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ShareInflated Vendor Claims
Posted by Tom Trainer on June 10, 2009
In my opinion, it may be time to pop a few balloons of a few vendor claims I've been noticing out there. It seems pretty clear that with limited growth opportunities in its existing Fibre Channel portfolio, Brocade decided to enter the HBA market last year and released a barrage of overarching claims regarding its new products' superiority.
Brocade claims that its 8-Gbps FC adapters offer the same exact functionality as the market leaders, Emulex and QLogic. Reality, in fact, may be somewhat different. Brocade's HBAs appear not to be measuring up to either vendor's offering. Clients report to me that Brocade's 8-Gbps products are struggling with stability and have been at the root of a number of systems issues as of late. Despite all this, they are reportedly shipping with over 20 medium to high severity defects. This is not what one would refer to as stable host bus adapter technology.
Brocade is also claiming that its 8-Gbps HBAs offer performance in the range of "500K IOPS per port." However a quick customer reality-check reveals that Brocade 8-Gbps HBAs achieve less than 20% of these performance claims -- that's less than 100,000 IOPS per port in real-world environments. Unfortunately, ports are disabled if a non-Brocade small form-factor pluggable (SFP) module is installed -- this sure feels like an attempt at customer lock-in. In an audacious move, clients report that Brocade is spending up to $300 per board to try and buy business. The perception this creates is effectively a "going-out-of-business," or trying to "buy-the-business" model, where product is being given away in a last ditch effort in hopes of a sign of customer acceptance.
Another thing that I don't understand is the recent goings-on at Emulex, which issued an announcement last week that it attained a "CNA design win" at HP. While some in the storage industry assumed this was for the much marketed single chip "UCNAs," based on Server Engines silicon, this was actually for the Emulex first-generation CNAs based on multiple isolated chips on a significantly larger motherboard. We have still yet to see any single chip CNA design wins from Emulex.
It is important for vendors to be clear about where they are with their products and with delivery cycles. If vendors don't tell it like it is, they are letting down their customers, channel partners and they certainly aren't going to pass the Trainer Test.
A recommendation: Clean your act up, guys.
Comment by Realization Awakening on June 10, 2009 5:32 PM
Wow... I've noticed this for some time now and I'm glad someone is starting to state what for many is not the obvious. Marketing has gotten the best of many vendors and in some instances inflated claims are costing storage admins their jobs.
My suggestion is to look for real world application benchmarks and endorsements from actual customers. Today even independent third parties don't separate the truth from fiction and marketing, like statistics, can be skewed to benefit almost anyone.
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Comment by Storageman on June 10, 2009 5:33 PM
How long can Brocade keep throwing away money in this economy? They are spending more than Obama but they just can???t raise taxes! Sell their stock before it is worthless!
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Comment by LUN Monkey on June 10, 2009 9:20 PM
All vendors hype their performance figures, not just the hba vendors. Don't get hung up on performance, but look for real features and benefits that apply to you in the real world, as the server or storage admin.
The Brocde hbas seem to have some extra features that are of real benefit to the admin - like the hot-plugable SFPs you mention in your article. Neither Qlogic or Emulex offer those, and it means you have a genuine HA hba.
It seems to me that Brocade are breaking up the nice cozy duoploy that stifled innovation in the hba marketplace for too long. Roll On Brocade and all the other guys brave enough to bring out new innovative products. We should be thanking them not, not shooting them down.
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Comment by Tom on June 10, 2009 10:11 PM
Not trying to shoot any company down...tyring to provide pathways to improvements.
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Comment by 8gb guru on June 10, 2009 10:37 PM
fyi, QLogic offers hot-pluggable SFPs on 8 Gb HBAs as well. Check YOUR facts, LUN munkey.
if by innovative products you mean stuff that doesn't work correctly in major customer environments then i would agree with you. just take a look at brocade's own hba release notes. OUCH
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Comment by SANMAN on June 11, 2009 1:36 AM
So I checked out Brocades 8gb HBA rel notes and what a laugh... 53 oustanding defects in their latest and greatest code. Compare that to Qlogic 8gb HBA rel notes showing outstanding 2 defects and Emulex 8gb HBA also showing 2 outstanding defects.
How Brocade thinks they can compete with Qlogic and Emulex I don't know. It's like Skoda saying their supercar is better than Ferrari and Lamborghini!!
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Comment by FCGuru on June 11, 2009 1:52 AM
Not sure why this is a shock.. Brocade has never let the truth get in the way of their marketing before.
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Comment by Storage Guy on June 11, 2009 6:11 AM
Tom;
Very enlightening. How are customers supposed to validate the vendor claims?. They don't have budget, resources, and time to test this kind of stuff. Wonder if Brocade is making the same claims for their SAN switches too. Keep up the good work.
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Comment by LUN Monkey on June 11, 2009 9:33 AM
8gb Guru - chill out man!
I DID check my facts. My Qlogic sales rep told me that they adhered to the PCIe hot swapable standard, which refered to swapping the whole hba out, but they did not support, nor did their OEMs they sell thru, support swapping out just the optic with the server still up and running. I know it is possible to do a hot-swap of the optic but that it was not supported by either Qlogic or its OEMs. I have done it on a SANBox.
I just checked Qlogic support questions and the only place it is supported (according to their website) is on their switches - not their hbas.
Do you work for Qlogic? Can you confirm that Qlogic, and very importantly their OEMs, support hot swapping their hba optics on their 4g & 8g hbas? I won't deploy a feature unless it's supported by my server vendors (IBM and HP).
Anyways, the point I was trying to make was that it is good to see someone (Brocade in this instance) shake up the sleepy hba vendors who have been sitting on their bums, taking our dollars, and just doubling the bandwidth every 2 years. Judging by the amount of comments on this story it looks like it is working! Off to bed now - nite. Love and respect.
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Comment by DC Guy on June 11, 2009 1:38 PM
I don't understand all the hubbub about 8G FC. The overwhelming majority of my customers are reporting top bursts of 2G on their 4G links. Most of them average about 300mb/sec! This 8G stuff is more the vendors searching for new revenue streams.
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Comment by Toad on June 11, 2009 1:58 PM
Emulex never announced a CNA design win with HP. They announced HP certification of their gen 1 product. This is by all accounts a reference sale model fulfilled by the Emulex distribution channel not HP.
None of the vendors mentioned tend announce design wins until the OEM is ready to announce.
Read the stuff around Emulex & Broadcom. Emulex are saying publically that a number of wins are in the bag, and are waiting for the OEMs blessing to go public
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Comment by Aussie-Boris on June 11, 2009 2:14 PM
Is it any surprise that Brocade HBAs are being readilly cited in the market as being poor. Emulex & Qlogic have 10 plus years experience over many generations of card, multiple Oem quals, with millions of ports deployed globally that's rolled into their current cards, drivers and firmware
It will take brocade years to get to this level if they ever do. That why they are attempting to buy the market.
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Comment by DownTime on June 11, 2009 3:43 PM
BTW, Emulex has hot-swappable SFPs on their 8gig stuff. On Brocade's reseller con call yesterday, they repeated all the same FUD, but no real proof. I would be reluctant to sell their boards. One hour of customer support/headaches completely wipes out any rebates.
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Comment by Shaun Walsh on June 11, 2009 6:08 PM
Hi Tom,
The title of your blog is "Inflated Vendor Claims." I am not sure what we inflated? The announcement stated that it was a certification for our first-generation product, the LP21000. Our release from last week certainly did not try to mislead anyone, as it clearly states the model number associated with our first-generation CNAs. Here's a link to our HP CNA announcement that was issued on June 2nd:
http://www.emulex.com/resources/press-releases/2009/list/jun-2-2009-emulex-lightpulse-converged-network-adapters-available-for-hp-proliant-servers-and-hp-storageworks-arrays.html
You wrote that some in the storage industry assumed this announcement was for the single-chip UCNAs. As the company has stated previously, our second-generation, single-chip UCNAs will begin shipping during the second half of 2009 and during our last earnings call we stated that Emulex has 12 unannounced design wins for its UCNAs that will be announced as our OEM customers make them available.
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Comment by twosides on June 11, 2009 6:23 PM
And who ever heard of an analyst blogger who actually gave objective comment about any manufacturer that did not provide them with some kind of sponsorship. Brocade may well have issues with their product and ditto Emulex. If there were some commercial arrangement in place, would you have ever made this kind of comment? Maybe time for all "analysts" to start being open about exactly who their sponsors are and to what amount.............
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Comment by 8Gb Guru on June 11, 2009 6:36 PM
2Gb and 4Gb were SFF (fixed). 8Gb FC as a standard uses SFP+ technology, which is absolutely hot-swappable.
There really is no competitive advantage to Brocade or any other HBA manufacturer in this regard.
Brocade, however, forces you to use their branded SFP (otherwise the port will shut down) so they actually try to lock you into buying a bunch of their (more expensive, of course) SFPs. Emulex and QLogic both have a supported listing of many SFPs.
Whether or not your OEM recommends this as a practice, you will have to check with them. The key to the article above is that Brocade is making claims of doing stuff that either they don't really do, or is no different than any other HBA, while insinuating they have a huge technical advantage in these regards. While I will agree that marketing can be fluff at times, Brocade seems to take it to a whole other level of absurdity.
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Comment by Tom on June 12, 2009 3:12 AM
Thanks for your comment Shaun. It seems to me that Emulex has spent a significant amount of energy promoting its 2nd Gen CNAs in the past few months with no mention of its 1st gen CNAs in any of these promotions. You can???t expect readers to automatically understand that ???Lightpulse=Gen 1 CNA??? and ???UCNA=Gen 2 CNA,??? it doesn???t work like that. The press releases in Februay, May, and June are confusing and most users would not sit in on an earnings call. It would have been more appropriate of Emulex to distinctly state that its Gen 1 CNAs have been selected by HP. That would have been more appropriate positioning in consideration of the fact that Emulex has been highlighting its 2nd Gen CNAs and all its design wins as far as recent newsflow is concerned. Brocade and QLogic have already begun announcing single chip CNA design wins so what???s the hold up with Emulex? Okay, the OEMs you say are the hold up - push them harder. Could it be availability of the UCNA product itself? Okay, accelerate schedules - the market is heating up, rapidly. I???m sure Broadcom would sweeten its offer if it only knew the details of your design wins.
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Comment by Tom on June 12, 2009 3:18 AM
Sorry about all the question marks in my previous comment posting...must be a glitch in the posting process.
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Comment by Nick on June 12, 2009 1:50 PM
Hi Tom,
Be nice if the journalists who received the PR also do some digging on our behalves instead of churning it out vertbatim. $/GB for storage solutions is a classic. Islion, DataDirect etc claim $1/GB or less in their PR for their solutions but when you do the maths (using scantily available public pricing) adding all the software and data protection you actually need its nearer 3x that.
A bit of transparency would not go a miss.
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Comment by Storage Veteran on June 15, 2009 9:36 PM
Well Said,
For most customers SCSI 160 was overkill if one just focuses on performance
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