They are in the same genus/genre, but are far from the same thing. Talking about XtremIO versus 3PAR 74xx is more of a discussion about construction-grade, heavy-duty cranes versus massive earth movers. They did most of the same things with minor strengths, weaknesses, and preferences. In pre-AFA days (the age of traditional spinners like NetApp FAS3040, EMC CLARiiON or VNX, and even last-gen 3PAR), the contest was like pitting a Toyota Camry against a Nissan Altima. I struggle to put it properly, but consider it this way. The hard part about these comparisons and competitive analyses is that we aren’t talking about products of the same species or specialization.
![3par ssmc installation guide 3par ssmc installation guide](https://www.storcom.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/ssmcportal.png)
Oh, but you want some mass storage akin to archival or virtual tape, too? 3PAR changes jerseys and shouts, “I’m it!” Is it, though? Let’s put 3PAR against XtremIO and see how they measure up! Are you asking for all flash? 3PAR will give you that and lay claim to the best-of-breed title. Quantifying 3PAR’s platform is different from XtremIO and Pure, though, as it can seem amorphous given the many ways it can be quoted. In 2015, though, the HP giant began to rouse and challenge the mainstream status quo with its 3PAR offering. To that end, I’ve written a few posts already. Until recently, the flash storage conversation in my organization and many others has centered on XtremIO and Pure Storage, the leaders of the all-flash array (AFA) space. Leading up to EMC World 2015, IT Central Station asked how I would compare EMC XtremIO and HP 3PAR. Thus, every admin of Pure knows this default launching point. Pure actually pushes its customers to setup external authentication by restricting the local user database to the “pureuser” account with which all arrays ship.
![3par ssmc installation guide 3par ssmc installation guide](https://vmfocus.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/failed-disk.png)
It only makes sense that Pure takes the cake on this since the rest of what they do is equally simple–initial setup, vCenter Plug-in, volume provisioning, etc. Let’s give this boulder some downhill momentum with the easiest of the three arrays. So if you’re reading this and have any of these arrays, take the plunge and raise your security posture with an easy afternoon project.
#3PAR SSMC INSTALLATION GUIDE SERIES#
The funny thing is that most of what follows in this 3-part series was pretty easy. So while I begrudge any positive sentiment toward auditors, I’ll throw some props to them for the motivational boost to eliminate these shared access methods. We’ve had strong, complex passwords in place on the built-in accounts, so the real “risk” was accountability– who performed an action under that login. Perhaps at the beginning, it was due to complexity and overload, but more recently, it just wasn’t that important to me. I should be ashamed of myself just posting this, but confession is the first step of healing (or something like that), right? For years, I put off configuring Active Directory LDAP integration for authentication on our storage arrays.