On Wed, Feb 10, 2010 at 12:37:46PM -0500, rwali...@washdcmail.com wrote: > I don't disagree with any of the facts you list, but I don't think the > alternatives are fully described by "Sun vs. much cheaper retail parts." > > We face exactly this same decision with buying RAM for our servers > (maybe more so since it is probably even more difficult to argue > there is a difference in RAM chip quality when the same > manufacturer's part is sourced from Sun vs. elsewhere). > > The thing we consider is how we'll live with a failure. > [..] > So we really don't view it as RAM vs. RAM comparison. It's more RAM > + easy warranty service vs. RAM + more difficult warranty service.
Yes. This is a great example of exactly the problem with disks. With RAM, the choice is clear and available (if not always easy). You decide how much the operational assurance is worth to you, and how/when you want to pay for the potential downtime and hassle of failure. Once you've made your decision, you act, and the parts work together until and unless some fault arises, at which point the cost implications of your decision come into play. Sun (or HP or IBM, etc) don't use some proprietary RAM socket adapter and skewed pricing model, in an attempt to force or bias the decision. > If you want a fully supported product down the road where everything > that goes wrong is Sun's fault, then buy that from Sun. Sure, that's never been in doubt. People (not even Sun salespeople) are trying to upsell one component, based on the additional benefits of the overall package. The benefits, and even the convincing value proposition to some other customer, of the package are not in dispute. However, that's irrelevant to someone who is not that customer; the upsell is not attractive to someone who does not want, or cannot afford, the extras. > If you want something much cheaper but where you will need to > negotiate future fixes, assemble it from various sources. I think the OP reached this conclusion long ago, before the original post. He just wants to buy a disk tray, and however much he or anyone else might wish that he could buy more, he's constrained otherwise, including having to accept the possible implications of later issues. The frustration here is that Sun is not a viable source; he's already tightly constrained, and this is a further unwelcome constraint. Ordinarily, that would be fine and he'd take his money elsewhere. In this case, there's an audience here of interested people, Sun customers and employees, who might either know of a way to work around or remove that constraint, or take note of the market feedback about uncatered demand. Apparently not. In this case, there are also not many other sources for shelves with similar density. If that's really what makes the component "premium", so be it. I hope other vendors are taking notice of the opportunity Sun is choosing (for reasons however valid) to ignore. -- Dan.
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