We use NetApp for our storage systems and while the product is rock solid and the support is fantastic, the interface(s) certainly leave something to be desired. NetApp suffers from interface fragmentation. They have several different interfaces (GUI's), some web based and others client based with a bit of overlap between them; its never clear which interface I should be using for which activity and in the end there are still many thing that require you to drop to a CLI.
Unfortunately we have had problems that were the result of mistakes made issuing commands to our NetApp; I fully believe a more user friendly interface would have helped in most if not all of these cases. I certainly believe there would be value in a good interface for managing storage systems; how much I would be willing to pay is a difficult question to answer since I am not the one responsible for making those decisions at my company.
What I don't understand is why storage manufacturers seem to struggle with a good interface for managing their systems. I have worked with other interfaces used for much more complex tasks that put the storage system GUI's to shame. Is finding a team of interface developers such a difficult thing to do? When you think about it, storage system vendors are really in the software business because actual storage itself is all very similar, its the different software and capabilities that sets them apart from each other, yet they can't mange to put together a single user friendly GUI. Am I missing something here?
Disclaimer: I am relatively new to storage management and have really only worked directly with NetApp and a tad bit with Hitachi.
