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EMC exec flames El Reg

Veep lashes out at our coverage

Not a sexy story perhaps for you – but some facts

Fact: EMC has fully embraced a "flash 1st" approach to storage models – and actually have been shipping longer, and in far, far greater volume than any of the primary storage vendors. We use flash as a cache, as a tier in primary storage devices and also have clearly indicated what we're doing around server-side flash. The only other vendors in that are shipped and is supporting flash in a similar league are not storage vendors - but server vendors, or PCIe-based flash folks.

The point that the commoditisation of flash is actually the real "storage" story here, is based on the fact that all the storage configs would have been very different without flash. Almost all vendors have moved to commodity hardware. In my opinion, the "real story" (not just the storage story) is the ability to actually provide a lab cloud that supported that dynamic a load, live – at a major event. Oh, and it used public vCloud provider partners. Interestingly the vCloud partners used in the VMware HoL also use EMC storage by the way.

But, back to flash: we all would have required insane spindle counts to support the workloads without it (again, that was my out of context quote about why that's the main takeaway – thank you very much!).

@Jim 59 (referring to a comment to the original story which said: "Why does nobody mention dedupe in VMware stories ? The storage is basically holding 1000 copies of Windows 2008, right ?")

By the way, that's why dedupe (while an important technology) isn't the main point here. Yes, there were loads of VMs with similar content – but the main design challenge here was not providing the necessary capacity (GB), but being able to handle the very bursty IO loads (IOps). Efficiency is about BOTH $/W/space per GB and per IOps (and per cost of unplanned change).

Fact: You won't get an accurate view from any of the storage vendors (including me) on the VMware HoL – since we each see our piece of the puzzle. The only people with an accurate view are the VMware HoL team – since they were "on top", and in the end, it was their application we were there to support. What I will say is that EMC did our part (and more) to make the VMworld HoL a success. I'm also glad that VMware has a partner vendor community where there are many who help them achieve their ongoing market success.

Fact: What is inaccurate is the whole story. And, perhaps, just perhaps (after all, who am I to tell you how to do your job), starting with a premise based on a Nexenta CEO world view is well ... wrong. His facts are incorrect, and ultimately the VMware HoL staff know.

Fact: At EMC, our technology, our customers, and our results speak for themselves.

After all – it may not be a sizzle story, but it's damn sexy to many to say "EMC technology is market-leading, is gaining market share based on customer choices, and, as a company, is massively investing in today and tomorrow".

Fact: When it comes to storage, those storage technologies of today and tomorrow are: server/storage hybrids, all-SSD designs, mixed storage/server use of SSD, scale-out Block, NAS and Object storage models. More importantly than any of those component technologies, [they are] overwhelming solutions integration with the most important use cases (VMware most of all – but also Microsoft, SAP, Oracle and others).

At EMC, many of those technologies are shipping in volumes that shock, and many we are demonstrating [have] advanced research and development projects in many places. We have leadership not only in share, but in these core technologies and integrations with the applications that ultimately drive infrastructure choices.

I personally welcome competition – from any and all angles. It helps us stay sharp, helps the market and helps customers. We continuously change and adapt to extend our leadership position.

Fact: It may not be a sizzle story, but to the people behind the HoL (and the users) – and to customers every day around the world – it's damn sexy to say "it worked", and I will say that the EMC parts of the infrastructure were designed well and performed their duty in an exemplary manner – and that's why customers overwhelmingly choose EMC.

Take that, El Reg! ®

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