Tag Archives: Gartner

Can NetApp do it a bit better?

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[Preamble: I was a delegate of Storage Field Day 12. My expenses, travel and accommodation were paid for by GestaltIT, the organizer and I was not obligated to blog or promote the technologies presented in this event]

In Day 2 of Storage Field Day 12, I and the other delegates were hustled to NetApp’s Sunnyvale campus headquarters. That was a homecoming for me, and it was a bit ironic too.

Just 8 months ago, I was NetApp Malaysia Country Manager. That country sales lead role was my second stint with NetApp. I lasted almost 1 year.

17 years ago, my first stint with NetApp was the employee #2 in Malaysia as an SE. That SE stint went by quickly for 5 1/2 years, and I loved that time. Those Fall Classics NetApp used to have at the Batcave and the Fortress of Solitude left a mark with me, and the experiences still are as vivid as ever.

Despite what has happened in both stints and even outside the circle, I am still one of NetApp’s active cheerleaders in the Asia Pacific region. I even got accused by being biased as a community leader in the SNIA Malaysia Facebook page (unofficial but recognized by SNIA), because I was supposed to be neutral. I have put in 10 years to promote the storage technology community with SNIA Malaysia. [To the guy named Stanley, my response was be “Too bad, pick a religion“.]

The highlight of the SFD12 NetApp visit was of course, having lunch with Dave Hitz, one of the co-founders and the one still remaining. But throughout the presentations, I was unimpressed.

For me, the only one which stood out was CloudSync. I have read about CloudSync since NetApp Insight 2016 and yes, it’s a nice little piece of data shipping service between on-premise and AWS cloud.

Here’s how CloudSync looks like:

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Novell Filr about to be revealed

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My training engagement landed me in Manila this week. At the back of my mind is Novell Filr, first revealed to me a week ago by my buddy at Novell Malaysia. After almost 18 months since I first wrote about it, Novell Filr is about to be revealed in my blog within this month. And it has come at an opportune time, because the enterprise BYOD/file synchronization market is about to take off.

Gartner defines this market as Enterprise File Synchronization and Sharing (EFSS) and it is already a very crowded market given the popularity of Dropbox, Box.net, Sugarsync and many, many others. It is definitely a market that is coveted by many but mastered by a few. There are just too many pretenders and too few real players.

The proliferation of smart phones and tablets and other mobile devices has opened up a burgeoning need to have data everywhere. The wonderfulness of having data right at the fingertips every time they are wanted give rise to the need of wanting business and corporate data to be available as well. The power of having data instantly at the swipe of our fingers on the touchscreen is akin us feeling like God, giving life to our communication and us making opportunities come alive at the very moment. Continue reading →

It’s all about executing the story

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I have been in hibernation mode, with a bit of “writer’s block”.

I woke up in Bangalore in India at 3am, not having adjusted myself to the local timezone. Plenty of things were on my mind but I can’t help thinking about what’s happening in the enterprise storage market after the Gartner Worldwide External Controller-Based report for 4Q12 came out  last night. Below is the consolidated table from Gartner:

Just a few weeks ago, it was IDC with its Worldwide Disk Storage Tracker and below is their table as well:

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The reports are out!

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It’s another quarter and both Gartner and IDC reports on disk storage market are out.

What does it take to slow down EMC, who is like a behemoth beast mowing down its competition? EMC, has again tops both the charts. IDC Worldwide Disk Storage Tracker for Q1 of 2012 puts EMC at 29.0% of the market share, followed by NetApp at 14.1%, and IBM at 11.4%. In fourth place is HP with 10.2% and HDS is placed fifth with 9.4%.

In the Gartner report, EMC has the lead of 32.5%, followed by NetApp at 12.7% and IBM with 11.0%. HDS held fourth place at 9.5% and HP is fifth with 9.0%. Continue reading →

NetApp to buy Commvault?

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The rumour mill is going again that Commvault is an acquisition target, and this time, NetApp. The rumour is not new but someone Commvault has gotten too big in the past couple of years to be swallowed up. But this time, it could happen as NetApp is hungry, …. very hungry.

NetApp took a big hit a couple of weeks back, when it announced its Q3 numbers. Revenues fell short of analysts expectations and the share price took a big hit. While its big rival, EMC, has been gaining much momentum on all fronts, it appears that NetApp is getting overwhelmed by the one-stop-shop of EMC. EMC is everything to everyone who wants storage, data protection software, services, data management, scale-out, data security, big data, cloud storage and virtualization and much more. NetApp, has been very focused on what they do best, and that is storage. Everything evolves around their crown jewel, Data ONTAP and recently added Engenio to their stable of storage solutions.

NetApp does not mix the FAS storage with the Engenio and making sure that their story-telling gels but in the past few years, many other vendors are taking the “one-stack-fits-all” approach. Oracle have Exadata, where servers, storage, database and networking in all-in-one. Many others are doing the same, while NetApp prefers a more “loose-coupled” partnerships, such as their “Imagine Virtually Anything” concept partnership with VMware and Cisco, in the shape of FlexPod. FlexPod is a flexible infrastructure package comprising presized storage, networking and server components designed to ease the IT transformation journey–from virtualization all the way to cloud computing.

Commvault would be a great buy (going to be very expensive buy) for NetApp. Things fits perfectly if NetApp decides to abandon its overly protective shield and start becoming a “one-stop-shop” to its customers, starting with data protection. Commvault is already the market leader in the Enterprise Disk-based Backup and Recovery market, and well reflected in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant January 2011 report.

It’s amazing to see how Commvault got to become the leader in this space in just a few short years, and part of its unique approach is providing a common core engine called the Common Technology Engine (CTE). The singular core architecture allows different data management components – Backup, Replication, Archiving, Resource Management and Classification & Search – to share resource and more importantly detailed knowledge of true data management.

In the middle of this year, NetApp had an OEM deal with Commvault to resell their SnapProtect solution, which integrates with NetApp’s SnapMirror solution. The SnapProtect manages NetApp snapshots and SnapMirror replications and also enhances the solution as a tape-out for SnapMirror. Below shows how the Commvault SnapProtect fits into NetApp’s snapshots and SnapMirror data protection architecture.

 

Sources of NetApp’s C-Level said that NetApp is still very much focused on their ONTAP strategy and with their “loosely-coupled” partnerships with key partners like VMware, Cisco, F5 and Quantum. But at the back of NetApp’s mind, I believe, it is time to do something about it. This “focused” (also could be interpreted an overly cautious) approach is probably seeing the last leg of its phase as cloud computing is changing all that. The cost of integration of different, yet flexible components of storage, data protection and data management components, is prohibitive to cloud service providers and NetApp must take a bolder approach to win the hearts of these providers. Having a one-stop-shop isn’t so bad anymore; it is beginning to make sense and NetApp had better do something quick. Commvault is one of the best out there and NetApp shouldn’t lose that chance.

Note: While the rumours of NetApp and Commvault are swirling, there’s been rumours that Quantum could be another NetApp target. 

Gartner figures about the storage market – Half year report

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After the IDC report a couple of weeks back, Gartner released their Worldwide External Controller-Based (ECB) Disk Storage Market report last week. The Gartner reports mirrors the IDC report, which confirms the situation in the storage market, and it’s good news!

Asia Pacific and Latin America are 2 regions which are experiencing tremendous growth, with 27.9% and 22.4% respectively. This means that the demand of storage networking and data management professionals is greater than ever. I have always maintained that it is important for professionals like us to enhance our technical and technology know-how to ride on the storage growth momentum.

So from the report, there are no surprises. Below is a table to summarizes the Gartner report.

 

As you can see, HP lost market share together with Dell, Fujitsu and Oracle. Oracle is focusing its energies on its Exadata platform (and it’s all about driving more database license sales), and hence their 7000-series is suffering. Despite Fujitsu partnership with NetApp and EMC, and also with its Eternus storage, lost ground as well.

Dell seems to be losing ground too, but that could be the after effects of divorcing EMC after picking up Compellent early this year. Dell should be able to bounce back as there are reports stating that Compellent is picking up a good pace for Dell. One of the reports is here.

The biggest loser of the last quarter is HP. Even though it has a 0.3% of a market drop, things does not seem so rosy as I have been observing their integration of 3PAR since the purchase late last year. No doubt they are firing all cylinders, but 3PAR does not seem to be helping HP to gain market share (yet). The mid-tier has to be addressed as well and having the old-timer EVA at the helm is beginning to show split ends. Good for the hairdresser; not good for HP. IBRIX and LeftHand complete most of HP storage line-up.

HDS is gaining ground as their storage story is beginning to gel quite well. Coupled with some great moves consolidating their services business and also their Deal Operations Center (DOC) in Kuala Lumpur, simplifies the customers doing business with them. Every company has its challenges but I am beginning to see quite a bit of traction from HDS in the local business scene.

IBM also increased market share with a 0.2% jump. Rather tepid overall but I was informed by an IBMer that their DS8000s and XIVs are doing great in the South East Asia Region. Kudos but again IBM still has to transform its mid-tier DS4000/5000 business, which IBM OEMs the storage backend from NetApp Engenio.

EMC and NetApp are the 2 juggernauts. EMC has been king of the hill for many quarters, and I have been always surprised how nimble EMC is, despite being an 800 pound gorilla. NetApp has proven its critics wrong. For many quarters it has been taking market share and that is reflected in the Gartner Half Year Report below:

 

There you have it folks. The Gartner WW ECB Disk Storage Report. Again, I just want to mention that this is a wonderful opportunity for us doing storage and data management solutions. The demand is there for experienced and skilled professionals but we have to be good, really good to compete with the rest.