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I would have selected a more reputable company as far as longevity. If my business were relying on a product, I wouldn't want the company to disappear overnight. In this day and age of crazy mergers and failed companies, it wouldn't be a chance I would take. Many of my clients have due diligence on the size of a company before they do business with them.
Selecting vendors with small makret cap is not risk adverse.
Unfortunately, I'm limited to the 600 word range for these kinds of articles, so it's difficult to get in all of the important details.
I should point out that, before selecting either one of these companies, a substantial amount of time was spent researching their backgrounds, future, funding/burn, profit forecasts as well as spent talking to their current customers, many of whom did similar research.
Further, both companies are expanding, although, with companies like EMC entering the space, their growth could be stunted. The company we ultimately selected - EqualLogic - has the largest installed base among iSCSI storage devices.
Sure, either LeftHand or EqualLogic could be gobbled up by EMC tomorrow. However, while I was risk-adverse initially to the technology, working with EqualLogic vs. a larger, more established (and pricier, which was a fact I had to face) company was a calculated risk I was willing to take.
Scott
I should point out that, before selecting either one of these companies, a substantial amount of time was spent researching their backgrounds, future, funding/burn, profit forecasts as well as spent talking to their current customers, many of whom did similar research.
Further, both companies are expanding, although, with companies like EMC entering the space, their growth could be stunted. The company we ultimately selected - EqualLogic - has the largest installed base among iSCSI storage devices.
Sure, either LeftHand or EqualLogic could be gobbled up by EMC tomorrow. However, while I was risk-adverse initially to the technology, working with EqualLogic vs. a larger, more established (and pricier, which was a fact I had to face) company was a calculated risk I was willing to take.
Scott
Just went through a very similar process although we sent out an RFP and only had those responses to work with (so didn't look at Left Hand).
We also chose Equallogic based on it's ease of management. The flip side was more flexibility with a SANRAD or IPStor solution (based on backend storage choices) but Management wanted 'easy to setup and administer'.
So in our case we went with an iSCSI-Storage array rather than an iSCSI-SAN or iSCSI-Server solution which are some of the iSCSI choices out there.
We also chose Equallogic based on it's ease of management. The flip side was more flexibility with a SANRAD or IPStor solution (based on backend storage choices) but Management wanted 'easy to setup and administer'.
So in our case we went with an iSCSI-Storage array rather than an iSCSI-SAN or iSCSI-Server solution which are some of the iSCSI choices out there.
We went with Equallogic. We took over a year to evaluate the storage market. Our results:
* iSCSI is making more headway then the storage market will admit.
* The SMB market is about to be attacked by 10GigE and SAS.
* Smart SATA/iSCSI vendors have positioned their products for price, ease of use, AND a clear upgrade path to 10GigE and SAS.
* From our tests it turned out in real life for most all of our applications 1Gig iscsi is fast enough.
* NetApp, EMC, XIOTech and others are doing a poor job of addressing the SMB market space. EMC is completely ignoring the real issues (Cabletron made the same mistake - remember Cabletron?). I do not see the Clariion product being marketed as an SMB solution for long. EMC will likely aquire appropriate technology.
* Companies like Equallogic are providing .99999, feature rich equipment at a fraction of the larger competitors costs.
Risk? What risk? If I get 3 years out of my investment in Equallogic I'll be happy. Say that after purchasing a fully loaded CX300/500 with three year pre-paid maintenance.
Oh yes. I fogot. Equallogic was great through the selection process. I actually counted them out a one point and they wouldn't give up. Good for them.
Joe
* iSCSI is making more headway then the storage market will admit.
* The SMB market is about to be attacked by 10GigE and SAS.
* Smart SATA/iSCSI vendors have positioned their products for price, ease of use, AND a clear upgrade path to 10GigE and SAS.
* From our tests it turned out in real life for most all of our applications 1Gig iscsi is fast enough.
* NetApp, EMC, XIOTech and others are doing a poor job of addressing the SMB market space. EMC is completely ignoring the real issues (Cabletron made the same mistake - remember Cabletron?). I do not see the Clariion product being marketed as an SMB solution for long. EMC will likely aquire appropriate technology.
* Companies like Equallogic are providing .99999, feature rich equipment at a fraction of the larger competitors costs.
Risk? What risk? If I get 3 years out of my investment in Equallogic I'll be happy. Say that after purchasing a fully loaded CX300/500 with three year pre-paid maintenance.
Oh yes. I fogot. Equallogic was great through the selection process. I actually counted them out a one point and they wouldn't give up. Good for them.
Joe
....after watching tech companies come and go during the last 25 years in the storage industry here is some advice of what to look for. A company with the most IP (intellectual properties) and a R&D budget. Case in point Equal Logic is a 35 person company, with a bundle of software, mostly not theirs. Their marketing plan, high pressure sales tactics and products benefit limited to ?ease of use?. Guess what, after it is installed, who cares how easy it was to install, it?s more about management and performance from there, but maybe they will figure that out. Where as most of the storage companies EMC, HP, STK, just to name a few, are flocking to FalconStor for their core products. EL has a single product (not a winning strategy, long term), where as FS has a family of products. EL is private with limited resources and FS is publicly funded. Watch for FS to rise and EL will be a trivia question next year at the Storage World conference, for ?Who was that IP-SAN start up company from?.New England?"
I'm interested to see how this works out - I have also installed an Equallogic box and have been slowly moving over our Exchange base to it. So far, it has worked well. I'm concerned about Equallogic not being huge, too, but the costs of replacing our old fibre-channel network was really high both financially and management-wise. I would also like to know why it doesn't seem as if the big players aren't supporting native iSCSI devices...
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