http://www.logicalincrements.com/

@cakeis_not_alie said in Simplivity - anyone use them?:

Dear everyone in this thread:

SimpliVity are amazing, and I will punch anyone who disagrees in a sensitive body part.

Listen to me: you all know me. You know that I am both a very loud customer advocate and one of the loudest, most irritating voices for dropping prices. I need to say this very loudly and very clearly: SimpliVity are a fantastic company, with top notch service and a damned-near-impossible to beat product.

Like any company, they aren't going to meet every single niche need. They certainly aren't the cheapest on the market. They aren't trying to be all things to all people and they aren't trying to be the low cost supplier, so it's not shocking that they are neither.

What they are is the absolute best, full stop, at data efficiency. Nobody manages to do data efficiency as thoroughly as they do, at the speeds they do and with the WAN efficiency that they do. This is SimpliVity's schitck, and it has real world implications.

The first is the aforementioned WAN efficiency. The second is that highly similar workloads (such as VDI) absolutely scream on SimpliVity. I could go on, but you get the idea.

Does this make SimpliVity something of a "luxury car" for hyperconvergence? Absolutely. But it's not "a Lamborghini", it's more of a "Tesla Roadster". The price isn't about pointless flash; you get something different for your money, and different enough that it becomes addictive to those who can afford to use it. The money isn't spend on flash or brand name; they deliver actual value for it.

Now, I'd be the first to piss on them for overcharging or otherwise not living up to their promise. Everyone here should know that about me by now. I have, in fact, been in multiple meetings with their top brass where I am the loudest customer advocacy voice in the room, demanding they meet this need, or that requirement, and lower the price.

Despite that, they don't deserve to be pooped on. They aren't all things to all people, but they are absolutely untouchable at what they do.

Cheers.

Thanks Trevor, that was the sort of info I was hoping for, from someone who'd had occasion to work with them and their tech. Sounds like in practice they are as awesome as the demo shows. The whole pricing side discussion has been a bit of a diversion from that, and I'm sure that there's a lot of pent up hostility from other vendor past pricing experiences that they happen to be the one to get dumped on. Thanks for chiming in, as always!

@virtualrick said in Simplivity - anyone use them?:

@scottalanmiller I cannot argue, ill simply excuse myself, with you being the victor, Ill up vote your post, but keep in mind I gave pricing in my first interaction with you. I'm the engineer, not the sales rep. This is an issue and you are right on every point.

However, being dismissive of a technology due to a non-negotiated price, without conversation is a questionable practice from my perspective. Are you doing your business a favor?

As an architect and customer I would shop features first, based on business objectives, then if the bill is too high, start having the conversation with the business to set expectations, and discuss alternatives. Not fighting you, just my personal perspective.

When you're shopping for a mid-range new car do you go test drive a Rolls Royce or a Lamborghini? No, because you know they are way out of your price range and there's no point wasting your time or setting your expectations too high. All we're asking for is a general indication of what price category we're looking at. Are you a Yugo, a Corolla or a Rolls Royce solution?

@scottalanmiller said in Gaming - What's everyone playing / hosting / looking to play:

@Nic said in Gaming - What's everyone playing / hosting / looking to play:

Latest free game from Ubisoft is Rayman Origins:
https://club.ubi.com/#!/en-US/ubi30

Dammit, I paid for that one somewhere.

Yeah me too, but it's such a good game that I don't mind.

Latest free game from Ubisoft is Rayman Origins:
https://club.ubi.com/#!/en-US/ubi30

@IRJ said in Cyber Security:

It will be interesting to see if Webroot detects our Trojan, @Nic

I'm excited to find out!

Thanks for jumping in @virtualrick - appreciate the pricing details and other info! Like I said, the presentation I saw in Chicago impressed me, so happy to get more info.

I see this as a relic from companies that come down market. In the enterprise space there's a lot of negotiation. Big companies are paying not so much for the service, as for being the #1 priority when it comes to support and development. The fact that two companies can pay vastly different amounts for what is essentially the same kit, means that one of them is going to get a lot more attention when the rubber hits the road. When vendors who are used to that model try to come down into the SMB space where things are more commoditized, then they don't realize the damage they are doing.

One of our threat researchers just posted a blog showing this ransomware in action:

https://www.webroot.com/blog/2016/08/16/nemucod-ransomware-analysis/

It shows the evolution of the ransomware as the malware writers adapt to various methods of protection and continue to refine the ransomware to try and escape detection. A lot of folks don't realize that while the ransomware may keep the same name over time, there's constant updates to the functionality.

@wirestyle22 said in Gaming - What's everyone playing / hosting / looking to play:

Dota 2. I always go back to Dota 2.

Has anyone tried the VR Dota 2 spectating? I'm not a MOBA fan, but from the descriptions it sounds pretty exciting to be in the middle of the action as if you're on the field.

@scottalanmiller said in Simplivity - anyone use them?:

@Nic said in Simplivity - anyone use them?:

@nadnerB yeah it would have been nice if they could have given us a ballpark.

I think a lot of sales people really forget how tremendously important it is for us to have some idea what things will cost. If something is "you know, round about $5,000" we might be looking to rip and replace everything, today. But if is "somewhere north of $500K" we can write it off and never think about it again. If they won't tell us, we are forced to assume the later.

They should take a page out of the housing market. They put up signs that say "new homes from the $300s". We all know that when all is said and done, your house is going to be $375k with all the extras and options, but at least you know to the nearest $100k.

@wirestyle22 said in Gaming - What's everyone playing / hosting / looking to play:

@coliver The music kills me. lol.

Yeah that's the part that cracks me up every time. I'm told it's being played on one of these:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melodica

@nadnerB yeah it would have been nice if they could have given us a ballpark.

@scottalanmiller Plus it looks way worse than the preview footage, which is always a slap in the face to fans:

Youtube Video

@scottalanmiller not sure, they didn't delve into that level of detail. Their idea of having a hardware accelerator card is interesting though. Basically a combo of RAID, dedupe and their own custom file system under the covers.

@scottalanmiller Yeah maybe their marketing copy isn't up to date yet. They did emphasize that they're coming down market and that you can get good use out of them as an SMB with even just one node or two. In the case of one node you'd want to replicate off site to a cloud provider.

@scottalanmiller They said they work with Dell now.

I saw a presentation from them at a Chicago SpiceCorps meeting last night and the technology seemed impressive. Has anyone had any experience using them? Curious to see if they're as good in practice as they promise.

@StrongBad said in Asus RoG Rocking the WebRoot Secure Anywhere:

I've never liked those AV testing suites. They can't really test what is in the real world, so they can be rather misleading. And when someone is really good, their competitors tend to pay for them not to be included in the tests.

It's a good point. If the AV testing company knows about it and tests for it, then chances are all the AV suites have seen it too. It's very hard to get a fair "real world" test of true zero day threats. My thought would be a better metric would be a sort of "time to respond" metric for security companies. When a new vulnerability hits the streets, how long does it take for all the security companies to remedy it? That would take a lot of work though.

@scottalanmiller said in Gaming - What's everyone playing / hosting / looking to play:

@Nic said in Gaming - What's everyone playing / hosting / looking to play:

@scottalanmiller said in Gaming - What's everyone playing / hosting / looking to play:

@Nic said in Gaming - What's everyone playing / hosting / looking to play:

The Vive is a crazy amount of fun. The roomscale makes a huge difference compared to the seated experience, and having tracked controllers is way better than using an xbox controller.

That one tempts me a lot.

If you want to come for a visit you can try it out

I need to get out there!

We got plenty of room, so come on out whenever!