As you might know, the C-Series models will now become "R2" models. Are there any performance numbers out yet, especially compared to the "R1" model?
#Performance comparison on the C-Series?
proud seal
hushed edge
from what they told us in their webcasts, performance shouldn't be noticeably affected 😉 But I'm not aware of any hard numbers being published (yet?)
I mean they even removed the CPU infos from HWU, I think in the future we'll rather be seeing less hard performance numbers than more
proud seal
It's a strange move... let's "handicap" the one product that sells the best... if the price difference to the A-Series wasn't that big I could understand it... Of cause I have two customer who have old A300's where we are planning to upgrade, but this is now stalled because of this announcement... we don't even know if the new C-Series is better than A300 with SAS SSDs... NetApp tend to forget that there are other customer who doesn't require a Datalake for their AI Inferencing 😉
hushed edge
yeah, it's annoying. They seem to think that they can sell more A-Series that way, but in reality it just drives customers away to other vendors, because as you say, 90% of customers don't need an A-series
strange dune
from what they told us in their webcasts, performance shouldn't be noticeably af...
That's not what I've heard. If a customer has an existing C-Series, they will notice a performance difference if they put in an R2.
hushed edge
will they? or will they only see higher CPU utilization at the same performance point? Remember, high CPU utilization is not a primary performance metric. In the end we'll have to wait and see until the systems are shipping
proud seal
I think the worst thing about this is that NetApp has yet to explain the new R2 and it's performance potential (or lack of)... I have heard roumers that is's not much faster than an old A300 yet we don't know... They simply removed a very good selling product line and replaced it with something they cannot explain... Where is @cosmic warren when we need an online sesstion where someone at NetApp who can explain this new productline in details?
jovial leaf
You would get lower latency when reading from an A300 though compared to a C-Series model. The A300 is TLC after all (yes, SAS-based which adds ~10-20% ms but still).
hushed edge
...but only if data is not already cached in RAM 😉
proud seal
OK, but what is the point of creating such a large gab between system performance (and price)? We have customer which will just look at other vendors because of this... simply because the C-Series is most likely (we don't know yet) too "weak", but the A-Series is just 3 times the price which is out of the question... So it will most likely force customers to look at alternatives to NetApp...
dry summit
OK, but what is the point of creating such a large gab between system performanc...
I would guess you are a technical (sales) guy - don't care too much about pricing. Find the product line that fits your customer needs and talk to your NetApp Sales Team. You can be sure that nearly no one in the Sales Teams is happy with the repositioning but they will find ways to make the solution attractive and not willed to easily lose a customer.
proud seal
I would guess you are a technical (sales) guy - don't care too much about pricin...
I have been a NetApp consultant since F720 😉 For about 10 years ago I started my own little company which is also a NetApp partner, so I "have" to be the sales guy as well 🙂 And let me tell you that, yes in the short run, NetApp will help you if you have existing C-Series quotes, but after this help I think you are left with the "way too expensive for most customers" A-Series and the affordable C-Series will most likely be slower than the old SAS SSD's. (or we don't know yet)... I think the main "problem" here is not that NetApp limits this, because everyone does this (Pure Storage has done it for years), but the issue is more that there is a "huge" gab from the C to the A... so they might as well create an "B-Series" which fills this gab, or else customers will look elsewhere... but what do I know? I'm just a wannabe technical/sales guy 🙂 This wouldn't have been such a problem if they just did this performance cap. from the start... but here we are..
dry summit
i totally agree, the timing is absolutely awful and should have been done with the launch or the next platform. They way it’s done is also absolutely dumb, hopefully time heals the wounds and we see a more aggressive pricing with A Series in the near future. I think the performance is still fine for many workloads and customers, it’s primarily the way of communication…
rigid thistle
Also the nameing of r2. This means for me like revision 2 which should be „better“
hushed edge
Also the nameing of r2. This means for me like revision 2 which should be „bette...
it's also very confusing with the AFF R2 which runs a totally different flavor of ONTAP that is not fully compatible with the other ONTAPs. It's only been a few weeks and the confusion those two "R2" designators caused in our company was terrible...
rigid thistle
it's also very confusing with the AFF R2 which runs a totally different flavor o...
Totally agree, it is interesting how names are getting defined without thinking to the customer or the impact. But I think this is almost everywhere
proud seal
it's also very confusing with the AFF R2 which runs a totally different flavor o...
Yep, it's a total mess... we already had to turn down a remote backup deal because the customer used R2 systems, so we are unable to snapvault their data to our FAS based storage... We are not ready to recommend the SnapMirror to S3 yet as we think it's not mature enough... For now I will recommend everyone to steer well away from any of the R2 products
hushed edge
Yep, it's a total mess... we already had to turn down a remote backup deal becau...
I tend to disagree. If you have a customer who has a SAN-only solution that they want to replace (and a limited budget), the ASA R2 are usually a good fit, now that they can do FLI
hushed edge
as for the "other" R2 systems, well, there's not much of a ways to steer away from those, as the old r1 systems are hidden behind some very strict PVR processes
analog linden
Most customers will likely not perceive much difference. The majority of customers do not drive the c platforms to maximum cpu utilization
Those that still be driving the c series to maximum cpu are the ones that really should be on a series anyway
rigid thistle
@analog linden I do not agree completely. We now migrated our first FAS SnapVault systems to a C60 and the CPU is already at over 50%, even with only 55% usage of the Aggregates. I‘m not so confident migrating more on it and an A series is definitely an overkill. So from our end, we need to discuss if we want to move completely away from FAS to C
analog linden
@rigid thistle Cannot argue. Like I said…most customers….
Clearly you may be in the upper echelon of use cases. Another thing may be that if you migrated, there may be some cpu overhead optimizing efficiencies in the new platform and that +50% may eventually calm down