Is new NetApp equipment more of a maintenance and support hog than Isilon?
According to this Wall Street Journal Article it might be.

For some companies, buying tech gear from a start-up is a first. Geophysical mapping firm Arcis Corp., for one, has always purchased its technology from big tech firms. But last year, it chose start-up Isilon, a Seattle-based network-storage company, to help improve how it stores and processes two-dimensional and three-dimensional images. Arcis, in Calgary, Canada, captures and analyzes images below the Earth’s surface for oil and gas exploration. Over the years, the amount and size of data the company analyzed grew until it became difficult to maintain.

Arcis initially examined gear from large companies such as Sun Microsystems Inc. and Network Appliance Inc., which both visited and conducted hour-long presentations about their equipment. But the products would have required Arcis to hire more information-technology personnel for maintenance. In contrast, Isilon’s system was newer and didn’t require much maintenance. “Their [Isilon’s] technology was more innovative than all the other things we had seen, so we took a leap of faith,” says Rob Howey, who oversees data processing for Arcis.

Many of Zerowait’s customers have chosen to maintain and upgrade their NetApp storage using our service, support and parts upgrades. I wonder what were the people and performance factors that Arcis used in its evaluation of their different storage options. Did Arcis evaluate upgrading their NetApp using third party service and support? How much more efficient is Isilon then NetApp and where did Arcis go to get reliable comparison figures? Where can anyone go to find a formula that objectively evaluates Personnel, Price, Performance, and Power consumption for a storage subsytem?