Our Australian business is now over a year old, and is growing strongly. I am working with our team here for a couple of weeks, and visiting with several customers in the Oil and Gas business, FX business, and financial sector. The response to our NetApp specials has been strong in Australia, and we continue to grow our SimplStor sales in Australia also.
It looks like this is going to be another great year for Zerowait in Australia.
Several of our customers have been asking us questions about the viability and future of public cloud storage based on the recent government shutdown of MegaUpload. The concern is that, due to the malfeasance of another customer on a shared cyberlocker company, your own corporate data may be unavailable when you need it.
I forwarded several questions from our customers to our Attorney Philip Corwin, one of the leaders in the field of Cyber Law ( www.vlaw-dc.com). Phil’s answers highlight the uncertainty surrounding the future of public Cloud Storage, as a result of recent actions.
1) Can the DOJ take down any cloud storage provider without any prior notification to the legitimate users of the storage service? If so, how do legitimate users get their critical data access restored?
The DOJ will provide no advance notice to the users or operators of a domain and associated file-hosting/sharing service it believes to be engaged in unlawful criminal activity. The DOJ has made it clear that it has no near-term intent to restore any files to Megaupload.com users – that such users should not have kept their only copy on a remote service. It is unknown whether and to what extent the DOJ is reviewing files on the seized servers in a search for additional evidence of criminal activity. Some (primarily non-U.S.) Megaupload users have threatened to sue the DOJ for return of their files but no such action has yet been brought and there’s no telling how it might fare; in any event, no near-term relief is likely.
2) If our company is using a cyberlocker service, for back up and archival usage and the DoJ impounds the storage servers, how quickly can I get my data from the DoJ if I need to a restoration?
As noted above, the DOJ has given no indication as to whether or when it may permit any user of Megaupload.com to have access to and recover their files from the servers that have been seized.
3) What is the differentiation of a service provider like MegaUpload and Amazon S3 in the DoJ’s definition? Can the DoJ pull down our Amazon storage due to another user’s data storage usage practices?
It is not at all clear from the Megaupload indictment while it was criminally charged while other very similar services – such as Rapidshare and MediaFire — have not been, yet (as we have seen with domain seizures undertaken by the ICE division of the Department of Homeland Security, once a new criminal copyright enforcement tactic is employed it will likely be used again in other instances). One key element may have been the allegation that Megaupload paid users to upload infringing content in the past, although they had discontinued their “rewards” program at the time the criminal complaint was lodged. Amazon’s Cloud Drive is a no-frill cloud storage service with a 2GB limit on individual files and no file sharing function, so it is much less likely to be used for infringing purposes and become the target of a DOJ action.
4) If a public access storage provider can be shuttered by the DoJ for one or two suspect cyberlockers , can a Colo Facility or a Network Provider also be shuttered?
Any entity that is knowingly and willfully engaged in large scale online infringement for profit can be a potential target of a DOJ enforcement action. Network service providers do enjoy secondary liability immunity under the DMCA’s notice-and-takedown procedures safe harbor, but only if they expeditiously remove infringing files and refrains from any activity that constitutes direct infringement.
5) Is our data loss insured in the event of a felony or RICO action by the government when it takes down a public access storage provider?
That would depend on the exact terms of your insurance policy. But even monetary compensation cannot replace seized files, so it is best to retain at least one copy of all stored and shared files on hard drives under your direct control.
6) Would you recommend that customers move their data to secure internal clouds, based on the new legal uncertainties surrounding public cloud storage services up time guarantees?
If you can afford to do so a private cloud under your own control would be the safest bet. If that isn’t feasible, at least one copy of all files placed on remote servers should be saved on your own devices. And there will be a need for much greater due diligence investigation of file hosting and sharing services to determine whether they are likely targets of criminal enforcement actions that include website shutdown and server seizures.
Philip Corwin’s Website is www.vlaw-dc.com and he is Of Counsel to Greenberg + Lieberman www.aplegal.com
1) Your CapEx budget for Network Storage infrastructure.
2) Your OpEx budget for Operation expenses like service and support.
3) Zerowait’s international service and support business for NetApp hardware.
Well, that was pretty easy. Zerowait’s service and support business is booming because it is a very rare company that has an increasing IT budget for storage hardware or services, even though demand for storage is increasing all the time. That is why more and more companies around the world are contacting our international offices for service and support quotes for their NetApp equipment. In the USA our NetApp support prices start at just $1500.00 a year.
In 2012 we expect our service business to grow 25% based on the current trend line. I hope that we can discuss your NetApp infrastructure support costs over the next few months. Since the new year we have added new customers who love NetApp’s reliability but due to budget restrictions have embraced Zerowait’s attractive prices on NetApp filers with transferable licenses.
Additionally, why not try our Free Exception Reporter to help you manage your NetApp infrastructure? Organizations around the world rely on it to help them manage their storage and its associated costs.
Usually our business gets slower through December and January, but the last couple of months have been a whirlwind of new orders from our established customers and many new customers.
According to our customers our business is increasing for many reasons:
Most of our new business still comes from the referrals and references of our customers. And as our client base grows, we get more referrals. If you are looking for an affordable alternative to NetApp for components, service, or support please keep us in mind.
The uncertainty surrounding the enterprise disk marketplace seems to be causing EMC to mention that it has a disk shortage and there will be a price increase. Dave Raffo in his blog has the following interesting information:
EMC vice chairman Bill Teuber sent an email to customers and partners stating the vendor has eaten price increases so far, but will begin to pass them along to customers after this month. He also wrote that EMC does not expect supply problems because it is the largest vendor of external storage systems, but it has to pay more for the available drives.
“EMC has absorbed the price increases that have been passed on to us and will continue to do so through the end of the month,” Teuber wrote. “Unfortunately we will not be able to sustain that practice. Beginning in Q1 2012 we will be increasing the list price of hard disk drives up to 15% for an indefinite period of time. While we hope that this increase is temporary, at this time we cannot forecast how long the flooding in Thailand will impact HDD [hard disk drive] pricing.”
Another email Teuber sent to EMC personnel said the price increases will be from 5% to 15%. He also wrote the increases will apply to all EMC product lines.
The shortage is expected to affect PC drives more than enterprise drives, but EMC enterprise storage rival NetApp lowered its revenue projection last month because of expected shortages.
Teuber referred to NetApp indirectly in his email, stating “Many of our competitors have already announced drive shortages and price increases and have stated that this will have a material impact on their ability to hit revenue expectations now and in the future.”
Zerowait has been experiencing an uptick in our array shelf and disk storage sales over the last few weeks, but we thought it had to do with the great prices we are now offering on some of our storage specials. But the upward trend in our storage sales business could be because we have a lot of stock which we can ship immediately, while the OEM’s may be allocating disks based on their own supply calculations.
We had a great year in 2011, and we are looking forward to next year.
Yesterday afternoon I had a long conversation with a customer of ours in California that told me that they were looking at some new NetApp storage equipment, but were told by their Salesperson that the floods in Thailand have rippled through NetApp’s supply chain and that NetApp could not guarantee a delivery time frame. This was predicted by NetApp and discussed by Thomas Georgeons:
http://seekingalpha.com/article/308538-netapp-management-discusses-q2-2012-results-earnings-call-transcript
“Looking ahead, the impact of the Thailand flooding can potentially be the biggest swing factor on both our top and bottom line in the second half. The large buyer drives we did, as this was all unfolding, should sustain us through a good part of Q3 but probably not all of it. Although enterprise class drives are considered to be the least impacted, we still anticipate some amount of supply and pricing complexity. We have all heard the predictions of the industry analyst and the drive vendors themselves. Some of the information is conflicting and most of it is changing daily in regards to scope and ultimate impact.”
We are working with this customer and several others to help them get through their end of year storage requirements with transferable licensed filers, and shelves of disks that we have in stock and ready for shipment.
We want to help loyal NetApp customers maintain their equipment, and we can help them grow their NetApp infrastructure even during the disk shortage. If you need storage during the shortage, please give us a call at one of our international offices .
2011 Is shaping up to be the best year ever for Zerowait’s independent NetApp support business. We have already surpassed last year’s sales of our Zerowait Parts Assurance contracts on NetApp equipment from our offices in the USA, UK, and Australia. We expect to see our growth continue next year due to economic uncertainty. At Zerowait we understand that our customers are under severe budget pressure to control their storage infrastructure costs, and with our customers help we have come up with several support programs which help our customers control their NetApp storage growth and support costs.
Recognizing that post warranty support and extending time in service for systems reduces new unit sales, I am occasionally asked by storage analysts focused on NetApp how much of an effect Zerowait has on NetApp’s new product sales. I don’t believe there is any way to calculate how many NetApp customers have put off a system upgrade due to Zerowait’s support in any single period. However, over the last decade Zerowait has built a dynamic, thriving, international business in third party support for NetApp equipment. And our customers in the financial, entertainment, health and government sectors throughout the world continue to recommend our company to their peers.
Whether you need an additional storage shelf, transferable licensed system, or a support contract, Zerowait will work with you to meet your support and budget requirements.
Over the years I have advocated that organizations embrace a Disaster Prevention model instead of a Disaster Recovery model. Using server load balancers and some multiple MX records it is relatively easy to create a high availability web presence. Creating a high availability solution for the critical data behind the firewall is also getting easier as disk capacity and network bandwidth increase. Using legacy high availability equipment provides an easy second tier solution and based on the response of our customers, Zerowait’s SimplStor is a great tier three solution for tape replacement.
The European division of EMC has a pdf available that illustrates the issues surrounding Disaster Preparedness.
Across Europe, 49% of companies are obligated by either insurance policies or regulatory requirements to have a disaster recovery plan. However, with the right backup and disaster recovery approach, companies can achieve cost-savings from insurers. Just over a quarter of the organisations surveyed were offered reduced premiums by their insurance provider depending on their IT systems backup/disaster recovery strategy.
Unraveling tape: 40% still depend on tape
but majority are looking to replace it
The research found that businesses are spending, on average, 10% of their IT budgets on backup and recovery, and 29% of businesses do not feel they are spending enough. For backup and disaster recovery purposes, 40% of companies still rely on tape, with an average annual cost of €74,000 on transporting, storing, testing and replacing tapes. Where tape is used for disaster recovery purposes, 10% still have an employee take home a copy of the backup tapes with them.
Overall, 80% of organisations using tape are looking to move beyond it, with the top reasons cited as:
Speed of restoration 39%
Faster backups 33%
Lack of durability 26%
EMC has done a service to the industry with this report, and it highlights the costs and problems very well. If you think the costs of an EMC solution exceed your budget I hope you will consider Zerowait’s solutions. We can provide your organization an affordable alternative for your Disaster Recovery plan in Europe, Australia, or the USA.
This week I was at the Supercomputer show in Seattle visiting with our customers and friends. I ran into people Zerowait has been doing business with all over the show floor and it was hard to walk down an aisle without bumping into someone I knew. Repeatedly, I heard about how our customers and friends were having a hard time coping with expanding storage requirements and shrinking storage budgets.
Based on the conversations I had at the show on Tuesday, I emailed back to our office and the marketing department created a special based on the transferable licensed filers that we have available, and distributed it on Wednesday. The customer response to the specials has been enthusiastic and many of our customers want expedited delivery and installation.
If you are looking for an affordable NetApp Filer with transferable licenses please call one of our international offices to discuss you exact configuration requirements and the delivery schedule you require. Whether your company is forecasting a great 2012 or looking at how to muddle through, Zerowait can help your organization get the enterprise class NetApp storage you need at a price your management can’t ignore.
The path to a successful storage archive solution should not start with a Root Cause Analysis. Looking back and pointing fingers is often the easiest path to take, but reviewing your storage strategy and current infrastructure may reveal a very easy and affordable data protection strategy. Archiving to tape is a great solution but it is not a 100% solution; tapes get lost, data gets corrupted and often there is an expensive time lapse between a discovery of data loss and its recovery. Keeping all of your data on tier (1) arrays is expensive and does not make sense for rarely accessed data. Thanks to our customers’ requests for an affordable end to end solution, Zerowait now has a complete storage solution for customers who love their Filers and are looking to get rid of their tape headaches.
Many of our NetApp customers would like to use NetApp equipment as their tier (2) storage, since it allows them to use the same interface and tools on their tier (1) storage, minimizing management issues, but the cost of new systems is too high to make this work. For these customers Zerowait provides readily available off-lease NetApp systems with transferable licenses to build affordable tier (2) storage solutions. Many customers locate these systems in remote back-up sites, and our customers snap mirror updates between their Tier (1) NetApp systems and off lease NetApp tier (2) systems to achieve a reliable archive strategy.
The next tier for many customers has been tape, but quite a few of our customers have decided that they are tired of the warehousing headaches and rush delivery costs of their tape archives and want to reduce their tape costs and frustrations. They are replacing all or most of their tape with Zerowait’s SimplStor for tier (3) archival storage. Using NetApp’s tools, our customers can mirror their data between NetApp filers in multiple locations and then copy the data to a SimplStor tier (3) archive using standard software tools. SimplStor costs about the same as tape, but provides instant access when there is the requirement for a quick restoration of data.
Zerowait‘s customers around the world are able to satisfy their requirements for an affordable high reliability storage strategy. Our customers have embraced a strategy of data tiering strategy using new NetApp equipment for tier (1) highly accessed data, off lease Filers for tier (2) and remote mirrors, and SimplStor for tier (3) archival storage requirements. If you have chosen NetApp for your tier (1) storage, why not use transferable licensed NetApp equipment your tier (2) storage? It is an obvious cost effective solution. Our customers in the Animation, Science and Petrochemical business helped us design SimplStor and now are our biggest customers for the product. They knew they needed a reliable tier (3) solution and they recognized that Zerowait could provide the enterprise support they required. Thanks to our customers‘ ideas Zerowait now provides high reliability hardware, service and support for all three tiers of enterprise data. Please contact us if you want to discuss how Zerowait can provide your organization outstanding Quality of Service at a reasonable price.
