Need some feedback on Tegile SAN
We are building a new platform to migrate two merging companies and will be moving data from both companies it. We have been using Dell Compellent as our SAN for many years and have recently had conversations with Tegile as well. We have a Cisco UCS blade chassis with 8 B200 blades and are running ESX 5.5. We also have a few other physical servers that have a mix of SAN volumes attached via FC as well as physical servers with local storage.
Coming into the fold along with the merger is a 400 seat Citrix farm. We are currently undecided if we will continue with Citrix (it is an older version and needs upgrading), but we also maybe be in favor of replacing those WinTerm machines with desktop computers and just publishing the applications.
But my main reason for the question is to get some feedback on Tegile itself. They are proposing their model 2300 with a shelf of drives to give the 80 TB that we need. An additional 2 TB of SSD storage they say will handle our current environment and their claims of deduplication and compression will allow this.
We have a comfort level with Dell Compellent and think very highly of their CoPilot support team. Dell's solution of our project involves a Tier 0 with 24 TB of SSD Storage and 80 TB of Tier 3 storage along with two SC8000 controllers to head the unit up. The prices are about the same.
Tegile seems like cool technology, but the downside we hear is 1. Their claims of dedupe and compression are misrepresented by their graphical metrics (i.e., your compression rates are not accurate). 2. Their support leaves much to be desired.
The downside of Dell is that their Tiering structure is not as dynamic and that Data Progression rates with "hot" data may not be as fast.
As I mentioned, both systems cost about the same.
Can anyone speak to the pros and cons to Tegile vs. Compellent and what sort of factors we should consider in making this decision on which choice to go with? I am personally having a tough time deciding between the two, but need to make a choice fairly soon. Thanks for the input.
Coming into the fold along with the merger is a 400 seat Citrix farm. We are currently undecided if we will continue with Citrix (it is an older version and needs upgrading), but we also maybe be in favor of replacing those WinTerm machines with desktop computers and just publishing the applications.
But my main reason for the question is to get some feedback on Tegile itself. They are proposing their model 2300 with a shelf of drives to give the 80 TB that we need. An additional 2 TB of SSD storage they say will handle our current environment and their claims of deduplication and compression will allow this.
We have a comfort level with Dell Compellent and think very highly of their CoPilot support team. Dell's solution of our project involves a Tier 0 with 24 TB of SSD Storage and 80 TB of Tier 3 storage along with two SC8000 controllers to head the unit up. The prices are about the same.
Tegile seems like cool technology, but the downside we hear is 1. Their claims of dedupe and compression are misrepresented by their graphical metrics (i.e., your compression rates are not accurate). 2. Their support leaves much to be desired.
The downside of Dell is that their Tiering structure is not as dynamic and that Data Progression rates with "hot" data may not be as fast.
As I mentioned, both systems cost about the same.
Can anyone speak to the pros and cons to Tegile vs. Compellent and what sort of factors we should consider in making this decision on which choice to go with? I am personally having a tough time deciding between the two, but need to make a choice fairly soon. Thanks for the input.
What code level are you running on your Compellent systems?
ASKER
On our current Compellent system, we are running 6.4.5. But our new proposed environment would have 6.5, which I believe is the latest. As I understand it, 6.5 gives Tier 3 compression (with the use of the SC8000 controllers).
Thanks for your response.
Thanks for your response.
I have not had 6.5 notes come across my desk yet, so I am not sure on the new changes, I just wanted to make sure you were up to date as a lot of people are still on older 5.x code, and it also sounds like you are running 8000 controllers which is great.
I have not used a Tegile system yet. They are a newer offering. If you talk to their people they will all tell you that they are the greatest thing to hit earth in storage but so will any new storage company. They do have some fancy features but its niche and expensive for what you are getting. If you are really looking into trading in for one I would want some proof on what the data dedup and compression will do for YOU. It's easy to toss numbers around and then find out its not going to work so well for your data set after it's already in the rack. It's impossible to know for sure because at the end of the day there are no standards for either of these features at all.
On the other hand you have a Compellent it sounds like you enjoy. You know the support is solid. Go to the Tegile website and look at their job offerings and you can see where their support is. I'm not saying it's bad, I haven't used their specific support, but calling the other side of the world does have a reputation with it.
As for the Compellent data tiers, have you spoken with CoPilot about it yet? There are some things they can do from the command line to change the amount of data that moves each day if that is the problem you are having. I am not sure they can change the timing, but certainly the amount if that is your bottleneck.
I have not used a Tegile system yet. They are a newer offering. If you talk to their people they will all tell you that they are the greatest thing to hit earth in storage but so will any new storage company. They do have some fancy features but its niche and expensive for what you are getting. If you are really looking into trading in for one I would want some proof on what the data dedup and compression will do for YOU. It's easy to toss numbers around and then find out its not going to work so well for your data set after it's already in the rack. It's impossible to know for sure because at the end of the day there are no standards for either of these features at all.
On the other hand you have a Compellent it sounds like you enjoy. You know the support is solid. Go to the Tegile website and look at their job offerings and you can see where their support is. I'm not saying it's bad, I haven't used their specific support, but calling the other side of the world does have a reputation with it.
As for the Compellent data tiers, have you spoken with CoPilot about it yet? There are some things they can do from the command line to change the amount of data that moves each day if that is the problem you are having. I am not sure they can change the timing, but certainly the amount if that is your bottleneck.
ASKER
Hi. I really appreciate your insight. Yes, I am certainly familiar with the marketing pitches that Tegile has made in their pitch to us. I have heard similar suggestions regarding POC with their units and wholeheartedly advise anyone to take that approach with new players in that market.
But it does sound enticing and I'd love to know anyone's thoughts that has had Compellent and made the switch to Tegile and/or vice versa. To me, Compellent is proven and CoPilot is solid as you say.
Just trying to make an informed decision free of the sales speak that vendors use to influence purchasing behavior. I completely understand that. But I'd like to make as factual of a decision as possible free of any bias. That usually comes from Engineers and SysAdmin types that have used both systems and can speak to the day-to-day administration of those units and then look to make a good "apples to apples" comparison.
But it does sound enticing and I'd love to know anyone's thoughts that has had Compellent and made the switch to Tegile and/or vice versa. To me, Compellent is proven and CoPilot is solid as you say.
Just trying to make an informed decision free of the sales speak that vendors use to influence purchasing behavior. I completely understand that. But I'd like to make as factual of a decision as possible free of any bias. That usually comes from Engineers and SysAdmin types that have used both systems and can speak to the day-to-day administration of those units and then look to make a good "apples to apples" comparison.
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We chose Compellent since we already know it. The Dell solution was robust with extra SSD drives.