* Posts by Adam 61

55 publicly visible posts • joined 23 Jun 2009

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HPE flashes out 3PAR, Nimble and MSA kit

Adam 61

That front bezel reminds me of a certain Jamaican bob-sled team!

Bad back? Show some spine and stop popping paracetamol

Adam 61

Back pain woes

I too suffered quite a lot from back pain on account of having slipped 3 discs in my lower back from a collapsed scrum playing rugby (IT Stress relief), but also related to an earlier knee injury.

I can categorically state that paracetemol was of no use, and in fact after a while of being on the codeine it's effects became lessened to the extent that it didn't touch the pain any more and I was prescribed tramadol - who's effects I can only liken to feeling like I was walking around on a cruise ship all the time on a gently lolling ocean.

Naproxen was a much more effective anti-inflammatory than Diclofenac which can upset your stomach a bit (still counteracts the codine for a nice balance).

Anyway in the end I'd had a few cortisone injections which lasted a couple of weeks each but the eventual decision was to have surgery followed up by a series of physio with a heavy leaning to Pilates. I stopped taking the meds after the operation.

Other changes I made were - 1) swap the car i had with sports seats to a boring yet comfy car with very good heated seats, 2) got a decent office chair,3) Slept on a hard/orthapedic mattress - soft ones don't help 4) When working made sure I got up every 40 - 50 mins or so and walked (walking really helped things get back in place) around, and continuing with the pilates and back stretched every day (only 5 mins or so).

Now I am fully functioning with only a mild niggle occassionally - if ever I feel dodgy i do a good set of pilates exercises which help your core which holds everything in place where it should (in my case where it was a lower back issue anyway). I've also started playing sports again which again if you prepare properly (pilates and stretching) you can take part in again - yeah I got a bit of stick at first, but I really didn't care as I was happy to be active again after 2 years of inactivity. These days the only thing that makes it stiffen up is a long car journey (i.e. 3 or more hours)

HP offers enterprise fatness to small biz bods in bulked-up sales push

Adam 61

Re: EMC in damage limitation mode again - hardly

So the vast numbers of MSA's sold are the exception rather than the rule??

ps it was my ignorance on the DP side nothing disingenuous (and i did say correct me if im wrong which you did).

As I said its horses for courses - one persons simplicity is anothers inflexibility, converseley one persons inflexibility is anothers simplicity. Lets let the market decide which approach works best.. and the market will evolve!

Adam 61

Now correct me if i'm wrong Doesn't Data Protector do De-dupe now as well? so HP also have 2 x De-dupe solutions....Avamar is backup software in an appliance form, whereas DD is really a backup device similar to StoreOnce.

Lets Compare currently available ranges - you can see that they isn't actually that much difference and you could ask where is the interoperability between MSA/3PAR/Lefthand and XP as those are the kind of apples you are comparing. And actually one persons simplicity is anothers inflexibility.

So Entry Level

EMC = VNXe HP = MSA or Lefthand

Midrange

EMC = VNX HP = Lefthand or 3Par 7000 (mostly 3Par)

High End/Enterprise

EMC = VMAX - HP = 3Par 10k or P9500 XP

All Flash

EMC = XtremIO HP = 3Par 7450

De-dupe Appliance

EMC = Data Domain HP = StoreOnce

De-dupe software

EMC = Avamar HP = Data Protector

Disclosure - now work for EMC, used to work at HP Channel partner. Of course its all about the right tools for the job thats why we have diverse portfolio's because there is a desire and use case for all of them in today's IT, no doubt this will change over time but that's the current nature of the storage market which has been evidenced by the growth in the Flash sector for example.

NetApp probably has the simplest portfolio in the market in my view out of the big storage providers

Benchmark bods reckon NetApp storage has the edge over Isilon

Adam 61

Re: Practically worthless

Yep i think a lot of the content they review is whats on the vendors website i.e. markitecture

NetApp's FlashRay to zap Symmetrix with fibre channel

Adam 61

Re: Why NetApp moved from Single Architecture to the Portfolio Model

Couldn't agree more, I think there may be people confusing their terminology by amalgamating Enterprise storage with Tier One Storage. People buy Symmetrix for availability first and performance second. We've all long known that quite often and workload permitting that midrange systems can sometimes outperform Enterprise ones. What really differentiates Enterprise systems is their ability to consolidate multiple workloads onto a smaller number of platforms whilst delivering extreme availability.

What constiutes a storage tier shouldn't be the domain of any one vendor, but actually should be classified by the user based on the performance and availability characteristics that they need to deliver to meet their service level comittments.

PS If you wanted NetApp to deliver that Flash platform, they probably should've bought one of the emerging falsh vendors.......rather than deliver something that on paper at least looks like it will be behind the curve of competing offerings.

FlashRay shines out from Sunnyvale

Adam 61

Man Mountain,

Whilst I agree with your sentiment around picking on HP you then try and do the same to IBM and EMC when you are effectively cherry picking one product range out of a more complex line-up which is as complex as anyone elses (well maybe not IBM ;)).

Its the same as if i said IBM was simpler as we'd just use the V7000 or EMC has the VNX, I could ask what about StorVirtual/Lefthand, P2000, P9500, StorEasy and IBRIX (as you woul dpoint to eqiuvalents)? These are all valid offerings too, actually the most complex thing about HP's portfolio is the 18 month lets re-brand everything cycle they seem to be on but someone must be making some money off that somewhere.

In truth all vendors have some complexity in their portfolio's and there's a good reason for that in that in some cases a swiss army knife isn't always the best knife to use for a certain task, but it will do a job up to a point (obviously some Swiss army knives are better than others but we could debate that till the cows come home i'm sure!).

From a disclosure POV I used to work in the HP channel (12 years) and now work for EMC

VCE hires Cisco exec to run the company

Adam 61

swap outs

EMC have the VSPEX programme which is just that,

Your choice of Server, Hypervisor and Network - naturally with EMC Storage underpinning :)

So if you like HP Servers and Brocade networks you can build the same

NetApp: Steenkin' benchmarks – we're quicker than 3PAR

Adam 61
FAIL

Bad choice of benchmark

Clearly this meant for people with a low attention to detail threshold. As per above anyone with a degree of intelligence can easily see through the arguments presented here. What is Netapps latency at 450,000 iop's? Oh they don't go that high......

Must try harder

Reseller insolvencies at 9-year high: 89 firms hit the wall

Adam 61

value

hmm, i can't quite agree with the sentiment that resellers don't want to add value - alot of this smash and grab type behaviour has also been driven by the end users themselves.

Alot of the public sector buying frameworks in particular stifle the ability to add idea's and value, or even a different way of doing things, and just concern themselves buying at the lowest cost from whoever the hell can give it to them.

Part of the problem is that IT infrastructure has increasingly commoditised over the last couple of years so where people can add value has become very blurry.

Brocade has 2-year Fibre Channel headstart on rival

Adam 61
Facepalm

16Gbps FC

16Gbps FC is already here - been shipping a couple of months as in the article (18% of Brocades FC shipments)

When will 40Gbps be here realistically and widely adopted?

10Gbp adoption is still pretty slow as it costs more than 8Gbps FC purely from an aquisition cost. I appreciate you can get TCO savings through convergence though.

Don't think FC is dead quite yet and will remain as a transport mechanism for datacentre storage for a fair while yet.

Cisco have always been behond the curve on FC SAN performance - software wise they are pretty good though

Oracle fires Itanium countersuit at HP

Adam 61

Well.... part 2

Agreed Jesper, and not just HP-UX - seen legacy Power (less of) and SPARC (lots of) migrations to something else as well being looked at - especially to Linux.

Some people very wary of Oracle and want to void lock in

Adam 61
Facepalm

So true my backside last AC

If theres one thing HP-UX isn't its unstable, and performance is pretty good. P does have an advantage in pure performance terms but its not as big as they imply on there marketing slides.

Itanium probably is on its last legs but not because the reasons you state - purely down to Oracles play pulling the rug out from under it.

I say this as someone who works for a company who sells both IBM and HP, pre- the Oracle announcement the new Tukwila systems were building nicely especially for SAP based solutions. SAP and HP-UX has long been a trusted platform, and you don't expect people to run a core business app like that on something thats unstable, anything but is reality.

Texas Memory Systems gets some enterprise street cred

Adam 61

Too late?

I think it was a bad architecture that bought down the Australian airline,

HP plays Violin to whip Itanium beasts into flash frenzy

Adam 61
Facepalm

Old news

Come on guys this is nothing new HP have had this and are OEMing the Violin products for sale on two platforms

1) the Itanium Blade system and Superdome 2 and 2) the Scale up DL980 G7 that runs Xeon's.

So not sure why Violin won't comment.....

They've been on the HP pricebook at least 2 months

IBM: Our appliance servers smoke Ellison's 'phony baloney'

Adam 61

Horses for courses

Oracle seem to be having some success with Exadata but their commodity server business isn't looking too good, maybe Oracle are distracted by this?

Acronis: We're snatching Symantec market share

Adam 61

Why does...

every article involving Symantec end up being a load of people slagging off Norton - when we are talking about backup?

From my experience most bad experiences are a result of bad installs, misperception and/or bad training - classic case in point a well known Integrator was complaining that NetBackup wasn't working properly and lacked the functionality and wanted to replace it with Commvault.

Turns out after doing some on site work they hadn't updated the software in ages and weren't aware of the newer features that would address their issues that they were entitled to. 6 months on and they are a very happy user. Its very easy to point the finger at the vendor, but we need to also take more responsibility for our own shortcomings!

IDC: Everything but Unix on the rise

Adam 61

erm no.....

Andy 18,

Working at said Server disty in a very large server franchise (HP) - we don't pre-install any OS unless its specifically asked for prior to shipment...and the servers don't come from the vendor pre-installed (again unless specifically asked and paid for).

Sounds like someone has fed you a line to get you to pay for a Windows license maybe........

That said I can't comment on what other disty's do and don't do

Councils look for 'good enough' IT solutions

Adam 61

Tenders etc

I help respond to many public sector tenders and without fail the majority are some of the most badly written pieces of work you can find out there. The lack of information available to enable suppliers to give a half decent solution is frustrating even when you do seek clarification.

Quite often you can see they are like a kid in the sweetshop - must have this feature, must have that feature etc, but with no actual understanding of how they can use that in their environment to derive any benefit or the wider impacts it may have in their environment.

Its also patently obvious when vendors have "helped" write the tenders, often including criteria that have absolutely no relevance to the real requirement and just adding costly and expensive featuresets.

Also the use of framework agreements like Buying Solutions (oh the irony) mean that your opportunity to add value as a supplier is greatly diminished as you get discounted if you deviate from the exact way things have been laid out, regardless of whether it may be a better way of doing things (a matter of opinion, but the lack of avenues to even have a conversation about it is wrong)

All this contributes in my view to LA's getting poor value for money and a lot of wasted money being spent.

Sales troubles ahead for HP EVA?

Adam 61

Not quite as doom and gloom

I work for a partner of HP's amongst other vendors (NetApp, EMC, HDS included) and

I agree HP's communication around whats happening with EVA has been quite appalling and even when you ask them directly, they won't tell you anything.

3Par is also not the answer to everything, but I am excited by its capabilities, and can see very clearly where it will go due to its architecture

That said 3Par may not have de-dupe or compression but they don't need it as the Thin provisioning capability they do have far exceeds other offerings. Customers typically see 60% - 70% + savings in space (certain enterprise customers are quoted as only having to buy 1TB for every 3TB they used to).

By the same token how much space saving does De-dupe actually give 25-40% I'd guess in a typical scenario (mixed environment, admittedly could be higher in area's like VDI) which is still a valuable saving.

But lets look at it further if I have 50TB today, but after de-dupe will only need 20TB, how much NetApp storage do I need to buy upfront (to use Snapshots as well)?

The unified Storage argument, HP has a range of NAS gateways that can integrate into the solution depending on the workload, the one disadvantage is its not centrally managed which I guess is your point.

As for Lefthand/P4000, yes its a one trick pony but its also one thats eating NetApps lunch from the low end, we have seen a lot of success particularly integrating with HP's Blade and Virtual Connect technology.

Interestingly some of my friends who work at software companies like VMware and Symantec think NetApp will not grow as strongly this year, largely because their technology hasn't moved on that much (though of course I'm not in the know as to whats around the corner), and also because of poor block performance and utilisation and in terms of Cost particularly software, i.e. the value that certain software titles give versus the benefits isn't great especially for dual head configs.

In terms of Storage virtualisation, you forget that HP also have the P9500 from Hitachi which can perform block based virtualisation, NetApp V - well thats just a volume manager really, you could do the same with a Solaris box and ZFS, or a Windows Storage Server....

From a HP perspective I'm probably more worried about what Dell will do with Compellent (if they can execute as well as hey have with Equalogic then they will be a threat), Of course EMC, NetApp and HDS will continue to be a threat until HP do finally tell us all whats happening!

The reality is that channel partners don't worry too much so long as they have something to sell i.e. a solution and they can make a decent margin on it, now end customers is a different kettle of fish

HP says P9500 is bullet-proof

Adam 61

LFF Drives and HDS

My HDS colleague tells me that HDS aren't going down the LFF route either - they were originally but decided against it at the last minute - deciding to stick with SFF based on performance and drive roadmaps.

HP slaps P9500 label on HDS' VSP array

Adam 61

And theres more....

Unfortunately the blades used in the PSP aren't HP but Hitachi ones and are a custom build so no C-class type infrastructure in there. HP tell me the costs will be similar to previous gens in most cases although the entry point will be much lower.

I don't think 3Par can do all an XP can do (yet) or with the credibility in the market place for those real mission critical installations. But I confess I'm largely ingnorant on 3Pars capabilities but excited to understand what they can bring to the party.

Also contrast the Reg article on the HP launch vs HDS's - note the same disparaging comments about whether VSP is fit to lace USP's boots are nowhere to be seen.

Hidden agenda's methinks??

Adam 61
Go

Really????

"The P9500 does not and cannot replace it."

So because I can't put 1152 2TB SATA drives in it its not a replacement? HP and I believe HDS also now have taken the decision to use the SFF drives becuase thats where the drive manaufacturers are going in terms of product development - so when larger capacity drives are released your argument falls down completely.

Seriously does anyone really buy Enterprise Storage just to load it up with SATA drives?

In my experience with the XP/HDS storage platforms (10 years +) people buy them for typically two reasons:

1) They need the best levels of availability for storage they can get

2) They need to be able to scale performance up and out

Being able to shove in a truckload of SATA drives is rarely a consideration

Of course you neglect to mention through the EMC tinted spectacles that you can always have 247PB of virtualised lower tier storage behind the P9500, but lets not let accuracy get in the way of a good headline eh?

Gotta love the EMC quote though - thats a good sign that they are worried, I remember going on an EMC course and if the instructor had spent more time focussing on their products than fudding the competition (amusing though it was) I might have learnt something more about their products.

Facts not FUD please!

Blockbuster winds itself into Chapter 11

Adam 61

They had the technology..

I had a friend who used to work for Blockbuster a few years back who was developing an on demand service over the internet, but they divested from it and he moved on along with all the team he worked with.

Just goes to show if you don't change with the times then you end up like the dinosaurs

Head in the sand dumbass management leadership is whats to blame

IBM wheels and deals on servers

Adam 61
Stop

Roll up, Roll up, get your IBM here

Yet another unashamed advertising piece for IBM from TPM, it would be nice to see some objectivity after all thats what I thought journalism was about.

Please bring back the objectivity!

Dell shakes up storage array game with 3PAR buy

Adam 61

Interesting

Good buy by Dell - they are starting to rack some up, not so sure its a good move for 3pars customer though.......

I suspect theyve been wanting to undo the golden handcuffs EMC handed them for some time, and this is a step a long the way to doing that. The key is how quickly can Dell execute and integrate 3Par fully into their solution offerings

Unix in the UK: Mission critical!

Adam 61

re Steve Button - Blades and Virtualisation?

Hi Steve,

In answer to your questions lots of people do this because of the flexibility it gives them in terms of the deployment and the granularity they can get, service providers in particular go down this route (and if you look at things like HP's Bladesystem Matrix its exactly what this is)

Also using smaller machines i.e. blades means you can still scale (up and out) but you don't have to invest in a big box like a Superdome or P595 (or M9000 to keep the SUN folks happy), you have a bit more of a pay as you grow type approach but using a common build and platform which helps reduce indirect costs as you are introducing a standardised infrastructure with a common build.

I've seen lots of organisations in public and private sectors deploy this kind of platform for shared service delivery as it means they can very easily move resource around at a good price point.

You could also look at it from the point of view that scale out virtualisation helps reduce your risk a bit as you don' t all your eggs in the one basket (albeit a pretty fault tolerant and resilient one) but maybe thats stretching it a bit! Of course the downside of this is the proliferation of device management points but most of the blades come with pretty good management tools to alleviate this issue (well HP and Dell do, IBM's are a bit iffy so one of my Software consultants tells me who has to integrate them into Enterprise Management apps like CA, BMC and Openview).

Its not perfect but it works well enough for most, and it also comes down to what kind of apps you are virtualising and how big your estate is.

Where its not so great is for the large I/O intensive databases and ERP systems, but over time I'd expect them to also succumb as the server market gets continually commoditised and the virtualisation tech improves.

Cheers

Adam

Oracle kills AMD Opteron on Sun iron

Adam 61
WTF?

Re: Markk - Some do care

"Intel has plants and significant investment in Israel, who's lone ally is the US. Customers in neighboring countries prefer not to buy products made in a country that has a poor human rights record, starves residents of Gaza, and maintains apartheid policies towards Palestinians. I learned this important lesson when trying to sell our products to Saudi's."

I love that the Saudi's are concerned about human rights yet are quite happy to condone amputation, execution by stoning, and the exclusion of women from mainstream society (could be viewed as a societal apartheid of women).

What about the human rights records of the countries surrounding Israel - the ones that the UK fails to extradite terrorists to because their human rights "might" be violated.

Or maybe it was an excuse cos Galaxy's are lame compared to Proliant and X-Series?

Oracle/Sun ditches HDS

Adam 61
Coffee/keyboard

Quite an odd move

OK they are focussing on the 7000 series which is fine for entry and midrange but is not a credible enterprise/mission critical offering in so many ways. Guess I'm more surprised they havent jettisoned the re-badged LSI stuff as that really overlaps with their own tech.

Or could it be a sign that Pillar are ready to prop up the Storage biz?

Bizarre!

HP at storage crossroads

Adam 61

Ball Dropping Penguins

James, Look just because MSA is cheap doesn't mean its always appropriate for every scenario, and of course HP will push EVA and Lefthand more because its their tech ergo they make more money on it and for the customer can also discount it deeper. MSA is a Dot Hill OEM ergo they make less money. I think you'll find the price diff between MSA and EVA is now much smaller, and when the next Gen EVA's eventually arrive i hear they are going to use a common shelf for MSA and EVA so the FC drives in the EVA's being the most expensive element that'll narrow the gap further

"EVA replication is rubbish" - no not at all - its actually pretty flexible in the deployment options you can do - far superior to the MSA which has only just released a form of Asynch replication

Actually its alot better than that offered by IBM's DS4000 range and HDS AMS (a HDS guy I know says this too).

Snapshot poor - compared to what? its quite good and easy to use, the one thing it lacks is some good application integration (apart from MS apps via VSS) like NetApp does for Oracle and SAP. But you've got 4 different snap types to choose from including space efficient snaps to full blown clones.

That said it doesn't dress up the wider issue that the EVA is ageing rapidly and HP need to get their bums in gear to get a relevant and credible competitive offering out in the market, its supposed to becoming but when???

As for the PenguinBoys comments about Dell............now who's fibre channel line is outstanding? - that would be EMC's not Dells and who knows how long that relationship will last for! EQL is a good solution and has a lot of creedance in the market but equally so does Lefthand both have their pro's and cons.

Compellent could rise into Gartner's leader box

Adam 61

re: Colin_L

The XP doesn't look great next to its peers - really?

Well as theres only really EMC DMX, and HDS USP (which is the same tech that both HDS and HP get from Hitachi), I fail to get that comment - its a seriously good box, very stable, scalable and performant, and commercially HP are a lot more successful at selling them than HDS (in terms of frames sold)

surely you're not going to suggest IBM XIV or DS8000 or whatever it is now are up there as well?

I tend to agree about EVA though, well due an overhaul with things like true Thin Provisioning (sorry Matt by DCM ain't THP) and de-dupe (which unfortunately HP seem to be burying their head in the sand over except in the VTL space) as well as from a hardware perspective, but one is coming which will see it claw some ground back. Snapshot software is OK but needs better application integration ala NetApp as its largely script based at the moment.

However it does have some very good benefits from a usability and management perspective, general provisioning is so easy a numpty like me can configure and provision storage to a host in about 4 or 5 clicks.

PS IBM also have a very confusing product line with overlap so seems harsh to penalise just HP on it they have various DS models, N-Series (NetApp) and XIV, what do you buy there for a midrange type project? answers on a postcard

The clearest defined product lines to me appear to be from NetApp, HDS and probably EMC

Intel 'Tukwila' born after long and painful labor

Adam 61
FAIL

Last AC you really are quite dull.........

Since when has core clock speed on different processor architecture ever been a relevant comparisson? Someones already posted it but AMD had a big advantage performance wise over Intel at one point with Lower clocked CPU's so that kind of disproves that statement.

Its not how fast it clocks its what you do with it that counts is whats important i.e. something measureable like SAPs per CPU

No doubt we'll have to continue to put up with this until some real benchmarks are published so we can all make an educated comparisson between the two processors not one based on rumour and pure fud from the (Mainly) pro IBM brigade. In the mean time this is all speculation.

PS I think Tukwila's biggest issue won't be performance but its lateness to market.

You hear rumours, I heard a rumour that IBM sold some product to Nazi Germany - oh no thats true!

Intel set for server chip blitz

Adam 61

AC - SAP and SQL on x64/86

I think you'll find there are a shed load of organisations that run SAP on Windows with a SQL Backend out there, quite a lot of it in UK local government as one example,

Adam 61

E-Business R12 on Itanium

Just double checked - been available since August 2007 - on HP-UX Itanium

Or are you saying that because R12 is not the legacy Oracle E-Business Suite (that Oracle are discontunuing) it doesn't count???

PS this was from a presentation at an Oracle User Group forum by

Kelton Keller – Senior Technical ConsultantSolution Alliances Engineering, Global Oracle Alliance

FUD disproven.....

Adam 61

Hardware virtualisation vs partitioning

Allison,

Can you enlighten us as to what your definition of Hardware virtualisation is on a CPU and why not having it on a chip is a disadvantage. What is the key benefit and ROI that a user will get

"Partitioning is not virtualization. IVM is a high overhead HP-UX host and is more for test and development. I figured Tukwila would have hardware virtualization like Power or Xeon...it it doesn't then Itanium has a real problem."

Just curious to know

Thanks

Adam 61

RE: Allison Park & AC

Copy that down from an IBM sales battlecard then? Very insightful, seriously though is that the best they can come up with? I know HP have a similar thing "10 things to ask IBM about Power",

PS Oracle E-Business 12 is supported on Itanium with HP-UX 11i V3 has been for about 8-9 months - I know cause I've just done a project with it.

However future Linux support is a bit of a kick in the nuts, in the same project we migrated an Oracle instance on IA-64 Linux to HP-UX so we could deliver HA to the applications (as HP themselves have now dropped Serviceguard Clustering on Linux) - being objective at the minute I wouldn't suggest that a customer deploys Linux on Integrity for a new project at the current time.

AC - Do HP really waste customers money on IA-64, are you really comparing apples with apples - does that mean IBM are also wasting customers money with Power (when they have X-Series) and SUN with Sparc (when they have Galaxy) etc etc

simple fact is you can't scale high enough for things like large SAP instances (which aren't that uncommon) on a Proliant, you can scale out comfortably but thats not always the best thing to do as you end up with more OS's to manage and a higher operational costs. Funnily enough a lot of very well known online gaming websites run their backends on large SQL databases on Itanium for this very reason.

IBM's Power7 servers imminent

Adam 61
FAIL

Kebbablurb

Simples - you are confrontational, arrogant and aggressive in your posts- no wit & no humour

OK Matt is a bit obnoxious but usually in a very obvious and humourous fashion.

I don't mind you sticking up for what you believe in - perfectly fine with me, its the way you do it - why don't you think about that.

I don't get annoyed with FUD because I see it for what it is, every vendor does it, its part of the game - water off a ducks back is what it is.

Would love to chat more but have work to do

TTFN

Adam 61

Kebbaburp

Please do give me an example as to where I have posted any IBM FUD ETC, fair play if I have but I don't recall any.

The only things I have ever commented on are you inability to have a debate without ranting at people. Rude and obnoxious are two t

Personally I don't have a dislike of SUN, but I do dislike the zealots who are out there (please take a bow) who won't accept that there are viable alternatives out there and think that the IT world revolves around SUN.

I don't care much for IBM either - they do use FUD and selective benchmarking (i.e. certain workloads etc) - sound familiar - believe me dealing with them is a pain.

HP can be a pain as well by plodding on with old products that aren't as competitive as they should be in the UNIX and Storage space.

To me the vendors are like politicians lots of good stories but not always delivering on them

If you really want to get your message across in a constructive manner then stop being such a patronising arse

Adam 61
Thumb Up

Re: Nice work

Couldn't agree more,

I can't think of another individual who has polarised my opinion of SUN so much, his sheer arrogance and ability to alienate the reader is beyond belief.

I now have an irrational dislike of SUN simply because of Kebabmuppet, which is a bit unfair on SUN but as the saying goes People buy from People so tough!

Adios Kebabburp May the Schwarz be with you

Adam 61
WTF?

The ravings of a lunatic

In a world of blind people the one eyed man is King, unfortunately the world is not blind so the one eyed man is just, well, one eyed.

Peeps you must remember the rules when talking to our Special friend Mr K - he's very special... about his "debates". They often turn into mass debates......

1) You are not allowed to express opinion or personal experience despite your industry knowledge or accumen (I wonder if Larry expressed his Opinion what the reaction would be??)

2) You are only allowed to use SUN friendly benchmarks from a SUN approved source (i.e. BMSeer)

3) You are not allowed to use any irony or wit (its deadly serious this IT stuff)

4) All people who use non Siebel related benchmarks that do not show T2 Niagara CPU's in a good light to back up their own arguements will be shot. These are plainly lies subliminally implemented by the IBM thought Police.

5) He's always right - the rest of us are completely brainwashed by IBM or HP and he is the paragon of the IT world - all hail

Now Mr K tootle off and play World of Warcraft, watch Avatar or whatever - its obvious you don't know how to work with people.

IBM's XIV roadmap includes multiple frames and InfiniBand

Adam 61

....And HP's EVA

with the way it stripes the content across all the drives.......

Blade servers are hot!

Adam 61

RE: David Halko

David,

I suspect this is because SUN has very limited market share compared with HP, IBM and Dell in the Blade segment.

Check out Gartners assessment and latest magic quadrant if you don't believe me! They class them as a Niche player due to their current limited market penetration compared to the Big 3.

PS there are other Blade vendors as well if you want to take up their case i.e. Fujitsu, Hitachi, Verari, Liquid and others

IBM: Power7 to rollout throughout 2010

Adam 61
Thumb Up

Re last AC

I agree and I have credited them for that if you read my post, however due to the nature of peoples jobs its not always something thats referenceable due to confidentiality. Unfortunately people do use this to their advantage to promote misinformation but thats the nature of free speech.

Citing benchmarks is fine - but how realistic are they in the context of what people do on a day to day basis? If all we can point to is super tuned benchmarks that don't use real configs that people can deploy in the real commercial world then how are they more relevant than someones opinion based on experience? Of course one is subjective and the other objective and thats the fundamental difference.

One point Mr Bryant consistently makes is that the best thing to do is bench real configurations with your app stack and make your own mind up. To me thats a sensible point of view as it means you aren't getting false expectations based on a benchmark for a server that is far removed from what you'll actually deploy.

However I also tire of his constant references to "Slowaris" which is just as tedious as Kebbaberts Niagara monologue.

Adam 61
Stop

Re:Kebabbert

I am allowed to be agnostic if I like, its about having an open mind and not being beholden to any particular IT company.

It means I can be impartial when advising people what best fits their requirements rather than shoehorning in a solution that will leave them with a sour taste because its the only thing I can talk about even when its not appropriate. Its what makes me successful in my job and people value my opinion. You see I can appreciate that for some use cases Niagara is appropriate, the same for Power, the same for Xeon/AMD/Itanium, it all depends what they want to do.

The reason I would like you to shut up and the reason I reacted is because you have one arguement, thats the sum of it, you have made your point (repeatedly) and its becoming tedious. Imagine listening to the same song on the radio ad infinitum and thats what you are like. You could have the best arguement in the world but I for one have tuned out to it.

As far as I'm concerned anyone is entitled to their opinion (its not a facist state after all) providing they can back it up with reasoned debate. In fairness to you, you do attempt to do this where not all others do, but you can't go around calling everyone liars and morons where they have a conflicting view based on their personal experiences.

Who are you to call them a liar, have you worked in their environment? No you haven't.

Have you any non benchmark related real IT experience? its impossible to tell as you only talk about benches.

Yes you are entitled to your opinion, all i am suggesting is you bring something new to the table

Adam 61
Coffee/keyboard

RE: AC Sick of Squabbling & Kebbabert

Me too hence the post and it was hardly self serving, I'm neither a SUN or IBM fan really, pretty agnostic in the scheme of things.

True MB does throw the first one here but at least its with some semblance of a sense of humour (unfortunately Kebbabert hasn't got one of these from the evidence I've seen on various debates). He says he is fed up of trolls and fudders, I think he is turning into what he claims to loathe.

Why would any sane person claim that people who have opinions are morons, everyone is entitled to have one, just because it doesn't agree with your veiwpoint doesn't mean they are a moron. What it does make is the poster a very small minded individual with no concept of actually holding a debate. Propoganda is not a debate!

And as for feeling sorry for me then that had me in stitches, I have a life thanks. It looks like Kebbaberts consists of reading Niagara benchmarks and Solaris user manuals.

The reality of the CPU benchmark is that it really doesn't matter. IT is increasingly controlled by the bean counters and they only really care about reducing risk, increasing profits and reducing cost of ownership.

Unless you can translate these features into true business benefits then good luck selling it.

Cue various unsubstantiated accusations of being a liar/fudder etc etc ad infinitum

Truly guys its getting boring!

Adios for now

Adam 61
WTF?

Kebbabert please shut up

Stop raving on like an automaton about bloody Niagara, I think everyone has had enough of this to last them a lifetime (please back me up here guys!)

Just change the record man its getting extremely boring!!! Not every debate has to turn into a Niagara benchmark debate, have you got any other points of view???

Sun, Fujitsu crank Sparc64-VII clocks

Adam 61
Stop

Broken Record

I'm beginning to think that Kebbabert is an automated program that runs whenever MB spouts some stuff at SUN. I've seen this response sooo many times its getting boring

STOP,...well please stop..the pair of you

Gartner confirms crap Q2 server sales

Adam 61
Badgers

re:asdf

I don't think Alpha is all it was cracked up to be, for example I've worked with customers who had OpenVMS on Alpha and have now moved to Itanium and they are really pleased with it, mostly because it completely kicks the ar5e end out of their old Alpha boxes (Which were EV7's so no slouches) on performance as well as delivering the same level of reliability at a much reduced cost.

Having worked in this area for some time now the Itanium chip isn't all that bad, its not got the raw grunt of Power or the market penetration of Sparc, but its still a decent reliable chip that does a pretty good job and importantly gives customers a choice to keep the market honest and interesting. I think the biggest issue Itanium has is that the 1st gen chips were a POS! The current ones aren't too bad though.

Adam 61
FAIL

More like SUN is cheaper??

So HP sells 8,358 boxes at $713.7m so circa $84k average sale price per server

SUN sells 30,977 boxes at $850.3m so circa $26k average sale price per server

So looks to me like SUN is owning the low end, with HP selling more into the mid-range and high end?? Nothing new here SUN has always owned the lower end of the UNIX market particularly in EMEA.

Possibly the big hits that SUN have had (down 47.2%) are in the high end where they have been hit by the demise of ROCK as their low end looks to be fairly strong based on shipments

I don't think its anything to do with confidence just same old buying patterns

SUN = lots of lower cost boxes serving the low to mid tier

HP & IBM = fewer higher cost boxes serving the mid- higher end

I would think that due to the average sale price that HP's retained margins will be better than SUN's but who knows

But hell its just statistics!

I would be quite so triumphant here as both companies are doing toilet,

Dot Hill punts array of disk arrays

Adam 61
IT Angle

Anyone with any sense....

.....Would never use an MSA for anything approaching 5 9's availablity. At the end of the day you get what you pay for. If availability is the driving factor you don't buy a cheap box like the MSA.

In fact I'm pretty sure HP don't market them as 5 9's, for that they want you to buy at least an EVA or XP (if you need serious availability). Pretty sure they position MSA as 3 9's from the presentations I've seen.

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