The document evaluates the small to mid-range storage vendor landscape, highlighting key players such as NetApp, Dell, and Nimble Storage based on their performance, cost-effectiveness, and user satisfaction. It also discusses essential criteria for selecting storage solutions, including vendor support, scalability, and advanced features like VMware integration. The insights aim to assist IT leaders in aligning vendor strengths with their organization's storage needs while considering future costs and support capabilities.

1. Vendor Landscape:
Small to Mid-range Storage Arrays
Find a solution to trim the cost of performance and capacity for your lean IT staff.
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2. Introduction
Virtualization and flash are changing the way companies evaluate storage.
As workloads become dense, find the solution that meets performance and
capacity requirements at lowest possible cost.
This Research Is Designed For: This Research Will Help You:
 IT Leaders at organizations planning to  Align vendor strengths and limitations to your
purchase consolidated network storage, such current and projected needs around storage.
as a SAN or unified storage solution.  Understand available functionality for current
mid-range SANs.
 Prepare an RFP and score RFP responses.
 Select the vendor that is the best fit for your
organization.
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3. Executive Summary
Info-Tech evaluated 8 competitors in the small to mid-range Info-Tech Insight
storage market, including the following notable performers:
1. Focus on current and future
Champion: requirements. Don’t count on your reseller
to tell you what you need. Put together your
• NetApp leads by introducing features from its high-end storage to list of needs and wants in an RFP. Almost
its flagship small to mid-range product. half (44%) or storage purchasers switch
• Dell EqualLogic’s cost effectiveness combined with ease of use vendors, and most of those do so because
make it a viable option for small to mid-sized companies. new products fell short of expectations.
2. Understand reseller and vendor support
Value Award: capabilities. Organizations more satisfied
• NetApp’s FAS2200 line comes in at a surprisingly low price point with their storage purchase spent almost
for a mature solution. 50% more effort evaluating support
capabilities of the resellers/vendors on their
Trend Setter Award: shortlist than those that were dissatisfied
• Nimble Storage has quickly made a name for itself, due in large with their purchase.
part to its innovative Cache Accelerated Sequential Layout (CASL) 3. Think about future costs, not just up
architecture. front capital. More than 35% of
organizations report dissatisfaction with
costs to scale performance or capacity of
their solutions after their initial purchase,
making it crucial to establish scaling costs
with your vendor. Will you get the same
discounts? What is the licensing? Do you
need another controller?
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4. Market Overview
How it got here Where it’s going
• Storage became a key enabler. Over the past decade, • Unified storage is becoming the norm. NetApp had
networked storage has expanded from being a high- its early success as a niche provider of unified file and
end data management solution for large enterprises to block capabilities, however most providers in the small
also being a foundation for smaller scale consolidation. to mid-range storage market now have it available. Dell,
• Industry standard technologies brought storage EMC, and Nexsan all added NAS capabilities to their
down market. Sufficient, less expensive technologies, storage solutions in 2011 or 2012.
such as Ethernet fabrics (iSCSI and NAS) and lower • Performance is back on the table. Consolidation and
cost SATA drives, brought storage to SMBs, and allowed virtualization is mainstream today, but this is creating
them to capitalize on existing hardware and skill new challenges for storage as dense virtual server
investments, rather than going to Fibre Channel school infrastructures are pushing ever more I/O.
and buying a new fabric. • Flash is today’s answer. Most vendors are leveraging
flash by using it as cache (in Solid State Drives [SSDs]
• Storage for the SMB was about ease of use and
or controller attached PCIe cards) or as a tier of storage
cost. With lean IT staff and tight budgets, small to mid-
in SSDs (typically with accompanying auto-tiering), in
sized customers primarily focused on ease of
combination with lower cost SAS or SATA drives.
implementation of management when buying storage.
• VMware integration has become a must. While only
• High availability and data recoverability became a one of many major virtualization vendors (see also
given. Snapshots, site-to-site replication, and hardware Citrix, Microsoft and Red Hat), VMware holds dominant
redundancy (disk, ports, power supplies) continue to be market share and is the de facto standard in
must-have features across all storage solutions. virtualization.
For help developing a storage strategy and buying process, see Info-Tech’s Solution Sets on how to
Mitigate Costs & Maximize Value with a Consolidated Network Storage Strategy as well as
Purchase Storage Without Buyer's Remorse. For advice on modern storage challenges, such as VDI,
expanding file data, and increasing VM densities, see Exploit Storage Beyond the Central Disk Array.
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5. Small- to Mid-Range Storage Vendor selection / knock-out
criteria: market share, mind share, and platform coverage
• For this Vendor Landscape, Info-Tech focused on vendors that deliver when it comes to small to mid-range storage.
Organizations in this market demand high reliability, scalability, and competitive pricing—these aspects played an
important role in the vendor evaluation.
• Dell. Long-standing leader in iSCSI solutions, Dell’s EqualLogic now offers quality unified storage solutions.
Included in this Vendor Landscape:
• Dell. Long-time leader in iSCSI, Dell’s EqualLogic now offers a unified storage system.
• EMC. This market leader raises the bar by introducing aspects of its mid-range VNX to its small to mid-range VNXe.
• HP. After reestablishing itself with the acquisition of LeftHand Networks, HP has rebranded LeftHand to StoreVirtual
Storage and is strengthening its offerings in the small to mid-range storage market by focusing on ease-of-use and
promoting its out-of-the-box storage setup.
• IceWEB. As a long-time specialist in the small to mid-range market, IceWEB continues to deliver storage solutions that
highlight security and reliability.
• NetApp. Pioneers of unified storage, NetApp has seen success in the mid-market with its unified storage platform. The
FAS2000 series caters to the needs of the small to mid-sized space.
• Nexsan. This proven small to mid-market storage provider is known for cost-effective and reliable solutions . It has
added unified storage to its portfolio with its NST series.
• Nimble Storage. A strong newcomer in the storage market, Nimble Storage is getting plenty of attention for its
innovative Cache Accelerated Sequential Layout (CASL) system and simple, yet solid architectural storage design.
• Tegile. A new entrant to the storage landscape, Tegile delivers impressive results with its patented Metadata
Accelerated Storage System (MASS) storage.
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6. Evaluation criteria & weighting factors
Criteria Weighting:
Features Usability
Product Evaluation Criteria
25%
30%
The solution provides basic
Features and advanced feature/functionality.
User-friendly interface, built-in tools for simplified 25%
Usability management, and customer feedback.
20%
Architecture Affordability
The three year TCO of the solution is Product
Affordability economical.
50%
Demonstrated recent innovation in architectural
Architecture approach to storage with several scaling options.
Vendor Evaluation Criteria
50%
Vendor is profitable, knowledgeable, and will be Vendor
Viability around for the long-term.
Viability Strategy
Vendor is committed to the space and has a 15%
Strategy future product and portfolio roadmap. 30%
Vendor offers global coverage and is able to sell
Reach and provide post-sales support. 30%
Vendor channel strategy is appropriate and the 25%
Channel channels themselves are strong.
Channel Reach
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7. The Info-Tech SMB to Mid-range Storage Vendor Landscape
The Zones of the Landscape The Info-Tech Vendor Landscape:
Champions receive high scores for most evaluation
criteria and offer excellent value. They have a strong
market presence and are usually the trend setters
for the industry.
NetApp
Market Pillars are established players with very
strong vendor credentials, but with more average
product scores.
Nimble
Innovators have demonstrated innovative product Tegile Storage Dell
strengths that act as their competitive advantage in
appealing to niche segments of the market.
Emerging Players are newer vendors who are
starting to gain a foothold in the marketplace. They EMC
IceWEB
balance product and vendor attributes, though score
lower relative to market Champions. Nexsan
HP
For an explanation of how the Info-Tech Vendor Landscape is created, please see Vendor Landscape Methodology: Information Presentation in the Appendix.
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8. Balance individual strengths to find the best fit for
your enterprise
Dell
EMC
HP
IceWEB
NetApp
Nexsan
Nimble Storage
Tegile
For an explanation of how the Info-Tech Harvey Balls are calculated, please see Vendor Landscape Methodology: Information Presentation in the Appendix.
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9. The Info-Tech SMB to Mid-range Storage Value Index
What is a Value Score? Champion On a relative basis, NetApp maintained
the highest Info-Tech Value ScoreTM of
The Value Score indexes each vendor’s the vendor group. Vendors were indexed
product offering and business strength against NetApp’s performance to provide
relative to their price point. It does a complete, relative view of their product
not indicate vendor ranking. offerings.
Vendors that score high offer more bang-for-
the-buck (e.g. features, usability, stability,
etc.) than the average vendor, while the
inverse is true for those that score lower. Average Score: 52
Price-conscious enterprises may wish to give 100
the Value Score more consideration than
those who are more focused on specific 90
71 80 69
vendor/product attributes. 64
70 53
60 50
50
40
30
9 20
0*
10
Dell
Tegile
Nexsan
Nimble
Storage
IceWEB
EMC*
HP
NetApp
*The vendor declined to provide pricing.
For an explanation of how Price is determined, please see Vendor Landscape Methodology: Information Presentation in the Appendix.
For an explanation of how the Info-Tech Value Index is calculated, please see Vendor Landscape Methodology: Information Presentation in the Appendix.
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10. Table Stakes represent the minimum standard; without these,
a product doesn’t even get reviewed
The Table Stakes What Does This Mean?
The products assessed in this Vendor
Feature What it is: LandscapeTM meet, at the very least, the
requirements outlined as Table Stakes.
Short Backup The time required to quiesce data for backups is
Windows minimal. Many of the vendors go above and beyond the
outlined Table Stakes, some even do so in
Site-to-Site Data can be replicated between sites for failover multiple categories. This section aims to
Replication capabilities to enable disaster recovery. highlight the products’ capabilities in excess
of the criteria listed here.
Full copies of data can be created in edition to
thin snapshots where only data that is modified
Thin Snapshot is captured and added to the original on restore.
Capability This allows for shorter backup windows, and
less disk space used.
A single user interface that is simple to use,
Easy-to-Use provides monitoring and trending reports, and
Management provides drill down capabilities into virtual and
Interface non-virtual machines and servers.
If Table Stakes are all you need from your consolidated storage solution, the only true differentiator for the
organization is price. Otherwise, dig deeper to find the best price to value for your needs.
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11. Advanced Features are the capabilities that allow for granular
market differentiation
Scoring Methodology Advanced Features
Info-Tech scored each vendor’s features
offering as a summation of their individual Feature What we looked for:
scores across the listed advanced features. Unified File and Ability to support both file and block storage,
Vendors were given 1 point for each feature Block Storage managed through a single admin interface.
the product inherently provided. Some
categories were scored on a more granular
Solid State Vendor provides solutions that enable caching
Caching using SSDs at the array.
scale with vendors receiving half points.
Solid State Drives serve as a storage tier, allowing
SSD Tier data migration to and from these drives.
Policy-based automatic transfer of data between
Auto-tiering and/or among tiers of storage in the device.
All relevant products support VMware’s vStorage
VMware VAAI API for Array Integration up to ESXi version 5.0.
VMware Hardware compatibility with VMware APIs for
VASA/SRM Storage Awareness and Site Recovery Manager.
Block Eliminates redundant blocks of data by identifying
Deduplication & deleting duplicate blocks.
Encodes data on the array with fewer bits than
Compression which the data was originally encoded.
Inline Data is compressed “on the fly”, before it is written
Compression to disk.
Array is available as a virtual machine deployable
Virtualized Array on commodity hardware.
For an explanation of how Advanced Features are determined, please see Vendor Landscape Methodology: Information Presentation in the Appendix.
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12. Each vendor offers a different feature set; concentrate on what
your organization needs
Dell
EMC
HP
IceWEB
NetApp
Nexsan
Nimble Storage
Tegile
For an explanation of how Advanced Features are determined, please see Vendor Landscape Methodology: Information Presentation in the Appendix.
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13. Narrow down the market depending on your existing or
planned fabric investment
Most small to mid-range storage solutions are iSCSI only, but a select few
offer Fibre Channel or Fibre Channel over Ethernet
1 Protocol Support
FCoE, iSCSI, and FC support
2 VNX
Why Scenarios? iSCSI and FC support only
In reviewing the products included
in each Vendor LandscapeTM ,
certain use-cases come to the
forefront. Whether those use-cases
are defined by applicability in iSCSI only
certain locations, relevance for
certain industries, or as strengths in
delivering a specific capability, Info-
Tech recognizes those use-cases
VNXe
as Scenarios, and calls attention to
them where they exist.
For an explanation of how Scenarios are determined, please see Vendor Landscape Methodology: Information Presentation in the Appendix.
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14. Future proof your purchase by understanding your vendor’s
approach to adding performance and capacity
Thirty six percent of storage buyers are dissatisfied with costs to scale their
solution, whether up or out.
Node-based Scaling
1
2 Scaling Capabilities
Controller Upgrade (NO array downtime)
Why Scenarios?
In reviewing the products included
in each Vendor LandscapeTM ,
certain use-cases come to the Controller Upgrade (WITH array downtime)
forefront. Whether those use-cases
are defined by applicability in
certain locations, relevance for
certain industries, or as strengths in
delivering a specific capability, Info-
Tech recognizes those use-cases Leveraging of Third Party Storage
as Scenarios, and calls attention to
them where they exist.
All vendors can add capacity through expansion shelves.
For an explanation of how Scenarios are determined, please see Vendor Landscape Methodology: Information Presentation in the Appendix.
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15. NetApp now brings flash performance to the
entry level of its flagship FAS systems
Champion Overview
Product: FAS2200 series • Recognized as a leader in unified storage, NetApp has
Employees: 12,200+ improved its FAS2200 line by adding Flash Pool SSD-based
Headquarters: Sunnyvale, California caching technology, and consolidating its management tools to
Website: www.netapp.com further simplify administration.
Founded: 1992
Presence: NASDAQ: NTAP Strengths
FY11 Revenue: $6.2 B • With a common platform and tool set across its storage
portfolio, NetApp facilitates evolution from entry to enterprise.
• Introduction of Flash Pools brings flash performance to entry
level systems where cost of Flash Cache might be out of reach.
• VMware integration continues to be a strong point for NetApp,
with extensive block and NAS VMware API support, and one of
the only vendors to bring VMware APIs for Storage Awareness
and Site Recovery Manager to its entry level products.
3 year TCO for this solution falls into pricing • Advanced technologies and tools for thin provisioning, thin
tier 5, between $25,000 and $50,000 replication, thin snapshots, inline compression, deduplication,
and efficient use of flash all help optimize disk utilization, as well
as network bandwidth utilization.
Challenges
• As more and more vendors are building out unified capabilities
into their products, NetApp will need to push differentiation into
$1 $1M+ new areas.
Pricing provided by vendor. • Info-Tech customers express discontent with increases to
maintenance and support costs following initial contract terms.
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16. NetApp has been excelling in the small to mid-range since its
inception, and with an appealing price point to boot
Vendor Landscape
What we’re hearing
“NetApp really shined with their snap manager products, which integrated with SQL,
Oracle, and Exchange. It was a big way for us to backup our major databases and
get them off of tape.
— Michael Parker, Lead Storage Engineer, Acuity Brands
“NetApp was similar to the EMC... They both have 40 different line items and at the
end of the day...
— Network & Systems Administrator, Transportation Industry
Value Index
100
1st out of 7
Info-Tech Recommends:
Organizations looking for flexible storage solutions for their virtual environments with a comprehensive
set of available disk utilization and redundancy features should definitely consider NetApp.
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