NetApp is developing a server flash storage offering that will include beefy NetApp steak and not just EMC Lightning sizzle, according to insiders in the company. Our understanding, from people close to the action, is that NetApp server flash software will work with any server PCIe-connected flash memory card, and with …

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Tuesday 7th February 2012 22:30 GMT Wanda Lust

Ah......aaaah........ahh....ahh....ahh.....aaaaaaaaahhh

I'll have whatever NTAP are drinkin'

Paris, obviously. An unrelenting attention seeker.

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Wednesday 8th February 2012 00:31 GMT Storagezilla

-EMC Employee-

"According to NetApp, VFCache can hold stale data if the backend array has data restored on it, but there is no reliable data coherency end-to-end."

Flush buffers

purge -source_dev #

Run array commands

Remount Filesystem

The equivalent of purging data cached in DRAM on a server. You expire the LUN cache for the LUN(s) you're making changes to.

NetApp obviously have no idea what they are talking about. Not surprising as this is from the same company who claimed 'tiering was dead' (1.3 Exabytes of Data under FAST management) and were the industry leader in Flash shipments...until it was shown EMC shipped 3x their number in teh same year.

NetApp don't rate in Flash. At all.

Regardless of what they do over the next 12 months EMC will deliver 1TB cards, the ability to use SSDs in server drive slots as cache and enhanced VMware support. On top of distributed cache coherency, enhanced FAST integration and the Thunder Server Networked Flash appliance.

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1. Wednesday 8th February 2012 02:26 GMT Anonymous Coward
  
  Yes, they did say tiering was dead.
  
  Interview from 2010:
  
  http://www.xtranormal.com/watch/6186027/waffle-house
  
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  1. Wednesday 8th February 2012 12:38 GMT Alex McDonald 1
    
    What's tiering got to do with it?
    
    (NetApp employee)
    
    Terje Mathisen (a well known programming optimization guru) once said: "All programming is an exercise in caching."
    
    The same applies here. All data management is an exercise in caching.
    
    This isn't about tiering; it's about caching. Unless, of course, you've got a product that does only tiering, in which case it makes a lot of sense to confuse the two.
    
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2. Wednesday 8th February 2012 16:19 GMT mriley
  
  Please!
  
  - NTAP Employee -
  
  NTAP has been leading EMC around by the nose for years now. If NTAP rolled a terd in glitter, EMC would dip one in gold. If you want a glimpse at the EMC roadmap, I can dig up ours from a few years back.
  
  The statement on cache coherency stands. Manual intervention and vaporware claims really don't help your argument.
  
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  1. Thursday 9th February 2012 11:32 GMT pÃru
    
    And how exactly is that going for you?
    
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Wednesday 8th February 2012 02:26 GMT Assumed Name

So much for taking the rest of the year off

(sarcasm alert)

Note to EMC's 50,000 employees worldwide:

Cancel plans for taking the rest of 2012 off. We miscalculated. Apparently we will have to continue developing new products and enhancing existing ones to keep pace with Network Appliance's "vision".

Sorry for the bad news. At least wait until Monday, though.

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Wednesday 8th February 2012 15:06 GMT J.T

Here's the thing about NetApp's timetables....they're total crap when it comes to actually developing and producing a product. Look at all the time it took to get all of the storage technology they purchased from Spinnaker into Ontap, and they still blew that by having to keep "7 mode". Additionally, I was working on getting a VTL deduplication solution, NetApp wanted in, promised a solution by June from an inhouse project, delay, delay, delay, two years later oops we need to buy Data Domain.

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Thursday 9th February 2012 15:02 GMT ANDBA

NetApp is developing?

Chris

VFCache is already here. I would not advise holding your breathe waiting for it to arrive.

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