The Storage Muse

I see that there is a bit of a debate between NetApp and Storagezilla on the effectiveness of LUN/Container level migration and file level migration.  And the key metaphor that is being used is one of Snake Oil.  Hmm, let’s talk about Snake Oil for a second.  Looking at Wikipedia for a minute we can see both the origins and the common application of Snake Oil in IT.  The origins were salesmen who took common liquids and tried to sell them as expensive cures for all ills.  In short it was bogus man!  Usually snake oil in IT is tied to security companies who sell bogus and fraudulent technologies to cure all of your security ills.

I find it interesting that the debate which is ensuing is about the need for either container level migration or file level migration.  It seems to me that both parties should be talking about needing both.  There are valid use cases for both, and I have to say that NetApp as a storage company seems to not get that object level movement is also required.  EMC and Hitachi may differ on architecture and approach, but we both “get” that both approaches for migration are required.  For instance if we are going to retire an array are we going to do it file-by-file?  Or if we need to move some aged files from one tier to another tier for capacity reductions, are we going to lump them together in a container for bulk movement or just migrate many files in parallel?  Hopefully you can see that these are rhetorical questions.  It seems to me that NetApp is just getting into the block storage business and to quote the Bill Cosby logic, proud new parents are frequently excited about mundane things like their new child’s dirty diapers.  Now mind you I’m not saying that the technology that NetApp released is like a dirty diaper, but instead that when you are doing something for the first time you think it is novel.  Both Hitachi and EMC recognize that there are solid use cases for either form of migration and as such both should exist for our customers to best use are respective product portfolios.  So the question that I pose to NetApp is: where is your file migration technology to go along with your container migration technology?