EMC XtremIO has its quirks but rumours of its death are overblown

A rumour from last week implied EMC was considering shutting down its XtremIO product line. How likely is it – and is there any basis to EMC taking this direction? The rumour seemed to come from a number of separate parties, although we can’t exclude a clever viral marketing campaign from a competitor. XtremIO history EMC …

[Lost_Signal]

All flash VxRail

All flash VxRail (VSAN) is the other product you missed.

[Ken-in-Houston]

Re: All flash VxRail

Yup. And they missed the all-flash Dell XC array, too.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: All flash VxRail

Not to mention, the all-flash EMC Isilon nodes.

[Rob Isrob]

Time she's a wastin

"Every month that a new XtremIO upgrade isn’t announced will add more grist to the rumour mill – though EMC may announce a major upgrade in the next 30 days and we'll all have to eat some humble pie. Which way would you bet?"

It's mid-July, does anything get announced in August? I don't think so. EMC/Dell merger set to close in October. Do you or anyone see an EMC product announcement in September? I don't think so. As commentators in that "XtremIO heading for the bin?" point out the silence is deafening. But okay.. XtremIO refresh announced in next 30 days. Very curious timing as all of Europe is on holiday and most of USA.

[Big_JM]

What EMC is going through is very tricky right now and Chris is spot on. The fact that this system hasn't had a major upgrade in 3 years (since the destructive one) is very telling. Why announce an All Flash VMAX? Why introduce Unity? Especially when you spent the better part of two years touting XtremIO as the future of Flash and how it solves every problem. At the end of the day time will tell but there's no question about it: There's a reckoning in EMC's future. What survives, what doesn't will be interesting to see.

[Ken-in-Houston]

XtremeIO is EOL

If I had to guess, I'd say XtremeIO is out: No recent development and it's on the outside looking in with regard to product management and development. Also, it has a completely different management interface and model - this isn't unlike other EMC products to be sure, but it makes it much harder when you are already on the outside looking in.

Trust me, this product is EOL.

[Anonymous Coward]

I call BS on Pure

C'mon folks do you really think EMC would be willing to chuck out a product that has grown so quickly and has a $1B+ annual run-rate? What are you smoking? Regardless of the pace of platform refreshes, EMC is a portfolio company that carries multiple product lines to give more choice than anyone else can, even if there's overlap and a little cannibalism. This is nothing more than a Pure smear campaign that is being carried out while EMC is busy working towards the Dell merger. Where do you think these ideas about XtremIO's supposed architectural limitations came from? Surely nobody believes The Register came up with this on their own. Sorry Pure, XtremIO is not going away and it WILL get a refresh when the time is right. For now the product does a fine job kicking the crap out of FlashArray and when we see them, 3PAR too.

BTW - @Big_JM, everyone knows you're an HPE troll and that you get paid to trash anything EMC does. So your credibility here is crap.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: I call BS on Pure

Guess Pure is still EMC's boogeyman.

[MikeZG]

XtremIO EOL? Ridiculous.

Disclaimer: I am an EMC - former NetApp - employee!

Like posted in a comment before - have you ever seen a company trashing a market leading technology?

There is overlap - YES. But there is no "one storage to rule them all" and XtremIO was never positioned like that. Every EMC All Flash product has its sweet spot!

What do you think why other vendors have more than one All Flash product?

The ones that tried to make it with one ... Pure Storage, Violin, Cisco, Nimble, I think it doesn't/didn't work out too good.

Obviously this is a competitor campaign during a summer hole to make some noise.

The product roadmap of XtremIO is huge and packed like any other EMC All Flash product! Stay tuned! :-)

[dpk]

"Trust me" says Ken, standing on the outside looking in. If you can't spell XtremIO, then I am certain your views on the product aren't very credible. Cool story though.

And BigJM poses all of the BIG questions, which really answer themselves unless you're simply flinging FUD. If EMC didn't introduce flash into their other products you'd be calling them out on that as well. So which is it? Move on.