Users Quit EMC over Replication

"Two former users of EMC Corp.'s storage said they replaced gear from EMC with products from other vendors last year because competitors offered simpler product packages for replication, while EMC spent the year caught in a flurry of acquisitions that made its portfolio more confusing.

"Both Integrated Systems Corp. (ISCorp) and Stephens Media Group, now Compellent Technologies Inc. and Network Appliance Inc. (NetApp) customers respectively, had multiple problems with EMC, according to their IT personnel, but the last straw for both was a struggle with replication software.

"We wanted to do replication over IP from our Fibre Channel Clariion CX300 at our primary site to our DR site," said Scott Rodenhuis, chief technology officer for ISCorp. The first stumbling block, according to Rodenhuis, was the need for a Fibre Channel over IP (FCIP) converter to make EMC's Mirrorview or SANCopy replication software work with the older Clariion array.

Rodenhuis said the second problem was that the quote EMC sent for adding replication to the Clariion system, which included a required upgrade to the CX500 model, was out of his price range -- all told, by about $100,000. "It was very expensive, and it would have required the management of several different pieces to make it work," he said."


Source:
Beth Pariseau
SearchStorage.com
March 6, 2007
(Full Text)