I talked with EMC today and they are willing to also bundle 10 resource
days of dedicated support for planning, support and provide knowledge
transfers about the environment, SNAP and the Powerpath technology.

The discussion is really about introducing a new storage vendor, having
stronger integration between Oracle and potential for leveraging support
from the hosting sites. With the multi-node RAC deployment, a platform
with a projected storage growth exceeding 30Tb and increasing user
dependencies, native integration becomes a key asset.

Because we'll always have resource constraints, tool availability will
be critical regardless if we use all them right away. Having that option
will be priceless when we need it. If there is a large dependency on ZFS
and we have any serious issues, the toolset to my knowledge is really
Asif, and there is no native integration with Oracle.  At the end of the
day regardless of EMC tools or ZFS there is additional training required
and does Austin's team have the tools needed to deploy, manage and grow
into a Oracle RAC warehouse.

I think its clear Sun sales, support and SE's have gotten too
comfortable and their  responses are lame. I personally believe Sun has
been given ample opportunities to step up and many have expressed
disappointment. EMC has consistently brought the best people forward and
made resources available initially and working with them has been very
efficient. It took Sun several months and a half dozen attempts to
produce something even worth comparing.

I look forward to hearing your feedback now and after your trip to the
EMC/Oracle lab.