Thoughts on EMC Symmetrix storage systems?

We love NetApp unified storage and I'd agree that normally NetApp is less upfront, but with dedpulication (block level) it is less expensive over time. One question though is what the storage platform is for? What are the requirements? What is the data footprint?

My company (and I) have sold and implemented DMX/Symmetrix solutions from EMC, as well as a few others.
The performance of a Symmetrix is largely recognized as one of, if not the, top Enterprise arrays to put in your data center, and it does not disappoint. Recently, EMC has slightly altered the naming of the line, and refers to this platform as the "V-Max"; this is also a building block of the VCE (VMware-Cisco-EMC) coalition and solution which is the "V-Block".
My company and I have more insight and information to any interested. Please contact me at dustin.avol@nexusis.com.

Thanks
Dustin

If your organization requires the highest levels of uptime and has high I/O requirements, you won't be disappointed with the Symmetrix line. You will find that the Symmetrix will always lag a bit behind mid-tier providers, but that is because they will not release new features until they are perfected. I am really looking forward to the release os F.A.S.T 2, which is coming at the end of the year. It will provide block level automated tiering. This will migrate blocks of data, which require higher service levels, to faster disk on the fly. The reult will be fewer 10k and 15k purchases and higher performance.

I've always opted for HDS over EMC every time. I don't care fo the Direct-Matrix architecture compared to the switched architecture HDS has (HiStar Crossbar). It is much less flexible than switch-based architectures and could potentially be full of bottlenecks (depending on your IO profile). NetApp is a great NAS vendor, but definitely not a major player in the fibre channel world (multiple layers of virtualization just to stuff a file-based system into a block-based protocol). They've also followed the same pattern that GM did in the auto industry - become the best in your environment, then just sit back on your laurels. Now that other vendors have caught up, they're playing catch up.
For my money, I'll always put my company's data on HDS. Trust them with my job every time (that's from experience too).

The other pain point that most other storage platforms have with data
warehouse luns, which is mostly reads, is that the luns are only one
raid level by way of either raid 10, raid 5 or 50 or raid 6 or 60.
Most data warehouse luns are strictly raid 5 or raid 6 for dual parity
this makes batch updates a little slower because writing data at these
raid levels are usually much slower due to parity calculations. To fix
this problem the luns must be converted to raid 10, then the cost
problem comes into play by having all of the data in the lun at raid
10 and that is not very effective.

wouldn't it be great to have the lun be both at the same time, writes
will be performed at raid 10, the data will be progressed to raid 5
after it is written where reads across the warehouse will be performed
at better access levels and more efficient data storage than what raid
10 provides.

Data is always fluid and ever changing or aging so having a fluid
storage array will provide the best performance at the lowest cost
because less of the high performance drives are needed as compared to
other storage systems due to the fluid architecture that Compellent
delivers.

Most application data blocks are 20% active while 80% are inactive and
become stale, Compellent is the only storage platform out there that
can actually house the data within a single lun across multiple raid
levels and multiple tiers of storage. This reduces cost and increases
performance.

Personally I'd highly recommend you look at 3PAR. Our customers are rapidly moving off HP XP/EVA, EMC/Dell, HDS, NetApp and adopting a 3PAR storage strategy due to the immense advantages this storage offers from all aspects. 3PAR HQ is not far from you - Fremont. Don't make the mistake of not looking into this highly disruptive technology! It's way ahead of any other storage technology today.
Check them out at www.3par.com too.

Any enterprise level SAN implementation project should look at the options available at the time of purchase. This is just too major of a decision to leave up to overall feelings or forum posts.

Bias note, I work for IBM on enterprise class storage (I am not in sales, but on the technical side).

If you truly have this kind of implementation pending, most vendors would be interested in a proof of concept, trial, or loaner program.

Depending on your IO profile, IBM XIV may be an appropriate storage platform, and I am sure an IBM buisness partner or solutions architect would be more then interested in chatting.

Comparing storage head to head in your environment is the best way to determine what is best for your environment. You have to invest some time and effort into this, it's not as easy as just picking a storage based on spec sheets, but it is far more effective.

Hi everyone! This is a really good discussion on different unified storage options. It looks like a lot of you are EMC fans already. For those who don’t know EMC’s solutions as well, I think this paper will help you see that they’ve got some really great options. And check out the new guarantee: with EMC’s unified storage systems you’ll use 20% less raw storage capacity than with other products. That means efficiency and cost savings for your company. http://bit.ly/ao57rm -- Brian, EMC Social Outreach Team