Having been working in the IT industry for 27 years, I’ve seen my share of outrageous vendor claims.In fact, it is one my biggest pet peeves about our industry.How many times have you seen XYZ vendor claiming their solution is “industry leading”, “best-in-class”, “world class” or “leading edge” without providing any empirical evidence to back up that claim.Worse yet, I’ve seen claims (from vendors not to be mentioned here) of 3x, 4x or 10x faster, bigger, or otherwise“better” than the competition with no report, benchmark test or third party source credited.It happens all the time and it begs the question, if it comes from the vendor, not an independent third party, why would a potential customer believe it?
That’s why I’m proud to say that DCIG, whose tagline is “empowering the IT industry with actionable analysis”, recently ranked #1 the Oracle StorageTek SL8500 enterprise tape library in their 2014 Big Data Tape Library Buyer’s Guide.According to DCIG:
“The Oracle StorageTek SL8500is truly a “Big Data” offering engineered to handle tremendous volumes of data.”
DCIG uses a rigorous 8 step evaluation process to arrive at their recommendation(s).This year, DCIG evaluated 42 tape libraries from 8 different vendors and classified them into 5 categories:
- Best-in-class (bestowed upon a single product)
- Recommended
- Excellent
- Good
- Basic
I particularly like the DCIG analysis because it makes a strong effort to evaluate its subject matter from the perspective of the customer. As stated in the report’s executive summary, the “DCIG 2014 Big Data Tape Library Buyer's Guide accomplishes the following objectives:
Provides an objective, third party evaluation of tape libraries that weights, scores and ranks their features from an end user’s viewpoint
Scores and ranks the features on each tape library based upon criteria that matter most to end users so they can quickly know which tape libraries are the most appropriate for them to use and under what conditions”
So, if you want the inside scoop from an independent third party on why the Oracle StorageTek SL8500 was ranked the #1 Big Data tape library and superior to offerings from IBM, HP, and Spectra Logic, then click here.