NetApp Zeroes In on SMBs

Network Appliance made its move into the SMB market today, launching the StoreVault S500 system.

The S500 is a 2U system that holds up to 12 SATA drives for a maximum of 6 Tbytes and supports NAS and iSCSI out of the box. Fibre Channel support is promised for the fall through a SAN starter kit from QLogic.

The StoreVault line differs from the rest of NetApp's products both from technology and go-to-market standpoints. It cannot be upgraded to NetApp's other FAS disk systems, which are modular and can be upgraded from the low end through enterprise. StoreVault systems will be sold exclusively through VARs instead of directly through NetApp.

"This is a clean sheet build for NetApp," says Sajai Krishnan, general manager of NetApp's SMB business unit. "This only scales within the StoreVault family. You can't pull a drive and go up the FAS chain."

Once the Fibre Channel kit is available, NetApp will give SMBs the ability to run Fibre Channel, iSCSI, and NAS on the same system -- something none of its main competitors offer. However, it's unlikely anybody would want it for a Fibre Channel SAN only. Unlike competition in the low end, such as the EMC and Dell AX150, the S500 has no dual-controller option. Also, the price nearly doubles for Fibre Channel connectivity.Pricing is expected to start at around $5,000 for four 250-Gbyte SATA drives and iSCSI connectivity. The QLogic SAN kit with Fibre Channel switches and HBAs will cost around $4,500 to $5,000, Krishnan says. CIFS and NFS NAS protocols also cost extra.

According to Krishnan, dual controllers and Fibre Channel-only systems are too expensive for the SMBs NetApp is aiming for.

"We asked SMB customers, 'Do you want dual controllers?' they said, 'Yeah, sure.' Then we asked what they wanted to pay for them," he says, laughing. "If you're looking for a hard-core, dual-controller, dyed-in-the-wool, single-protocol Fibre Channel solution, there are systems that can serve this market better."

NetApp targets the S500 at companies that need 500 Gbytes to 3 Tbytes of storage, spend less than $20,000 per year on storage, and don't have a dedicated storage administrator.

The S500 includes the Data Ontap 7G operating systems NetApp uses in its other disk systems, and it supports up to 250 snapshots and RAID-DP. RAID-DP is NetApp's version of RAID 6 that lets a system survive two drive failures. The system also includes a Windows GUI management system that is not part of NetApp's other systems.The S500 arrives less than two months after NetApp sought to make a splash in the enterprise with its FAS6000, the largest system it sells. (See NetApp Scales Up.) The SMB system extends NetApp's product portfolio downward as part of its plan to compete with its main storage rival EMC in the NAS and SAN landscape. (See NetApp Solid On SANs.)

The StoreVault family competes most directly with the EMC and Dell AX150 on the SAN side, as well as the Dell PowerEdge 2900 and Hewlett-Packard ProLiant DL100 Windows-based NAS servers. (See SNW: Small, SAS-sy & Safe, EMC Upgrades SMB SANs, and Dell Unveils New NAS.)

Analysts see it as an attempt to head off the momentum Dell and HP are building with Windows-based NAS. Although NetApp and EMC dominate the high-end NAS market, Dell and HP have made inroads with low-end NAS and recently launched systems based on Microsoft's Windows Storage Server 2003 R2.

"After scrambling up into the enterprise, NetApp knows it must address the SMBs too," says analyst Brad O'Neill of the Taneja Group. "Microsoft is like a steamroller in NAS. They could turn storage management into a peripheral of the server."

When asked if NetApp considered building its SMB system on a Windows Storage Server, Krishnan said, "We felt with Data Ontap we could give the SMB market something it doesn't have today."NetApp also offers Silverback Systems' iSnap2110 iSCSI TCP/IP offload (TOE) card for improved IP SAN performance. NetApp was a tactical investor in Silverback's $16 million funding round that closed in April. (See Silverback Hoists $16M).

Dave Raffo, News Editor, Byte and Switch

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