I have a lot of sympathy for Chad’s and Chuck’s recent posts here and here on Oracle support for VMware but I would have a lot more sympathy for them if EMC did not have such a track-record for using the support matrix as a marketing weapon.

EMC’s continued refusal to certify another controller in front of their arrays, be it NetApp, HDS or IBM; makes their current spat with Oracle quite amusing from where I’m sitting. I know many customers who have requested that EMC certify NetApp v-class in front of various EMC arrays, this always met with an unequivocal NO with dark mutterings as there being issues. If you challenge EMC as to what the issues are, you generally get a lot hand-wafting and nothing more.

Now, we know that various EMC arrays work behind NetApp because there’s an increasing number of customers who are doing so without EMC’s certification but certification would be nice or at least an open discussion to as to what the problems are?

The support matrix should not be used as a marketing and sales tool; it should be used to genuinely add value to the customer/vendor relationship. So guys put your own houses in order before throwing stones!