IBM System Storage DS8000 vs. NetApp AFF A-Series

Well suited for mainframe CKD based applications. There is unmatched synergy with IBM zSeries when compared to the competition, for example zHPF, SUPERPAV, zHyperLink, cache management and replication technologies. For distributed, the fact that Copy Services Manager comes with the box is a great move on IBMs part to provide replication capability no matter what the applicaiton. I think the DS8k is less suited for smaller distributed environments. I think product overlap with V9000 in this case

Incentivized

Easy interface and the accessibility of the features are effective and this solution functionalities on data migration and processing of different from other packages is amazing. NetApp AFF A-Series All Flash Arrays is the most secure platform for easy management of all the business and project data and the capacity planning tools and even the configuration options are the best and easy to use.

Incentivized

• Remote Copy -- The DS8k has decades of excellent code built to handle the most demanding environments for mainframe or open systems and can be combined with automation solutions like GDPS or Copy Services Manager
• Reliability and Availability -- This is the platform that gets used for the most demanding environments, even when FICON attachment isn't required
• Continued enhancement -- IBM continues to put resources into the DS8k and the platform has advanced with the technology from z and power
• Mainframe synergy -- Poughkeepsie communicates and works very closely with the DS8k developers

Incentivized

• Protective multiple project and business data is excellent.
• Solutions for data storage and data migration.
• Providing useful and quality data reports is effective.

Incentivized

• The DS8000 family still lacks deduplication and compression algorithms.
• For best results on replication enablement, optional Copy Services Manager is suggested.

Incentivized

• Cost is still prohibitive for performance.
• Performance tuning at the Fabric Interconnect level.
• Automation and scripting improvements in the PowerShell module.

Incentivized

Our organizations primary storage platform is NetApp AFF-A900 nodes. All our storage requirements, be it storage visible to our compute either using FC or NFS is through these nodes. The shares or CIFS too are setup on these nodes. We also use the fabric pool to write the data to NetApps Storage Grid

Incentivized

DS8882F provides CKD storage in a manageable footprint. Its advantage over FlashSystem is its interoperability with IBM Z Systems

Incentivized

I have been an IBM and EMC storage customer. I used EMC CX and VMX series SANs. I have used IBM Shark SANs before that. Much has changed over the years. It is my experience that Netapp has shown a great deal more innovation with large leaps in technology, ease of use and an aggressive progress while the two other vendors that I have experience with are more tied to their legacy technologies.

Incentivized

• I do not know the cost. If it prevents future system wide outages, it will be a great ROI for our company.

Incentivized

• ROI has been tremendous as it has come in handy in all the scenarios we were looking at
• Users and admins both happy with the overall performance and management is happy that they got a good deal from reseller.

Incentivized