Dell SC Series / Compellent (discontinued) vs. Oracle ZFS

All in all this series great in addressing issues applications that need flash storage as a backend storage supply. It addresses the need for fast, responsive servers that need to boot quickly. It is easy to use and for the most part there are few issues and none that can't be addressed/fixed quickly.

Incentivized

For scenarios where the implementation is an Oracle ecosystem and the need for high-performance storage is present, undoubtedly the ideal solution is Oracle ZFS due to the native integration that exists, for example, with SPARC equipment, Exadata, and traditional architecture running Oracle Linux or Solariums (depending on the case), as well as in highly demanding industries in terms of storage.

Incentivized

• Dell Compellent support (Co-Pilot) and the add-on service (Optimize) are critical services that Dell Compellent does very well. Alerts from the array are sent to Co-Pilot where tickets are automatically generated and customers are notified of events. Of greater importance at times is the proactive support Co-Pilot and Optimize provide by contacting us of inefficiencies in the array and consulting on resolutions.
• Enterprise Manager (Dell's "single pane of glass" management framework) is a useful tool for configuration/evaluation of the array and other Compellent products.
• Ease of management. From firmware upgrades to managing server volumes the process is much simpler than with other arrays.

Incentivized

• Software RAIDZ. Create storage arrays using best available RAID technologies for excellent disk stability
• Array images and backups. Allows administrators to instantly create disk snapshots, to minimize time disk is unavailable (on the order of seconds, not minutes or hours).
• Automatic de-deduplication/compression. ZFS will automatically de-dedup data on disk, allowing for more efficient use of the entire disk for unique data. It will also automatically compress data stored on the disk, allowing for even more usage of the available disk space. Great for infrequently accessed backups (There is some performance cost to compression).

Incentivized

• The GUI could be a little more updated with a lot more information regarding usage.
• There could be some assistance with high I/O times where snapshots go to consolidate. There seems to be issues when that attempts to occur, and there will times where the virtual machine stuns due to the I/O intensity.
• Modification of multiple volumes or the creation of multiple volumes is a pain in the DSM management console.

Incentivized

• Because it was due to a software originally designed for Solaris. configuration in other environments can be cumbersome for inexperienced implementers.
• The proprietary particularity of this File System makes it in some cases very difficult to implement in highly heterogeneous environments.
• I think that additional forms of integration with more environments should be created.

Incentivized

This is not solely based on the support engineers themselves but more so that the logging and gotcha's that their array has. There have been multiple times where logs are pulled, but the folder is not large enough, and it crashes the array. Other times there are certain aspects that support either does not know of or isn't knowledgable about how to look at particular issues that could be causing problems.

Incentivized

We selected Compellent solely based on price. Honestly I would rate it only slightly better than a QNAP we used (which was even cheaper). If performance and reliability are factors in your decision (and they should be) I would recommend looking at something like a VNXe.

Incentivized

ZFS is so far beyond the other filesystems available right now, offering full suites of tools for data management, backup, recovery, maintenance, monitoring, etc. It's not even fair to compare them.

Incentivized

• The SC9000 has been able to serve our current and futures needs well enough to not need to upgrade anytime soon.

Incentivized

• In highly transactional and data-intensive environments such as 200 million records per month or more.
• Banking also represents an ideal niche for this type of implementation due to its high volume of data and the need for security in this industry with over 100 million records per day and online history maintenance for more than 10 years (in most cases).
• The Return on Investment or ROI is clearly seen in the medium term since your storage solution would be in your safekeeping without having to pay anything additional to regular maintenance.

Incentivized