After years of dominating the network-attached storage (NAS) market, Network
Appliance understands that in order to keep
up with EMC, HP and others, it needs to offer customers a comprehensive
storage area network (SAN) product line.
NetApp today introduced the NetApp FAS3040 and NetApp V3040 series, new
weapons in its SAN
the Joneses.
The systems come fewer than four months after NetApp added the
FAS3070 and V3070 to satisfy the upper end of the midrange market.
The latest machines, which employ NetApp’s all-in-one architecture to support Fibre
Channel
storing data created by data-intensive Oracle, SAP and Microsoft Exchange
applications.
Patrick Rogers, vice president of solutions marketing at NetApp, said the
unified architecture is appealing to customers who don’t want to clutter
their datacenters with multiple boxes to handle different storage protocols.
Having one FAS system handle several key methods lowers hardware costs and
conserves space and energy in the datacenter.
“People love that because it’s just very versatile,” Rogers said.
Moreover, the machines boast a modular storage design, allowing
customers to add more storage as needed and protect their investment:
Customers with existing NetApp FAS models can swap old array heads with new
ones to upgrade their capacity and performance.
These are value propositions that have some customers interested; since launching
its first high-end unified array last spring, Rogers said NetApp has seen
its SAN market share go from zero to 2.5 percent.
Rogers said the FAS3040 and V3040 compare favorably to EMC’s Celerra NS80
NAS machines and Clariion CX3-40, as well as HP’s EVA8000 in performance and
capacity.
The FAS3040 and its gateway version brother V3040 support up to 252 disk
drives and 126 terabytes of capacity. Rogers said the entry-level cost for a
FAS3040 with 2TB of storage will set a buyer back $83,000.
NetApp Midrange SAN Refresh: Part Deux
