There’s been much speculation as to whether Sun under Oracle would retain the EMC NetWorker OEM arrangement.
Finally there’s some details on Sun’s website under the banner “Sun and EMC“. In it, they state:
Sun will continue to OEM the EMC NetWorker software for backup and recovery which enables Sun to continue offering the EMC software as Sun StorageTek Enterprise Backup Software.
So, business as usual?
Unfortunately it looks like “yes”. Don’t get me wrong, I teethed on Solstice Backup, as it was called then – in fact I used Solstice Backup for 4 years before I even installed NetWorker as a non-OEM product.
Here’s the rub: Sun have been woeful at (a) supporting “NetWorker” in the rebadged form, and (b) providing patches in a timely manner. Again and again, I get complaints from Sun OEM customers that Sun takes ages to update their releases in sync with EMC’s releases. I also hear frequent tales of OEM NetWorker support cases with Sun that take forever. Both of these factors well and truly gel with my experience as a Sun customer in the late 90’s, and I’m still hearing the same stories in the hear and now.
Disclaimer: I sell and support EMC NetWorker native. That should have been obvious but I don’t want to be accused of hiding this.
I didn’t think Sun’s statement went far enough. I don’t want to hear that they’re going to continue to OEM NetWorker, I want to hear that they’re going to OEM NetWorker and pick up their game. Release cycles should be much closer tied to NetWorker, support needs to be considerably improved, and patches need to come out sooner to OEM NetWorker as EMC actually release.
If they’re not, then when you factor in the changes that Oracle are making to Solaris OS licensing, I’m expecting that the reasons for people remaining with the OEM version of NetWorker to shrink considerably.