[gpfsug-discuss] GPFS vs Spectrum Scale

[Daniel Kidger]

I work for IBM and in particular support OEMs and other Business Partners

I am not sure if Simon is using try true IBM speak here as any OEM 
purchase of Spectrum Scale inherently has tin included, be it from DDN, 
Seagate, Lenovo, etc.

Remember there are 4 main ways to buy Spectrum Scale:
1. as pure software, direct from IBM or though a business partner.
2. as part of a hardware offering from an OEM
3. as part of a hardware offering from IBM. This is what ESS is.
4. as a cloud service in Softlayer.

Spectrum Scale (GPFS) is exactly the same software no matter which route 
above is used to purchase it.
What OEMs do do, as IBM do with their ESS appliance product is do extra 
validation to confirm that the newest release is fully compatible with 
their hardware solution and has no regressions in performance or 
otherwise. Hence there is often perhaps 3 months between say the 4.2 
official release and when it appears in OEM solutions. ESS is the same 
here.

The two difference to note that make #2 OEM systems different are though 
are:

1: When bought as part of an OEM through say Lenovo, DDN or Seagate then 
that OEM owns the actual GFPS licenses rather than the end customer.
The practical side of this is that if you later replace the hardware with 
a different vendors hardware there is no automatic right to transfer over 
the old licenses, as would be the case if GPFS was bought directly from 
IBM/ 

2. When bought as part of an OEM system, then that OEM is the sole point 
of contact for the customer for all support. The customer does not first 
have to triage if it is a hw or sw issue.
The OEM in return provides 1st and 2nd line support to the customer, and 
only escalates in-depth level 3 support issues to IBM's development team. 
The OEMs then will have gone though extensive training to be able to do 
such 1st and 2nd line support.  (Of course many traditional IBM Business 
Partners are also very clued up about helping their customers directly.)


Daniel



Dr.Daniel Kidger
No. 1 The Square,

Technical Specialist  SDI (formerly Platform Computing)
Temple Quay,
Bristol  BS1 6DG
Mobile:
+44-07818 522 266
United Kingdom
Landline:
+44-02392 564 121 (Internal ITN 3726 9250)
 

e-mail:
daniel.kidger at uk.ibm.com
 






From:   "Simon Thompson (Research Computing - IT Services)" 
<S.J.Thompson at bham.ac.uk>
To:     "gpfsug-discuss at spectrumscale.org" 
<gpfsug-discuss at spectrumscale.org>
Date:   02/03/2016 16:30
Subject:        [gpfsug-discuss] GPFS vs Spectrum Scale
Sent by:        gpfsug-discuss-bounces at spectrumscale.org



I had a slightly strange discussion with IBM this morning... We typically 
buy OEM GPFS with out tin. The discussion went along the lines that 
spectrum scale is different somehow from gpfs via the oem route.

Is this just a marketing thing? Red herring? Or is there something more to 
this?

Thanks

Simon
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