the storage anarchist

2.046: virtualizing hitachi math

I cannot resist. Forth-with a demonstrative specimen of fact-based FUD, from yours truly:

Earlier this week, Beth Pariseau posted an interview she had with Hu Yoshida (see Hitachi Data Systems' Yoshida talks Sun/Oracle, USP refresh and storage virtualization). Beth's last question in this interview provides some almost shocking insight into the actual number of deployments of Hitachi's virtualization capabilities on the USP-V:

SearchStorage.com: Do you have any numbers or percentages about customers virtualizing external storage?

Yoshida: Fifty percent of our controllers are virtualization enabled, and of those enabled, about 25% virtualize third-party storage.

Simple math thus says that roughly 12.5% of USP-V and –VM controllers are actually virtualizing 3rd party storage (25% of 50% = 12.5%).

(By the way, if we took Hu literally, we could assume that the 50% that are NOT "virtualization enabled" are in fact AMS' and the rest are USP-V's, thus making the percentage of USP-V and VMs that front 3rd party storage a mere 6.25%.)

Given all the blog posts that Hu has written for the past several years, extolling the virtues of virtualization, that number seems really, really small.

But, it must be true, for the very next day, HDS announced (and Hu blogs on) a new HDS Professional Services offering to "speed storage virtualization implementations." The basic premise of this offering? HDS is apparently finding that in a significant portion of their customer base (using Hu's words):

…the virtualization technologies become shelf ware…

So in effect, HDS (and Hu) now admit that the numbers they've been quoting for years that 50% of USP-Vs and VMs were actually using virtualization were bogus. Clear admission of the fact that they too have been avid practitioners of Making Stuff Up (MSU).

As PFC Gomer Pyle used to say: Surprise, surprise, surprise!

Also in this post, Hu also provides us with another example of Hitachi Math by using the results of a validated survey of USP-V customers to make claims that "86% of USP V and VM customers have increased their performance" as compared to "their prior environment."

NFW! 86% of people who bought YOUR NEW STUFF found that it ran faster than their OLD STUFF?

hold on now…wait just a minute!

Did that survey actually find that 14% of HDS' NEW STUFF customers say it actually ran SLOWER than their OLD STUFF?

OMG!

You just can't make this stuff up!

(Please do not try this at home – I am a trained professional!)

technorati tags: Hitachi Math,HDS,Hu Yoshida,UVM,customer adoption,shelfware,shelf ware,USP-V,USP-VM

2.045: fud-slinging reaches new lows

OK, let me get this out of the way right up front: I am an experienced practitioner of using embarrassing facts about competitive kit to promote Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt (aka FUD).

Nolo contendere.

Were I to contest the charges, my only defense would be that I try to leverage only fact-based FUD. I research my facts diligently, often enlisting the assistance of fellow bloggers to verify my facts before I post them. I fully allow comment and feedback on my posts, and I am swift to acknowledge my mistakes whenever I get the facts wrong. I will not argue that my intent is to provide fact-based cause for readers to consider flaws and risks that competitors all too often try to hide, ignore or disguise.

In my mind, "FUD" really should be an acronym for Fact-based Uncertainty and Doubt. Unfortunately, the use of facts is apparently not a staple for some representatives of EMC's competitors. Indeed, it seems more and more of them are resorting to Making Stuff Up (MSU) as the basis of their FUD.

One example of blatantly Making Stuff Up has been going on for the past several weeks. EMC account teams have encountered a sudden flurry of prospect inquiries as to the quality and reliability of Symmetrix V-Max. While such requests are not atypical for a new product (and EMC's Corporate Quality Team are always able to share the facts with customers upon such requests), it seems that many of these inquiries are being instigated by representatives of a certain three-letter-acronym (TLA) competitor as part of their sales playbook.

But this isn't the usual "the product is new and has no track record" kind of competitive FUD you might expect. Instead, this particular FUD attack leverages a table of metrics these unscrupulous TLA sales teams have been providing certain prospects during the sales process. TLA sales claim this table lists quality issues attributed to V-Max in "August" and "November" (year unspecified). Apparently limited to deals going on in southern-hemisphere non-Americas geographies, this table is frequently presented to prospects (as a GIF file) along with assertions that there were a lot of problems porting from RISC-based processors to Intel processors.

Hogwash!

I am here to tell you that the table itself is a total MSU fabrication, bearing no traceable attributes to connect it to either EMC (nor to it's actual source). More importantly, the data within this little table is entirely made up, and the categories of issues it lists bear no resemblance to the actual metrics that EMC uses to track reliability, availability and quality of its products.

 

2.044: ibm dumbs down storage marketing (again)

OK, this isn't going to be another one of my competitor-bashing diatribes. I've learned my lesson, based on reader feedback on my comments about IBM's past transgressions (who can forget IBM's initial "Let them use Tape" response to flash drives?)

Nope, this time, I don't have to be the one to do the tear-down: independent storage consultant self-proclaimed IBM proponent "PRJ" has exposed the (dare I say it) stoopidity in his post IBM Storage UK Has Codified Stupidity. In the middle of his post he highlights the following.

Yet again, this does not mean XIV does not meet some needs. What it does mean is that XIV is still not equal to nor does it offer performance comparable to the DS8000, and that IBM has said you - the customer - are too stupid to understand this blatantly obvious fact.

If I wrote that, you'd have blasted it as blatant FUD. But this guy says that he LIKES IBM…go figure.

And it appears that IBM Storage US is no better.

Case in point: in his latest post covering this week's IBM Storage product announcements, arch-nemesis Tony Pearson couldn't resist taking an entirely unrelated swipe at me and V-Max at the end of his post. (Tony clearly didn't appreciate my publicizing the impending death of the DS68000, nor my chastising of the way he (apparently intentionally) twisted a recent Chuck Hollis post into the offensive and insensitive accusation that EMC markets storage to terrorists).

In his attempt to take the high ground, TonyP steps into the land of Codifying Stupid when he includes a link to an (IBM-funded) "ITG white paper" titled Cost/Benefit Case for IBM XIV Storage System - Comparing Costs for IBM XIV and EMC V-Max Systems, and he then uses that paper to support an assertion that the XIV is up to 63% less expensive than "a comparable" V-Max.

With an assertion like that, you know I had to respond.