Deciding between EMC, Netapp and HP 3PAR storage? .. read here

If you are looking to replace you storage system then no doubt you would have considered storage systems from EMC (VNX), NETAPP (FAS) and HP 3PAR.

There are many blogs and articles going into fine detail about the technical specifications and functionality of each vendors storage arrays but in truth when you boil it all down - they can all pretty much provide the same functionality give or take a few things. It is obviously always important to understand all your applications and requirements and map them to the relevant functionality (or limitations) or each storage system you are considering.

The likely result will be that all vendors storage arrays will support your applications and be able to deliver the performance and IOPS requirements one way or another. This is where the choice starts getting difficult, especially if you don't have experience using the arrays from each of the vendor as they are all made it look like dreams come true in the demo labs. Its a competitive market out there so no doubt they will all be offering a compelling price to attract your business - but beware....

From my lessons learned one of the most important factors that should be part of your decision is one that's very often over looked and obviously not mentioned by the the vendor or its associated suppliers and that is the complexity of set-up and the flexibility of the device itself after the initial set-up. I am mainly referring to the disk and RAID group configuration as this is where you will achieve most of your aggregated IOPS and capacity.

So there is one big looser when it comes to this and funny enough it is the supposed market leader EMC!

The biggest issue I have with EMC is in its static layout of disk groups and RAID groups. In fact, when configuring the device you will soon see how inflexible it is. You have to know exactly how to structure your disk configuration, have separate RAID groups for nearly every function , like SQL, Exchange, VMware,Snapshots, RecoverPoint and so forth that the benefits of FAST quickly disappear after you have to split up your disks into so many different RAID groups loosing your overall IOPS and capacity as well.

The winners here are mainly 3PAR and NETAPP excluding any niche storage vendors and others that I have no experience with. They they have a different way of managing disks in that they group all the disks into large pools and then have flexible volumes or RAID group sitting on top of the underlying disk aggregate. this means that it is more flexible and easier manage and change the flexible volumes or RAID groups onto of a complete disk aggregate.

Whatever you do, don't look over this fact. It will come back to haunt you if you ignore it :)

Knowing is Understanding - A Workplace Advantage

Life is good... we hopefully love the jobs we are in - but loving our jobs alone is not the magic formulae to a successful career or harmonious work environment. If only it was only all about the thing we love doing, as in the job itself, but it also includes the people you work with, your team, your manager, other workplace colleagues and having to deal with any given situation within this environment..

As I am sure you are all aware, workplace politics and personalities can be very complex! Not only is the workplace very complex but a job in IT (or most others) can often be very demanding and stressful especially when you are at a management level ... nothing is easy - there is always strong opinions, personalities and/or people wanting things done their way when you know your way is the right way.. (or maybe that's just me :))

You need a secret weapon... and I am prepared to share mine with you... [any donations welcome of course]

So here it is --  its all about understanding people, their associated personality types and applying this knowledge to your advantage. At first this statement may seem pretty trivial but spend some time analysing the subject and you will soon learn how powerful this information can be in defining how you behave and react to any given situation or person.

This is by no means new information or a new concept but I need you to know that this is a very important subject and underestimated or even ignored by many people in my experience. People get consumed in their own world and very rarely think about understanding why other people are the way they are. Many just assume that a person is nasty or someone they cannot get along with, when all they need to do is understand more about a persons underlying personality traits to appreciate how they think and operate.

I know, I have been guilty of this in the past. I often fell out with people at work because I just didn't care to understand them - in fact it was more of an issue of being completely oblivious -  I thought these people were being difficult and obnoxious/rude/arrogant towards me which made me act in a similar way back to them (learning about my own personality type help me understand how this many have impacted me too!). This often caused me to enter into unnecessary conflict situations in my workplace or even shut out various people because they had upset me, ultimately causing excessive levels of stress in my life. Hopefully a few of you will be relating to some of the situations I am describing (if not I will banish myself to the nearest uninhabited Island for the rest of eternity).

Through a training program I went on, I became aware that people weren't just nasty because an individual disliked or opposed me as an individual, rather it was down to their personality type and I just needed to understand this better to appreciate how this person operated. Understanding this allowed me to process the language and behaviours of this person and realise that this was not anything personal towards me but rather, quite simply, a characteristic of this persons personality type. This allowed me understand situations better and deal with them in a proactive way - which in turn allowed me to build better relations with these individuals that I never usually - great result!

Professional boxers study their opponents and know them inside out - we should do the same with our colleagues, especially the ones that we don't always see eye to eye with. Study their personalities and know their characteristics inside out. Know how to react to them , satisfy them and deal with them in any given situation and you will find  that you have the upper hand. Don't forget it is also just as important to know your own personality traits just as well - remember, they may have armed themselves in the same way so be prepared.

I hope that you are wanting to know more at this stage so I will provide some links to a few sites that you should find useful to learn more about your own personality type and also your colleagues or anyone else you might come in contact with in the future:

Colour energies: http://www.fullcircletd.co.uk/insight-discovery/insights-discovery-colour-energies/

Carl Chung & Isabel Briggs Myers - http://www.humanmetrics.com/

Remember knowing alone is not the key - it is about knowing, understanding and applying that will be your winning formulae.

I would love to hear you success stories if you decide to use this corporate weapon of choice for your own gain..