Cisco just wait and get NetApp cheap later

Cisco just wait and get NetApp cheap later

This article is an interesting take on storage today. Don’t think this guy is right with DAS being a player. I get around that booting UCS Blades to XIO and most companies find a similar method when needing high IOPS. Storage in the server is archaic! NetApp is a coal burner in my opinion and its only value is VMware integration. That value will fade as hyper-v 2012 slowly hands VMware its own ass. The current UCS VMware integration doesn’t offer much and does not depend on storage type anyway so would not say NetApp offers a pro with UCS that other NAS devices do not. Applications on storage controllers are “stupid” and will die like parachute pants and 80’s hair styles. This article is not breaking new ground saying raid groups suck, even EMC is using Isilon style storage pools as a standard and dumping raid groups along with Latin as a standard to write technical manuals on stone tablets. HP moved to pool based storage like 10 years ago I think. Good rule of thumb when buying storage, if it uses raid groups it is crap.

Think Cisco buying NetApp would be a neutral purchase. Could push the UCS vBlock with Netapp, but it already exists. I like the partnership of two companies doing what they do best for the vBlocks. EMC bought Isilon because it is way better than Netapp. Think Cisco should wait until NetApp is worthless and buy it right before EMC does. Netapp is an overvalued full of itself company like SUN used to be. Given time Cisco can get it cheap.

Here’s a free tip, Cisco: DON’T buy NetApp unless you’re crazy • The Register
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/12/17/cisco_netapp_no_way/