Ryanair plumps for Dell EqualLogic Ryanair, the low-cost airline renowned for its customer service, has chosen a Dell EqualLogic storage system for its Dublin data centre, rejecting competing offers from HP and an IBM/NetApp combo. The contract is worth €470,000 and is part of a Ryanair data centre upgrade intended to improve its internal IT. Ryanair is aiming …
.... the find after they've installed it that they keep on getting pop-ups saying "this database access will cost €5. This charge covers the cost of handling this transaction and enables us to keep our server costs so low", followed by "if you want to store data in this database the cost will be €15 per record or €20 in high season - this charge covers the costs of storing data and enables us to keep our server costs so low ... you can always save money by not storing data and getting new data when you need it".
I would so love to be the support team on this. Oh, you wanted the power cables as well? That's extra. No, they are non-standard, nobody else makes them. While we are at it, have you ordered any packet capacity yet? Yes, all our routers are now pay by the megabyte. If you prepay, it only costs half as much. What next? You want your data back. Let me see...
Dell and Ryanair were made for each other.
Let's hope they don't hit the 512 connections per pool connection limit then
(connection = from 1 host to 1 nic, take 4 hosts with 2 nics (8 nics total) plus 4 arrays with 2 nics (8 nics total) = 8 x 8 = 64 iSCSI connections PER VOLUME)
and 512 connection is the enterprise (PS6000) series. The PS4000 series has a piddly 128 connection limit.
Round robin load balancing? Not with those metrics, thanks.
"Dell's presence in Ireland seems to have been influential in Ryanair's decision."
Surely that should read:
"Hon Hai Precision's presence in Poland seems to have........."
http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2009/03/25/dell_limerick_withdrawal/
http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2009/12/04/dell_poland/
Mind you, I'm surprised they didn't go for the HP/LH gear. A bunch of old servers hanging around with a few disks in it here and there to be turned into a distributed SAN seems right up O'Leary's street.
I am not surprised they didn't go for the IBM N Series (inferred by the NetApp angle) since that would have been a bit pricey. The N Series is fully featured unified storage against the, err, whatever the heck that Dell claim their stuff is.
Oooh oooh! Where to go where others have not already tread? It seems that all the jokes about extras, credit cards etc. have already been done, so there isn't much left, except maybe:-
- You need to put a pound/euro in the door slot when you go into the data centre (non refundable)
- When IT arrives in the morning, they play musical chairs and sit wherever they can on a first come, first served basis (unless they've paid for priority desking)
- ID swipe card not working, Paddy? That'll be 50 Euro please
I'm sure I also read somewhere a while back that O'Leary had wall sockets removed so that staff couldn't charge their personal mobiles on Ryanair's expense. I imagine this is true. He's a chancer, that guy....
Michael D'lerious didn't revolutionise anything. He took the Southwest Airlines model from the US and planted it in Europe. Using his buses is only cheap if you're one of the small percentage of people who can book well in advance of travel. He then copied Richard Branson's personal branding style, adding his own brash approach to maximise the free PR.
It's not the lack of free pretzels that's the problem, it's the lack of any consistency with the conditions of service from other airlines that is the core of the problem. His rules are different to everyone else's, subtly in most cases, but enough that Ryanair can sting you for more charges if you transgress.
Will be interested to hear how the Equalogic deployment goes, another reason to keep away from ryanair.com
I have had the "pleasure" of doing business with Michael O'Leary and trying to extract money that was due for IT comms charges
"....I'm not paying these f...king charges"
"...but it's in your contract..."
Not much fun there.
He doesn't treat the staff any better.
Cabin Crew pay for their own uniforms, training, Airside passes, car parking etc.
Flight Deck crew much the same including taking Simulator checks in their days-off.
Compare and contrast with the excellent Southwest Airlines in the US - there, the staff are treated much better and provide good service.
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