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Jon,
It's not completely FUD, nor can the question be completely ignored, HP are simply pointing out that in complex solutions you need to be careful to stop things 'falling down the cracks'.
This is my reading of these situations, not a formal statement that HP have made anywhere.
Q: Is Serviceguard 'supported' by HP if the shared storage is an HDS disk array?
A: YES. But not any storage related problems that can be attributed to the external non-HP storage.
Q: Will HP Support assist me if a problem with Serviceguard points towards a storage issue?
A: Probably yes, but only on a 'best effort' basis, and they will no doubt inform you to contact your storage vendor for 'contractually binding' assistance.
Q: So why are HP being so funny about this?
A: Likely they only want what is best for you - a single vendor solution has many features to reccomend it, not least a single point of contact (otherwise known as 'one throat to choke!'), end-to-end tested solutions etc.
If I were you, and the choice is really between a HP XP and a HDS Lightning, I would plump for the XP, simply for the joined up support. Naturally you will need HP to meet the same price as HDS, but if the disk array is only one component of the solution they should be able to do this if they really want the business. Of course going with HDS is not the end of the world, you just need to get agreement fromn them to own storage related cluster issues up until they have proved to your satisfaction that the problem lies in HP hardware/software.
HTH
Duncan
I am an HPE Employee
It's not completely FUD, nor can the question be completely ignored, HP are simply pointing out that in complex solutions you need to be careful to stop things 'falling down the cracks'.
This is my reading of these situations, not a formal statement that HP have made anywhere.
Q: Is Serviceguard 'supported' by HP if the shared storage is an HDS disk array?
A: YES. But not any storage related problems that can be attributed to the external non-HP storage.
Q: Will HP Support assist me if a problem with Serviceguard points towards a storage issue?
A: Probably yes, but only on a 'best effort' basis, and they will no doubt inform you to contact your storage vendor for 'contractually binding' assistance.
Q: So why are HP being so funny about this?
A: Likely they only want what is best for you - a single vendor solution has many features to reccomend it, not least a single point of contact (otherwise known as 'one throat to choke!'), end-to-end tested solutions etc.
If I were you, and the choice is really between a HP XP and a HDS Lightning, I would plump for the XP, simply for the joined up support. Naturally you will need HP to meet the same price as HDS, but if the disk array is only one component of the solution they should be able to do this if they really want the business. Of course going with HDS is not the end of the world, you just need to get agreement fromn them to own storage related cluster issues up until they have proved to your satisfaction that the problem lies in HP hardware/software.
HTH
Duncan
I am an HPE Employee
Jon,
Sorry, but I fail to see what is especially proprietory about HP's stance. Whoever you buy this product from its propietory, you can't put anyone elses disks in it or run anyone elses software on it (yet - although the growth of things like SMI-S and MS VSS may see this change).
Besides HP are not saying 'don't use the HDS box', they are simply pointing out that they believe they can offer better support for you if you take the XP. The same would be true if you spoke to Sun about Suncluster & the SE9980 (yes even though that really is just a HDS box!), or to IBM about HACMP and Shark. A lot of customers like the single vendor approach, and your being offered this. Remember on more 'non-propietory' cluster platforms, like MS Clusters or Veritas Clusters, this simply isn't an option, you HAVE to talk to at leats 2 vendors. So I think HP are actually offering you a choice, although perhaps the local sales team have gone the wrong way about communicating this to you. They should have said "it can be better if you go this way", rather than "it will be worse if you go that way". In a lot of cases that's all FUD is - subjective customer perceptions played on by the vendors.
Do HP fiddle with the code before it hits the ground? Depends who you talk to - HP maintain they do, while HDS maintain that they don't. Certainly HP pick particular firmware revs which they have qualified with their products, and there are certain HP products which are supported with the XP but not the HDS box (The Zero Downtime Backup/Instant Recovery functions of Data Protector for example).
As for the argument of buying the original vs. the OEM badged one, well think for a moment about this. Who manufactures the XP, and 9980? Hitachi do. That's the large japanese company. Who sells the array? Well Hitachi do it themselves in Japan and the far east. In the rest of the world its sold by seperate companies. By HP, and by HDS. HDS are a seperate American subsidiary company of Hitachi, and while obviously I'm not going to argue that they don't have better links into Hitachi than HP, you should remember that:
a) HP don't get the XP from HDS, they get it direct from Hitachi.
b) The 9980 is sold as some other product in Japan.
However all of this is really just stuff and nonsense the real decision should be:
a) Which product fits purpose best for me?
b) Which has the best price and support?
c) Who do I feel I can build a working partnership with?
Based on these it seems to me you may have already made you mind up to go HDS, and thats a perfectly good option. I also just noted that you are based in the UK, so I thought I should share with you my feelings having worked with both HP and HDS:
1. If your attaching all HP to your disk array (i.e. HP9000/Integrity/Proliant) then go with HP - it's just simpler.
2. If you have a more mixed environment (particularly a lot of Sun servers) then HDS make more sense - if you are thinking of attaching a Mainframe to this config, go with HDS - they have much more experience of this.
3. Both support organisations are generally of a high standard. I have noticed on a few occasions that some of the HDS engineers seem to be stuck in the old Mainframe past and know next-to-nothing about open systems. This is equally true of virtually all HP engineers when fealing with ESCON/FICON.
4. When looking at costs, *you* should be setting the standard for how these are to be structured. You will probably find both salesmen exteremely adpept at hiding costs away! Make sure you understand:
a) Initial buy price - what you get in terms of disk sizes/speeds, amount of memory/ACPs/CHIPs. Make sure that both quotes match up so you can compare apples with apples.
b) Support costs, and what that includes - you can normally persuade them to throw in a number of days consultancy a year.
c) Install & Config costs - you need to see these broken out, rather than wrapped up in 1 figure - again make sure both organisations are offering you similar services.
d) Expansion costs - this is the killer - how much will it cost me to add more storage 12 months from now, 24 months etc? Where are the break points for more cache/ACPs etc. How does this effect my software licensing.
Hope this has been useful. Whichever way you go, your in for some interesting times!
HTH
Duncan
I am an HPE Employee
Sorry, but I fail to see what is especially proprietory about HP's stance. Whoever you buy this product from its propietory, you can't put anyone elses disks in it or run anyone elses software on it (yet - although the growth of things like SMI-S and MS VSS may see this change).
Besides HP are not saying 'don't use the HDS box', they are simply pointing out that they believe they can offer better support for you if you take the XP. The same would be true if you spoke to Sun about Suncluster & the SE9980 (yes even though that really is just a HDS box!), or to IBM about HACMP and Shark. A lot of customers like the single vendor approach, and your being offered this. Remember on more 'non-propietory' cluster platforms, like MS Clusters or Veritas Clusters, this simply isn't an option, you HAVE to talk to at leats 2 vendors. So I think HP are actually offering you a choice, although perhaps the local sales team have gone the wrong way about communicating this to you. They should have said "it can be better if you go this way", rather than "it will be worse if you go that way". In a lot of cases that's all FUD is - subjective customer perceptions played on by the vendors.
Do HP fiddle with the code before it hits the ground? Depends who you talk to - HP maintain they do, while HDS maintain that they don't. Certainly HP pick particular firmware revs which they have qualified with their products, and there are certain HP products which are supported with the XP but not the HDS box (The Zero Downtime Backup/Instant Recovery functions of Data Protector for example).
As for the argument of buying the original vs. the OEM badged one, well think for a moment about this. Who manufactures the XP, and 9980? Hitachi do. That's the large japanese company. Who sells the array? Well Hitachi do it themselves in Japan and the far east. In the rest of the world its sold by seperate companies. By HP, and by HDS. HDS are a seperate American subsidiary company of Hitachi, and while obviously I'm not going to argue that they don't have better links into Hitachi than HP, you should remember that:
a) HP don't get the XP from HDS, they get it direct from Hitachi.
b) The 9980 is sold as some other product in Japan.
However all of this is really just stuff and nonsense the real decision should be:
a) Which product fits purpose best for me?
b) Which has the best price and support?
c) Who do I feel I can build a working partnership with?
Based on these it seems to me you may have already made you mind up to go HDS, and thats a perfectly good option. I also just noted that you are based in the UK, so I thought I should share with you my feelings having worked with both HP and HDS:
1. If your attaching all HP to your disk array (i.e. HP9000/Integrity/Proliant) then go with HP - it's just simpler.
2. If you have a more mixed environment (particularly a lot of Sun servers) then HDS make more sense - if you are thinking of attaching a Mainframe to this config, go with HDS - they have much more experience of this.
3. Both support organisations are generally of a high standard. I have noticed on a few occasions that some of the HDS engineers seem to be stuck in the old Mainframe past and know next-to-nothing about open systems. This is equally true of virtually all HP engineers when fealing with ESCON/FICON.
4. When looking at costs, *you* should be setting the standard for how these are to be structured. You will probably find both salesmen exteremely adpept at hiding costs away! Make sure you understand:
a) Initial buy price - what you get in terms of disk sizes/speeds, amount of memory/ACPs/CHIPs. Make sure that both quotes match up so you can compare apples with apples.
b) Support costs, and what that includes - you can normally persuade them to throw in a number of days consultancy a year.
c) Install & Config costs - you need to see these broken out, rather than wrapped up in 1 figure - again make sure both organisations are offering you similar services.
d) Expansion costs - this is the killer - how much will it cost me to add more storage 12 months from now, 24 months etc? Where are the break points for more cache/ACPs etc. How does this effect my software licensing.
Hope this has been useful. Whichever way you go, your in for some interesting times!
HTH
Duncan
I am an HPE Employee
