Storage vendor bloggers - losing data or losing the plot? • The Register

Storage vendor bloggers - losing data or losing the plot?

So does EMC's Center really lose data?

By Chris Mellor • Get more from this author

Posted in Storage, 4th February 2009 14:57 GMT

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Zero uncertainty

Later in the comment sequence he states: "There is zero uncertainty or doubt in my claims. You see a few years ago I executed a script... and was able to repeatedly and intentionally make the Centera lose an object silently with no notification back to the script or user.

"I have spoken to dozens of EMC Centera partners and customers who have experienced the same symptoms due to various product deficiencies not necessarily related to hash algorithms."

Bercovici has updated his blog entry with score-throughs thus: "In case you're wondering, this is NOT an issue with Symantec software. The root cause is the complex EMC Centera API and brittle internal Centera architecture which Symantec Enterprise Vault and other similar applications are forced to utilize for proper archiving functionality on that platform."

He also posted a later blog entry on Whistleblowing which revisited the topic and concluded: "It's unfortunate that EMC product complexity and uncertainty is increasing the risk of the very data it is entrusted to protect. It's time to stabilize and simplify your archiving environment."

With Symantec's Enterprise Vault and Centera, complex software is writing to a complex storage product. But that is a side issue, irrelevant in my own view. NetApp's ONTAP is a highly complex storage product and he's not suggesting we abandon its use because of its complexity. Simply put, Bercovici claimed the Symantec tech-note indicated Centera lost archived data when it did not. He was wrong.

Storage blogging by professionals well-informed about their own company's products, generally knowledgable about storage products, practices and processes, and also pre-disposed to criticising competing vendors' products, can be a great generator of light. But sometimes the heat and smoke flowing from a blog controversy completely obscures the light.

As far as I can ascertain EMC's Centera, like NetApp's SnapLock, does not lose stored data. ®