Hey guys!   I was sitting here today, minding my own business… when the following tweet showed up in one of my search columns! (Why yes I do search on NetApp, and every major vendor in the Industry that I know a real lot about, I like to stay topical! oh and RT job opportunities… I know peoples ;))

So I thought “Well Hey! I’d like to understand the challenges associated with NetApp’s Deduplication! Let’s get down to business!”

I click the little link which takes me to THIS PAGE where I fill out a form to receive my “Complimentary White Paper” ooh, yay!   And let me tell you, other than the abusive form (Oh lovely… who makes people fill out FORMS for content.. yea I know, I know..) this thing looked pretty damn sweet!   FYI: By sweet, I mean it looks so professional, so nice, like a solid Marketing Group got their hands on this and prettified it! I mean look at it!

Tell me that doesn’t look damn professional! Hell, I’d even at first pass with NO knowledge, take everything contained within that document at face value as the truth, I mean cmon let’s cover the facts here.

1. This whitepaper looks SWEET! It’s all logo’d out and everything too!
2. It’s only 8 pages; that speaks of SOLID content including not only text, but pictures and CITING evidence! Sweet right?!
3. And you said it; right there on the first page is says “BUSINESS WHITE PAPER” Tell me that does not spell PRO all over it.

So what I’m thinking is, clearly this has been vetted by a set of experts who have validated the data and ensured that it is correct; or at least within the context of the information consider the footer of this document claims to have been published January 2011.  So this CLEARLY should be current.

Yea… No. Not Quite.  Quite the opposite? I guess it may be time to explain though! But before I go there, Disclaimer time!

HP’s Disclaimer at the bottom of the document:

© Copyright 2011 Hewlett?Packard Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice. The only warranties for HP products and services are set forth in the express warranty statements accompanying such products and services. Nothing herein should be construed as constituting an additional warranty. HP shall not be liable for technical or editorial errors or omissions contained herein.

My Disclaimer for what you’re about to read:

I do not work for HP and I have nothing against HP.  I do not work for NetApp and have nothing against NetApp.  Yea I work for EMC – Wait, aren’t you the competition?! WHY ARE YOU RAGGING ON HP FOR THEIR POORLY WRITTEN PAPER?! I think that falls in line because, when *I* Publish something attacking NetApp’s deduplication I do the homework and validate it (Except for when I quote external third parties… Yea I don’t do that anymore because… you end up with a mess like this document that HP has released ;))  OMG Seriously?! Seriously HP!? You’ve spurned me to write this because you upset my competitive nature.   With that said, let’s get down to brass tacks.     Secondary Disclaimer:  I had forgotten I read this originally when this post came out HP Launches an Unprovoked Attack on NetApp Deduplication and you know what? between seeing it circulate AGAIN and having me fill out a form… yea Sean following bad data with bad data is #fail either way.    Tertiary Disclaimer; a lot of the ‘concerns’ and ‘considerations’ addressed in the HP Paper which they’re claiming StoreOnce is the bees knees can solve, are actually readily solved with Industry Best of Breed Avamar and Data Domain, let alone leveraging VNX Deduplication and Compression, but I won’t go there because that is outside of the boundaries of this particular post :)

The paper has been broken down into the following sections; “Challenge #, blah blah blah, maybe cited evidence, Takeaway” I plan to… give you the gist of the paper without quoting it verbatim (that’s like the paper itself!) but also not removing the context, and sprinkling commentary and sarcasm as needed ;)

Challenge #1:  Primary deduplication: Understanding the tradeoffs

This section has a lot of blah blah blah in it, but I’ll quote two areas which have CITED references;

While some may find this surprising given the continuing interest in optimization technologies, primary deduplication can impose some potentially significant performance penalties on the network.1

Primary data is random in nature. Deduplicating data leads to various data blocks being written to multiple places. NetApp’s WAFL file system exasperates the problem by writing to the free space nearest to the disk head. Reading the data involves recompiling these blocks into a format presentable to the application. This data reassembly overhead mandates a performance impact, commonly 20–50 percent.2

I particularly love this section for two reasons; one it’s VERY solid in its choice of words “can impose” not will impose, but it’s like “maybe?!?” This it not a game of “can” I have a cookie vs “may I have a cookie”, this is a white paper right? Give me some facts to work off of guys.   Oh, I said two reasons didn’t I.  Well, here is Reason #2 – Here’s the citing! [1 End Users Hesitate on Primary Deduplication; TheInfoPro TIP Insight, October 21, 2010]  I’ll chalk up to the possibility that I am clearly an IDIOT but I was unable to find the “Source” of this data.  So… soft language… inability to validate a point, sweet!

But wait, let me discuss the second citing for a second, yea let me do that.    I won’t go into WTF they’re saying in how they’re citing this as this is not an extensive and deep analysis of how WAFL and Data ONTAP operate but I decided “Whoa excellent backing data! Let me checking out that citing shall I?!”  So I go to the source [2 Evaluator Group, August, 2010] and I find… I can pay, $1999 to get this data!   Excellent! First idea which came to mind, “I should write stupid papers and then sell the data at MASSIVELY high costs.. nah I’ll stick to factual blog posts”   Yea, so I’m 0 for 2 in being able to “Validate” whatever these sources happen to be sharing, I’m sure you’ll be in the same boat too.    Oh but the best part? Let’s take a moment and read the Take Away, shall we?!

Takeaway – Deduplication is often the wrong technology for data reduction of primary storage.

OMG SERIOUSLY? THAT IS SERIOUSLY YOUR TAKEAWAY?! It’s like a cake made up of layers of soft language, filled it with unverifiable sources.   And it’s not like this is even very GOOD FUD, it’s just so… Ahh!!!!!! A number of us (non-netappians) got so pissed off when we read this, I mean SERIOUSLY?!?

Relax.. Relax, it can’t get any worse than that right?

Challenge #2: Fixed vs. variable chunking

Wow this reads like an advertisement for Avamar.  But seriously, this for the most part only discusses the differences between Fixed and Variable chunking, more educational than anything.  Not a whole lot for me to discuss other than noting the similarities in their message to the Industry Leading Avamar.

Takeaway – Using variable chunking allows HP StoreOnce D2D solutions to provide a more intelligent and effective approach for deduplication.

Wow Christopher, you’re getting tame.. you let them slide on that one!

Challenge #3: Performance issues and high deduplication ratios

NetApp suffers performance issues with high deduplication ratios; something NetApp engineers said on a post to the NetApp technical forum.3

NetApp is so concerned about the performance of their deduplication technology that Chris Cummings, senior director of data protection solutions for NetApp told CRN customers must acknowledge the “chance of performance degradation when implementing the technology” should they turn on the technology.4

Okay, sweet! Let’s rock this out! Not only do they have CITED sources of this data (You know I love it when I have data to refer to!) but they even provide embedded links so I can click to go directly to the data! (WOOHOO!)  And like any good detective… I did visit those links.   It was upon visiting those two links that two things came back to me. “Hmm, Chris Cummings quote from 2008.   Hmm, Forum conversation from 2009…” … Yea I was still AT NetApp during those two periods, OMG SERIOUSLY HP YOU’RE QUOTING DATA FROM 3 OR MORE YEARS AGO?!?! How can you NOT expect me to put that in caps?    Let’s take a little journey down almost ANY product or dev company for a moment… I’d like to visit VMware in this particular scenario.

“VMware is great for Virtualization applications, Oh, but not Mission Critical Applications, it’s not stable for that.  Do not virtualize mission critical applications”.   Yea.  you can almost QUOTE me as having said that. When would I might have said that? Maybe when VMware had GSX out (Pre-ESX days) and our computers were run with the power of Potatoes.    Yea, if you have NO dev cycle and you do not invest in development [Oh no you didn’t make a slighted attack on the MSA/EVA! … No I didn’t ;)]   But if you STOP development all things we’re discussing can absolutely be true! #WeirdAnecdoteOver

So, while I firmly agree in 2008 and 2009 there WERE Performance concerns the likes of which were discussed in those forums.  Very viable, Deduplication in general was maturing, I’m sure every product out there had similar problems (Data Domain which scales based upon CPU – with 4 year old CPUs probably couldn’t perform as well as it can today with our super Nehelem’s etc)    You need to realize it is 2011, we’re in an entirely new decade.  Please stop quoting “Where’s the beef” or making “Hanging Chad” references like Ted Mosby in How I met your mother because while true at the time, not so applicable today.

Takeaway – HP typically finds 95 percent duplicate data in backup and deduplicates the data without impacting performance on the primary array.

I almost forgot the takeaway! (Hey! I’m verbose… You should know that by now!)   So… what I’m hearing you say is… Because HP doesn’t have a native Primary Storage Deduplication solution like NetApp or EMC… there is no performance impact on the primary array! Hooray! Yea… WTF SEAN?  I mean, I guess if I wanted I could repurpose most of this paper to position Avamar which seems a LOT more versatile than HP StoreOnce but okay, let’s move past!

I’m going to lump Challenge #4, #5 and #6 together because they have little to no place in this paper.

Challenge #4: One size fits all
Takeaway – Backup solutions are optimized for sequential data patterns and are purpose built. HP Converged Infrastructure delivers proven solutions. NetApp’s one?size?fits?all approach is ineffective in the backup and deduplication market.
Challenge #5: Backup applications and presentation
Takeaway – NetApp does not provide enough flexibility for today’s complex backup environments.
Challenge #6: Snapshots vs. backup
Takeaway – Snapshots are part of a data protection solution, but are incomplete by themselves. Long?term storage requirements are not addressed effectively by snapshots alone. HP Converged Infrastructure provides industry?leading solutions, including StoreOnce for disk?based deduplication for a complete data protection strategy.

I’m sorry, this is no contest and these points have absolutely no place in a paper educating on the merits and challenges of Deduplication with NetApp.  This definitely has it’s place in a whole series of OTHER competitive and FUD based documents, but not here, not today.

In summary…

Sean… (Yes I know your name!) You wrote this paper for HP right? As a Technologist and Technology Evangelist for that matter, I would absolutely LOVE to learn about the merits, the values, the benefits of what the HP StoreOnce D2D solution brings to market and can do to solve customers challenges.    But honestly man, this paper?   I COMPETE with NetApp and you pissed me off with your fud slinging.   I know *I* can piss off the competition when I sling (FACTS) so just think about it.  We’re a fairly small community, we all know each other for the most part.  (If you’re at Interop in a few weeks, I’ll be at EMCWorld, feel free to txt me and we can meet up and I won’t attack you, I promise ;))    Educate, but please do not release this kind of trash into the community… Beautiful beautiful trash mind you I mean everything I said about how amazingly this was presented, honestly BEST WHITE PAPER EVER. But that has got to be some of the worst most invalid content I’ve encountered in my life. (As applicable to how I stated it :))

I guess I should add a little commercial so someone doesn’t go WTF – I mean what I said above not only about the technologies which were discussed.    If you think StoreOnce is a great solution, then you’ll be floored by Avamar and Data Domain.  They’re not best of breed in the industry without good reason.

Feel free to comment as appropriate, it’s possible this has been exhausted in the past but SERIOUSLY I don’t want to see this again. ;)

Step one you say we need to talk, He walks you say sit down it’s just a talk, He smiles politely back at you, You stare politely right on through.

OMG YES THAT IS RIGHT! Yea.. You have the opportunity to win a free pass! Be sure to click on the link(s) provided (Tip: the big picture is the same link!)

This will take you to not only the rules of engagement (which I’ve hijacked here…. ;)) but takes you through each of the steps of what you need to DO TO WIN!!!  I definitely encourage you to do it.  I mean cmon, one of the best conferences of this year in VEGAS OMG VEGAS and you could WIN! Start EMC World as a winner, and I won’t make any Charlie Sheen references (I refuse to!)  So, act now or forever hold your peace! :)

Win a FREE CUSTOMER PASS to EMC World this year

Rules of engagement

• Contest is open till end of day 22nd of April
• A winner, randomly picked from the pool of entries, will be announced on 25th April, 2011
• The winner will be contacted by a Unified Storage community administrator
• This offer is not applicable to EMC Employees
• EMC World Pass is non-transferrable and cannot be redeemed for cash. This does not include travel, expenses and hotel accommodations.

HOW TO ENTER

     1) Become a registered member of our Unified Storage EMC Community Network and answer this simple question on our discussion:

What are the top 3 sessions at EMC World that you will attend if you win the free pass?

To access agenda of sessions at EMC World, visit www.emcworld.com

• Answering this question in the discussion tab, will get you FIVE entries into this drawing
  

FOR THREE ADDITIONAL ENTRIES

     2) Become a fan of our VNX and VNXe Facebook page  

• Liking our Face book page, will get you ONE additional entry into this drawing

     3) Follow VNX and VNXe on Twitter

• For theTwitter accounts you follow, you will get ONE additional entry each into the drawing
  

Maximum entries into the drawing per participant = 8

Hi guys! You’ve seen me produce videos in the past I’m sure, although it is not that often that *I* am actually IN the videos where you can see me, if even for a moment.  (You let me know if you like that, or not ;))

Through a series of events, I ended up recording this video.  For your reference: This IS a first draft, in an infinite style of regularly updating my style for delivery.  [This was done using a little camera and a tiny mount on not a whole lot of space on a whiteboard… if I went Pro for the next one… you’ll be all OMFG :)]

Initially, I had drawn up some notes of how I’d present this.. so in the effort of WTF and Full disclosure (You know me all too well ;)) These are those preliminary whiteboard/notes.

I did have some other pictures which showed bits and pieces.. but I’m sure you get the gist of it!  So what exactly am I saying with this video, with these whiteboards.. with this.. you know, whatever it is I’m doing here. :)

Three things actually.   One of the cool things about the VNX is that it provides you with:

• Ease of Use – With simplicity of management using Unisphere, vCenter Integration, Single Pane for all arrays
• Maximum Efficiency – With FAST-VP, You can go Thin, and use the right tier at the right time with auto-tiering
• Consistent Performance – The magic of EFDs, QOS, FAST Cache, Wide-Striping, Consolidate and guarantee SLAs

I know what you’re saying “OMFG CHRISTOPHER, ARE YOU IN MARKETING?” No. And I usually stand by that, because I get things done ;).  Yes, I intentionally chose fitting points which happen to coincide with the acronym EMC, you know why? Because for one thing it’s easier to remember. :)  Not to mention, things should truly be easy to work with, and enjoyable; all the while providing an accurate picture of the story at hand!

Look forward to some future series where I actually go into the guts of the system and show you (from my perspective) the how’s and the why’s of these things [Time permitting ofcourse ;)]

So, for now, I leave you with this video.  Take it with a grain of salt, it IS a first-draft cutting room floor version.  As soon as I get my new mbp (April 1st?!) You should see some far better *Perhaps Annoying* videos coming from me ;)

And I know that some of you love me in videos sometimes… so for those of you who want to see me unplugged in an off-the-cuff impromptu interview (No, I’m not drunk), here is the infamous “I’m CXI, I’m from the Internets!” video!

I hope you enjoyed that.   Now, I’d love to hear your feedback. Where you say “Wow, I never thought of it that way” Or, “OMG You’re a total tool!” Yea, I’m game for either of those – Whatever you have to offer up, constructive or otherwise!

Oh, and I also submitted this for an internal contest (Which if I win.. will give me a sweet wrap-around terrace suite at EMC World [Yes, you can all come hang out in my room ;)] So, support away in every way possible! :)

Watch this space for more stupidity, err I mean great content in the future!

OMG! It is THAT time of year again! Are you going to EMC World?  This is definitely the MUST attend event of the year!  (Seriously, you have no idea :))

However, my first call to action for you guys.. is to try to make sure you’re getting hooked up with the FREEBIES if you know you’re going to be going anyway!

A basic chart breaking down what you’re looking at when it comes time to register:

Conference Registration Rates and Breakdowns:

So I decided to take as best of a dive as I could into what these “Special Gifts” are, just to get an idea of what incentive you have to book early (and often?!)

Early Bird Registration Gifts:

Booking your hotel:

Within the Venetian Resort you have the option to select your room to be within the Venetian Tower or the Palazzo Tower. Both towers are equal distance to the conference center. To secure a special conference rate be sure to reference EMC World if you chose to make a phone reservation. All room blocks expire on April 14, 2011.

I cannot emphasize enough because I know a lot of you guys… wait until the day OF the show to book your hotel rooms :)   All Room blocks (at these two hotels) will expire on April 14th, 2011 for this rate.   So just take that to heart when it comes time to book and buy your tickets :)

This is going to be quite the OMG WTF AMAZING EMC World on record, far greater than you can imagine.  And it will ALSO be in Vegas, so if that means a lot to you, further mad crazy times – But in all seriousness, the type of content, the audience, the community, EVERY instance of the value which will come from this event.. this is a MUST attend EMC World.  You think records were broken at our Launch Event on January 18th?  Well, you haven’t seen nothing yet? (Is that grammatically correct?!? :))

What, who, why, Justify to my boss! –

What – (2011 Conference Topics and beyond!)

• Backup, Recovery and Archiving
  Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery
  Cloud Computing
  Content Management and Archiving
  Enterprise Applications and Databases
  Mainframe Platforms
  Partner Solutions
  Security and Compliance
  Storage and IT Management
  Technology Directions and Innovation
  Tiered Storage and Automation
  Virtual Infrastructure

Who – (Meet, Greet, Network, Learn)

• Learn directly from EMC engineers, customers, and partners at 500+ breakout sessions. EMC World’s comprehensive agenda includes keynotes, lectures, live demonstrations, hands-on workshops, and birds-of-a-feather sessions.

Did I mention I’m going to be there?! :) And definitely seek me out and I can hook you up with other like-minded individuals, or others who are either doing what you WANT to do, or have already done it and you can share best practices (No, not marketing fluff, but actual real customers, engineers and beyond, networking seeds networking! :))

Why – (Content, Content, Content)

• Challenge your expertise with offerings including tutorials, business tracks, technical training, and developer sessions ranging from novice to expert.

Are you a novice looking to seed your knowledge? Excellent.  Are you an expert, guru, ninja, and you find that no one understands you? Go yell at engineers! (That’s what I do ;))   This is the perfect opportunity whether you’re at the top of your game or just getting involved in the industry.   No stone unturned, you will be able to enhance your knowledge, take things to a new level and become an even greater champion than you already are today! (Champions ARE made just by attending EMC World)  Literally, seek me out and I’ll make sure you’re getting the MOST out of your entire experience – I do it at every show I attend. ;)

Justify to my boss – (Whoa, this is in Vegas, my boss won’t approve that!)

I haven’t seen an official write up ‘slick’ on this yet, so I am writing this FOR you.  I’ve had to do this in the past for past events (VMworld, Microsoft TechEd, Past EMC Worlds, TEC, etc)   You go to your management and you scream “I want to learn, I want to educate myself in order to better drive value into the environment, I need to network with my peers, and see the up and coming and be PART of the future instead of waiting for us to eventually get there”.   Yea, but this is what your management sees. “Jim wants to go to Vegas for a week, blah blah blah conference”  

Do you find yourself in this situation?  If so, let me know (And let others know) I’ll try to make sure you have the right resources to help PROVE this out in your environment.  Whether you’re an EMC Customer today, or one in the future; this will be the value of a life time.   If you spent the entire time in sessions never meeting a single person you will gain benefit and an experience which will pay dividends in your home environment; step outside that shell a little bit and all of a sudden you will become a champion unlike that you’ll ever have seen!  

Do not hesitate to educate! I’ll personally call your management if you’d like and help them understand the value (I’ll get whoever your local account team is involved just to make sure I’m not blindsiding them ;))   But seriously, now is the time to SAVE, as well as to LEARN!   Hop to it!

So, good luck, enjoy and lets all meet up in Vegas for what will be an experience of a life time, this is ground breaking in every possible fashion!  

I’m sure by now you’ve read the VERY good articles about the VNXe such as:

• VNXe: Cherry Bomb! (StorageZilla Mark Twomey)
• Introducing The VNX Family (Chuck Hollis)
• VNXe (Steve Todd)
• VNXe = incredible things.. in tiny, transformer-like packages! (Chad Sakac)

Well, as typically promised.. here is my EXPOSE’ Or however you want to look at it, because I try to see these things through your ever careful eyes to wonder behind the scenes just EXACTLY what may be going on!

Disclaimer: I’m not sure how much of this I’m supposed to share, so I’ll deal with the fall-out and you enjoy the content :)

Let’s Get Physical [Physical Specifications]

This looks pretty straight forward – It’s VERY clear on exactly what is going on with these systems (Well, sort of)  I want to draw your attention to a few things so we’ll all be on the same page!  

• Note the different drive enclosures between the VNXe3100 and the VNXe3300 – 12×3.5” in 2U and 15×3.5” in 3U
• The CPU/Memory is PER Controller with each model able to support up to 2 controllers [VNXe3300 is 2 controllers by default]
• It’s not covered in these Physical Specifications; but I feel it important to call out Max # of drives and DAEs
  • VNXe3100 Single Controller 48 drives, VNXe3100 Dual Controller 96 drives; VNXe3300 120 drives

Are you Flexible? [FLEX IO Module Options]

Also fairly straight forward right! – Only thing I’d like to point out is the support for 10GBe on the VNXe3300!

It’s a DISK DAE! [Supported disk Add-on Enclosures (DAES) – Supported Disk Drives]

Here it breaks it down for you, the differences between the DAEs available (You’ll note that these are all 15K or 7.2K [other than the Flash] – The VNX has a 2.5” DAE which supports 10K drives but not in the VNXe – Just so you don’t go “whoa! Where are the 10Ks at?!” :))   – There are more details and more located in the Specification Sheet: EMC VNXe Series Unified Storage Systems

Save More with Packaging! [EMC VNXe Series Software Packs]

I spent some time last week going through simulations on cost benefit analysis (blah blah blah) of building configurations with the Suites (and packs) and with simply requesting each item on their own – to see what the pricing would look like: Truth be told; OMG THE PACKAGES WORK – It’s actually EASIER to simply choose a suite than it is to play games and say “I’d only like the potatoes but please leave out the application protection suite”  So, make it easier on yourself and try to build the full package into your future instead of trying to piecemeal together a configuration and a solution, your data will be happier for it! :)   There are more details on these packages in the Data Sheet: EMC VNXe Series Software Packs

Hopefully this helps you get a better understanding of some of the details you frankly REALLY want to know when it comes to understanding this platform a little better.    If you’re looking to go even deeper, let me know and I’ll take the conversation there in a future blog post!    Thanks! Hope you find this useful!

Here are some rocking VNXe documents!   (Powerlink required – If any links do not work… Yea, I wasn’t supposed to share that then :))

• Data Sheet: EMC VNXe Series
• Data Sheet: EMC VNXe Series Software Packs
• Data Sheet: EMC VNX Series Total Efficiency Pack
• Specification Sheet: EMC VNXe Series Unified Storage Systems
• Customer Presentation: EMC VNXe Series
• Top 10 Reasons Why Customers Deploy Microsoft Applications with Hyper-V on EMC VNXe
• Top 10 Reasons Why Customers Deploy Microsoft Applications with VMware vSphere Essentials on EMC VNXe