Hi all. In this article, we publish the opinion of our partner, a system integrator, Ulagos. It will talk about how customers see Aerodisk, how any Russian solution is perceived in principle, how implementation ends and how support works.
Further narration will be in the first person.
Hello, let me introduce myself first. My name is Sergey Tanaev, I am the CEO of Ulagos, a system integrator that sells and implements IT solutions. As you understand, I communicate with customers not just a lot, but a lot. Both formally and informally. Therefore, I can safely convey their opinion to the audience of Habr.
What's in our heads?
We all love to compare. For example, we often like to compare IT solutions with cars. Here, they say, there is such a cool car.
There is a vendor like this, with three letters - green, this is like a BMW - a cool car!
Here, for example, there is another vendor of three letters, blue. This is Audi.
And here is another representative of bohemia - Mercedes Maybach.
In principle, customers say: βHere! Class! Technique! Expensive, fast, reliable!β People are cool with this. They ask each other:
"What system do you have? I have three letters, green.β
βAnd I have a blue one with three letters, Iβm generally satisfied!β
And then I come and say: βGuys, look, the Russian storage system AERODISK!β.
In 100% of cases, the reaction is one. Here's one.
Because when we talk about cars and think about Russian technology, something like this picture appears in our head.
This is a necessarily killed bucket without a hood, without doors, there is always someone sitting inside and as if drunk. Why is anyone there at all? Very simple: because without it, this junk will definitely not go anywhere. Might need another dude to push from behind.
This is such a sad picture in the head of 100% of my customers.
They can be understood. Firstly, the Aerodisk company is new to the market. Secondly, for several decades now we have all been accustomed by hook or by crook to the fact that any Russian technology is bad.
My task, with the help of facts, is to convince you that, in fact, Russian technology is like this:
Or so:
Real Comparison
Now let's get to the facts. When comparing storage systems objectively, we tend to use simple criteria.
- Reliability
- Performance
- Expansion cost
- Support quality
- Price
Let's start with point 1.
Reliability
I usually ask my customers who use A-brands:
βHow would you rate the reliability of your storage system?β
The answer is usually this:
βEverything is cool, no complaints, I sleep peacefully, eat, go to work and so on. Rating - five plus!
Then I ask a second question:
βOkay, have you had any data loss, well, at least once? For example, when updating the storage system firmware or for some other reason?
In almost 100% of cases, hand on heart, customers answer me with a sigh:
"Yes, it happened!"
Now let's go back a little...
A very interesting picture emerges. On the one hand, it sits firmly in my head that A-brand is always reliable. On the other hand, on A-brands, we lose data like mere mortals.
But back to Aerodisk.
I have been selling and implementing AERODISK storage systems since the fall of 2017. As you understand, I managed to implement a lot of data storage projects of varying degrees of complexity. Many systems have been in operation for over a year. Periodically, customers buy more disks or shelves as their needs grow. I maintain a good relationship with each of my clients.
And here's a fact for you. Loss of data with Aerodisk systems at my clients No. Yes, there were hardware failures, there were administrator errors and other abnormal situations. But always the data remained intact. The system is designed in such a way that it is extremely difficult to lose data. This is what you should try to do.
Firstly, like A-brands, Aerodisk has a bunch of standard data protection tools: snapshots, auto-snapshots, triple-parity RAID, clones and replication.
Secondly, there are additional tools that are not visible to the eye, but they save in critical situations. Lockdown-mode (or foolproof). If critical components are damaged as a result of a hardware failure or incorrect operation, the system closes and does not allow operations that can completely destroy the storage system until the normal state is restored.
A BBU module is also provided, which allows the storage system to work offline for several minutes if power is lost. What does it look like in practice?
I have one customer. This is a plant in Yekaterinburg. There is extremely disgusting electricity. It constantly disappears for a few minutes, and then appears. And this can happen several times a day.
Recently, AERODISK storage systems were brought there for testing. They plugged it into a regular outlet past the UPS, brushed the dust off the table, where they then put the storage system, and set it up. The BBU module was disabled for the test period so as not to spoil the equipment with tests.
After that I went about my business. Then the customer calls me and says:
βSerge, everything is gone. We cut off the light, then they gave it, we connect to the storage system, and everything is red there!
I explained to the customer that this is normal storage behavior if there is no BBU or UPS. This is a protection system. The system detected a blackout on both controllers, which was obviously not normal, and out of harm's way blocked any chance of being finished off.
Imagine what would happen if the power was cut off at your enterprise 5 times a day, and at that moment, for example, a rebuild was going on on the storage system (that is, rebuilding a raid group)? Obviously, at some point the data would be lost, it's just a matter of time. Therefore, in such cases, the storage system enters protection mode, from which you can exit by a regular regular reboot. In the end, this was done, and the test continued, already with a normal UPS and BBU, respectively.
There were many situations for my clients. For some, the UPS burned down and the whole room was smoked, for others, disks flew out due to hardware failures, but the data was not lost.
Of course, now they will tell me: βThere are too few installations to brag about the fact that there were no failures that irrevocably killed dataβ and they will, of course, be right.
Obviously, the issue of the number of installations is extremely important here. It is also clear that the issue of data loss on the Aerodisk storage system is a matter of time. That's why when comparing the reliability of top brands and Aerodisk, it would be fair to put an equal sign. Like A-brands, Aerodisk uses a multi-level data protection system against any force majeure circumstances.
All these systems are quite reliable, although no one can guarantee the safety of data 100%, simply because it is physically impossible.
Performance
Everything is quite transparent here. Previously, when Aerodisk had only RDG (RAID Distributed Group - a type of disk group), performance tests did not always give results. This is due to the peculiarities of the RDG implementation. There is a lot of intelligence, but you have to pay for it with reduced productivity.
With the advent of DDP (Dynamic Disk Pool - the second way to organize groups in AERODISK), the situation has changed radically, AERODISK began to tear everyone in its class on flash and in hybrid configurations. The results are in but I will repeat them here briefly:
Entry level system AERODISK ENGINE N2, FC16Gb, 24 SSD drives 800G
- Standard test in 4k FullRandom blocks - 400 IOPS, 000ms latency.
- Large block test 128k - 6 gigabytes per second read stream; 5,5 gigabytes per second recording stream.
In both cases, the load on the storage processors is approximately 50%, that is, this is not the limit.
What do these numbers tell us? Is it a lot or a little? Let's compare. I test a lot of different storage systems by the nature of my activity. Of course, I canβt write here on HabrΓ© the results of Aerodiskβs head-on competitors. They will sue me for this. But at the same time I can say the following. Vendors with three letters - both blue and green, can also give such results.
But there is one problem.
These results in A-brands are possible only on models of medium and high levels (Mid-Range and Enterprise Mid-Range), and on entry-level models (Entry level) the results are much worse, three to four times. In order not to be unfounded, I give an example from the materials of one of the A-brands, where this is absolutely officially written.
This is a three-letter description of one A-brand. You can find it on the Internet. On the left is the entry-level model, on the right is the highest. It turns out that on an entry-level storage system, Aerodisk delivers performance like a top-end A-brand competitor system.
I have not yet seen the results of the Engine N4 (Enterprise Mid-range) storage tests, but I suspect that there will be a new record already for mid-range and high-level storage systems. Let's wait here.
Conclusion: Aerodisk in terms of performance, at least, keeps at the level of A-brands, and due to a more attractive pricing policy, it wins in the price / performance ratio or if you want IOPS/rub.
Expansion cost
This is an extremely important point that customers like to forget about. It often happens that we bought a storage system in its initial configuration at a super price, really for a penny. Pleased with a successful purchase, we put the storage system into operation and begin to write data to it. In two or three months, the place on the storage system runs out, and we go to the manufacturer for new disks or shelves right away. And here we are in for a surprise.
It suddenly turns out that the super discount only applied to the initial configuration, and you need to expand the storage system at full cost. As a result, there is no choice, not to buy a new storage system? You have to spend a lot of money on expansion. But that is not all.
At some point, we will run into the maximum characteristics of this storage system, because the controller's processor does not pull out, and we will really have to buy a new storage system.
Of course, a reasonable question arises: why didnβt you do a normal sizing and calculate the volume?
The question is indeed reasonable and all vendors (including Aerodisk) all the time say:
Sizing, sizing and more sizing! Three years minimum!
But in reality, three purely psychological factors come into play.
- The desire (or need) to save money. We counted back to back and then cut it off again, it should seem to be enough.
- Vendor marketing that promises super space savings on compression and deduplication.
- Unaccounted for loads that arose immediately after implementation. More precisely, they were, but they were not planned to be placed on the new storage system. But in fact, they installed a new, fast and convenient storage system, and it immediately turned out that there are a million internal IT services that need to be stuffed there in order to increase the loyalty to IT of internal users and the business as a whole.
As a result, in three months it is necessary to expand the system ... already for other money.
The classic situation with A-brands is described above. How are things going with AERODISK?
AERODISK Engine is, in fact, a constructor. If at some point you hit the controller processor, you can put the processor more powerful, and not change the entire storage system to an older model. The same situation with RAM, I / O adapters. Of course, the vendor himself will be engaged in the selection and replacement of components, since he has a guarantee for his equipment.
What about discs? And here is the most interesting. We all know that A-brands cannot install third-party disks. For example, you cannot buy an HGST disk and plug it into an A-brand storage system. It just won't work. Why?
Previously, vendors themselves launched legends, such as:
- Disks in storage systems are produced by storage manufacturers themselves. It is not true. They are made by the same companies, WD, Samsung, Micron, Intel, etc. Just due to service and marketing, these drives are 4-8 times more expensive than their counterparts from the original manufacturers.
- Drives in a storage system are specifically flashed by the storage manufacturer with their firmware to improve reliability and/or performance. And this is also not true. Disks are flashed (more precisely, the sector size is changed to custom) in order for the vendor to protect itself. On the one hand, so that 100% third-party disks do not start up in its storage system, on the other hand, so that its βstitchedβ disk does not start up anywhere else.
Aerodisk has a very interesting policy in this regard.
Just like A-brands, Aerodisk has its own discs, which, in fact, are the same as those from the open market, but they are more expensive (though only 1,5-2 times more expensive, not 4-8 times) , because they have a guarantee from Aerodisk (quick replacement disk).
However, there is one VERY IMPORTANT difference.
Attention! You can use your disks. Yes, yes, theirs.
That is, go to the Yandex Market, buy conditional HGST disks, plug them into the storage system, and they will work. Of course, there will be no guarantee from Aerodisk for these disks (at the same time, the guarantee for the storage system itself does not fall off), you will have to deal with replacing disks yourself.
Of course, you need to understand that storage developers are also people and also want to eat, so using third-party drives will require a separate license (by the way, not very expensive).
Eventually in terms of expansion cost, the Aerodisk is more flexible than most of its top competitors.
Missed the sizing? OK! There is always an opportunity for not the biggest money to expand the system. The ability to freely upgrade the hardware, the ability to use expensive storage developer disks and not take a steam bath or save and use your own disks - all this is very pleasing. Unlike A-brands, Aerodisk gives you a choice, and having such a choice is, in my opinion, always good.
Support quality
We are already accustomed to the support of top brands. Support from a top vendor is always the peace of mind of a CIO. There are service centers in all cities, there are a lot of trained specialists all over the country, there are a lot of technical materials on the Internet and you can always βgoogleβ everything.
It would seem that everything is perfect. But the devil, as you know, is in the details. Let's try to figure out how support for A-brand systems is usually organized.
You call (or write) to the call center / service desk, where a polite person from the first line of support asks you 5-10 standard questions about your problem and registers a ticket. Then (immediately or after some short time) this polite, but not very competent person sincerely tries to find a quick solution to your problem. If the issue is to replace a failed disk, then this, of course, is solved quickly, but if something is more complicated, then problems begin.
Your request is transferred to the second line of support to guru engineers who know much more, and the chance that they will solve your problem is much higher. But the trouble is, guru-engineers are busy people, and it takes SEVERAL DAYS to wait for the guru to descend from heaven to mere mortals and start dealing with their problem.
I'm not joking now, and many customers will confirm this. For cool, expensive and popular A-brands, the transfer of a ticket between the first and second lines is almost always a few days of waiting. And if the second line failed, and you need the help of developers from the third line, then what?
How does Aerodisk support work? Everything is exactly the same: several support lines, a ticket system, and so on. In the regional presence in the Russian Federation and the CIS, Aerodisk is approximately at the same level (in all major cities), although, of course, the presence is not so large.
There are few trained specialists, as well as materials, on the Internet, but their number is growing quite rapidly. Everyone's SLA is about the same, there are several levels, from the simplest to mission-critical.
It would seem that everything, on this comparison of the quality of support can be completed. In general, a draw with a slight margin towards top vendors.
However, Aerodisk support has one very interesting feature. I would even say - a kill-feature. Regardless of the level of support purchased, you have a dedicated qualified engineer.
Moreover, you are personally acquainted with your dedicated engineer, you know him. You have his mobile phone, you can easily chat on WhatsApp or Telegram, he knows about your infrastructure and understands it. It is easy for him to solve your problems because he knows you and your infrastructure.
If he cannot cope with the problem, he himself (attention, himself!) will call the developers, and they will help him solve your problem.
You can say that if you do this with all customers, then the engineer will be torn apart at some point. Iβll answer right away - they wonβt break it, because. as the number of customers increases, the number of such engineers increases. The fact is that Aerodisk does not rely on a large number of low-skilled personnel, as is usually the case with A-brands. On the contrary, the emphasis is on a small number of very competent and educated people.
This approach has enough disadvantages, for example, the search for personnel becomes an eternal task, but this approach works and works well. And I think that's enough.
Eventually the presence of a dedicated guru-engineer as a mandatory element of services makes Aerodisk support much more attractive and valuable in the eyes of the customer compared to top vendors.
Price
And now the fun part.
When I come to customers with AERODISK. Customers usually tell me: βListen, Seryoga, well, this is Russian, it should cost a little more than nothing!!β
That's why I usually say this:
- AERODISK is not QNAP
- AERODISK is not SYNOLOGY
- AERODISK is not SUPERMICRO
This is a normal Enterprise storage, with great performance and excellent support, and which, of course, is worth the money. What a nice car.
The Aerodisk is not more expensive than a conditional top vendor of three letters, but not much cheaper either. Stop, though, there is an option to use your own disks.
If you use your own disks, it will be much cheaper than top vendors. That's why if you need to beat someone with a price, then with Aerodisk it can be done easily.
Summing up
In no way am I trying to idealize the Aerodisk. It is clear that, like any solution, it has its drawbacks.
The lack of installations (hundreds so far) does not allow us to make a final conclusion about reliability, although at the moment storage systems work perfectly in current projects, the reliability of Aerodisk systems is made at the level of the best foreign solutions and is not inferior to them at all.
Technical support is also not organized on such a large scale, although its resources are now sufficient, in any case, none of my customers complained, rather the opposite - they praise for the original approach with a dedicated engineer, the ultra-fast response of all support lines and, indeed, loyalty to the customer.
Aerodisk systems clearly outperform A-brands in terms of price-performance ratio. For less money you can get more performance. And this is a fact from which there is no escape.
Also, AERODISK storage systems are technically more flexible (hardware upgrade, use of their own disks), which makes it easy to solve scaling issues for reasonable money.
Unfortunately, decades of bad-mouthing Russian technology have not been in vain. We all have a cliche βRussian technology is badβ in our heads, and we will get rid of this for a long time, pouring mud on our own and not noticing the obvious jambs of foreign technology.
With this article, I wanted to show the real advantages of a very worthy Russian product, which, in my opinion, really solve and cover any possible costs.
Initially, I planned to talk more about the implementation and operating experience of Aerodisk with my one commercial (it is important that this is not a state) customer, but then the article would be quite huge, so wait for the continuation in a week.
Thank you, please write comments, share your experience.
PS By the way, the video of my recent Aerodisk presentation and a VERY lively discussion with real customers can be viewed on the Aerodisk Youtube channel.
There you will find many confirmations of the theses described in this article from the lips of real customers. The discussion turned out to be extremely fun, I recommend watching it.
Source: habr.com
