the knowledge that they no longer have to settle for the status quo of drive failures, substandard performance, data reliability issues, and expensive hardware maintenance costs that are found with all conventional drive bays. Xiotech has the good fortune of having the mental energy, enthusiasm, and cleverness of the storage veterans who invented most of the technology on which the storage industry is now based. Over their years of churning out patents and technologies for the industry, these folks have learned what works, what doesn't, and what could be done differently to achieve a better outcome. Xiotech ISE is the result. In it they have created a new standard of reliability, performance, and data protection that has never been seen before.

Storage vendors who are not partners are simply competitors and they will understandably spout FUD to protect their own business. Since most of them realize a huge percentage of revenue from break fix and maintenance they are understandably less than thrilled by a storage technology that doesn't generate hardware maintenance fees. People who keep an open mind and realize that the storage problems they've been plagued with for years can be architected out if you know how to do it will benefit themselves and their companies by taking a hard look at the Xiotech ISE before they settle for the same old, same old.

Roger Kelley, Principal Architect, Xiotech

www.storagewonk.com

Single Source?

I am a little confused by the net-net of the conversation.

I understand the concept of protecting infrastructure and positioning by multi-sourcing, especially from the negotiation perspective (manage vendors by the stick methodology and use them against one another), and if this were IT Directors or CIO's making any of the OEM single sourcing concerns, I would have more compasion, but, it's vendors.

Every CIO understand that if you choose a single vendor (which EVERY vendor wants you to do, choose them), you are single sourcing (not a terrible thing in and of itself, especially not if that vendor undertands the relationship and when it fails, steps up to the plate and addresses issues). The larger the datacenter, the more prone you are to have multi-sourcing of vendors.

To have Xyratex (the largest drive bay manufacturer in the world and every vendor using them is "single sourcing"), commenting about Xiotech (in this positioning being a competitor to Xyratex), OEM'ing and being a single source, is way off base. This is like McDonalds commenting on why Culvers will fail (sure, Culvers uses "real" beef, and they "claim" they taste better, but we're bigger and source our beef from more than just steer).

Just an observation...