topic Re: NetApp needs to concentrate more hardware Component's like having special Customized & Engineered CPU's in ONTAP Discussions

NetApp needs to concentrate more hardware Component's like having special Customized & Engineered CPU's

naveenrk — Thu, 05 Jun 2025 07:24:22 GMT

Hi ,

NetApp needs to have brand custiomed hardware like CPU's like IBM is using for it AIX OS.

Should have blade centre like Hardware architectures where Customer's will get the benefit's like Add as need the Performance .

Re: NetApp needs to concentrate more hardware Component's like having special Customized & Engineered CPU's

amiller_1 — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 15:33:41 GMT

Hmm.....can you elaborate a bit more on the business benefit?

Custom manufactured CPU's are expensive (see HP dropping theirs, costs over at IBM/Intel/AMD/Sun) especially if at smaller quantities (i.e. # of NetApp sales compared to # of PC/server sales).

I also personally see the server market as pretty crowded right now (with Cisco sucking the air out of the room right now for new entries as well I think).

Thoughts?

Re: NetApp needs to concentrate more hardware Component's like having special Customized & Engineered CPU's

naveenrk — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 06:54:46 GMT

Hi ,

Customized NetApp Storage Platform Hardware Components is need to have the Performance , Scability factor .

For example instead of using the General purpose dual or Quad core CPU's in NetApp Storage Hardware , it better have the dedicated NetApp Brand CPU to server only the Storage Functions which enhance the Performace and Scability of the NetApp Storage Hardware in the Market.

Like Qlogic is having its brand CPU's for it FCoE , FC adapter .

It is not for Only the CPU's , it can include any Components used in the NetApp Storage Hardware like Solid State Drive (SSD) .

Re: NetApp needs to concentrate more hardware Component's like having special Customized & Engineered CPU's

eric_barlier — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 03:56:17 GMT

I would argue that you are better off not manufacturing your own hardware as that ties you down with vendors of said hardware. This especially

does not make sense if you are a software company like NetApp is.

Eric

Re: NetApp needs to concentrate more hardware Component's like having special Customized & Engineered CPU's

adamfox — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 19:04:04 GMT

I have to agree with Eric here. The tech graveyard is full of companies who tried to do it all and develop their own chips (see most of the old supercomputer companies like Cray, TMC, etc.) with the latest being the once mighty Sun Microsystems who, in my humble opinion, fought the "good software on commodity HW" trend for way too long. Heck, I used to work for Auspex who stuck to the HW route and saw first hand how expensive it is.

The trend now is to do more with less. Building our own CPUs would only raise the price.

As usual, I don't speak for NetApp, this is just one guy who's been around a while's opinion.

Re: NetApp needs to concentrate more hardware Component's like having special Customized & Engineered CPU's

eric_barlier — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 22:48:58 GMT

yeah, but neither myself nor Adam are CEOs as far as I know, so we could be wrong 🙂

I do reckon its more efficient to customize your software to commodity hardware. Then again Apple are going the other way, they ve started manufacturing their own CPUs I believe. And then there is Google, they customize everything to fit their needs at the software stack, not sure about what hardware they use though.

Eric

Re: NetApp needs to concentrate more hardware Component's like having special Customized & Engineered CPU's

naveenrk — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 23:00:05 GMT

Hi ,

As we purchase the NetApp Storage Hardware Components from the Vendors for example Solid State Disk Drive (SSD), CPU's etc. , is it not possible for the vendor's customized the product as per NetApp requirements so that it not required to use the General Purpose Components for the NetApp Storage Hardware which may enhance the NetApp Storage Hardware Performance and Scalability.

Re: NetApp needs to concentrate more hardware Component's like having special Customized & Engineered CPU's

jb2cool01 — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 16:10:06 GMT

I really don't see the benefit that you'd get with this. Sure you 'might' get better performance after shelling out loads of $$$ in R&D and then rewriting or redeveloping ONTAP but after you've done all of that then standard off-the-shelf CPU's would have increased in performance and you're in the same position that you started in.

If performance really is an issue (CPU performance certainly isn't for us) then there are already better chips out there to use. As far as i can see the fastest filer FAS6080 uses between 4 and 8 dual core 2.6GHz Opteron's and there are already 6 core Opteron's available at the same clockspeed.

If i understand correctly (May well be wrong) ONTAP8 also starts addressing these issues with the ability to cluster all of your devices to share the load.

Re: NetApp needs to concentrate more hardware Component's like having special Customized & Engineered CPU's

gridley — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 16:31:43 GMT

Blades running ONTAP 8 would be cool though

Well not literally.