UK NEWS – Zerowait Introduces SimplStor Petabyte with Single Namespace for Less than £250,000

Manchester, UK (Vocus) August 25, 2010

Over the last decade, Zerowait has worked with many of NetApp’s largest customers to reduce their costs of storage. During the Financial Panic of 2008 and 2009 some of these customers asked Zerowait to develop an affordable Petabyte storage solution offering Single Namespace support.

Mike Linett, President of Zerowait said, ‘Our customers have guided the development of this product from the beginning. The idea of an affordable Petabyte originated with one of our large scientific customers, and the need was confirmed by several of our well known animation customers. We’re confident our clients will find SimplStor a reliable, cost effective solution for large volume secondary storage.’

Storage industry analysts are taking notice. ‘Zerowait is out in front of a nagging set of trends, regulatory and economic, that see companies searching for an effective method for storing large quantities of file based data for many years,’ says Jon Toigo, noted tech industry watchdog and consumer ombudsman and CEO of Toigo Partners International. “Zerowait SimplStor is truly customer driven and tuned, both in terms of cost of ownership and capacity, to what businesses need today to cope with the data deluge.”

Farat Buta, Director of European Operations says, ‘Our customers have been asking us when we would be providing the affordable SimplStor Petabyte product in Europe. We pushed to introduce it in September as this is when many of our customers are finalizing their budgets’. When asked about the cost of a Petabyte of storage Mr. Buta said, “SimplStor’s price point is significantly lower than the competition and provides our customers with a reliable, cost effective replacement for their tape archives.”

Mr. Buta continued, ‘Our customers require enterprise level service and support, and insisted that we integrate an automated support solution into the SimplStor product line. SimplSupport met or exceeded their expectations’. Mr. Buta added, ‘SimplStor is a Single Namespace Petabyte storage solution with a price point that competes with cloud archive solutions without the security issues of an outsourced solution.’

‘The response to our SimplStor Petabyte has been extremely strong, and during the week of August 30th, 2010 we will be meeting with a number of customers in the UK to finalize their configurations and delivery schedules.’ said Michael Linett

About Zerowait Corporation: Headquartered in Wilmington, Delaware (USA), Zerowait is internationally recognized for honesty, integrity and expertise in third-party, high-availability NetApp data storage and support solutions. 302.996.9408

For more info on our UK and European services contact Farat Buta – Manchester, UK – (+44) (0) 800.0121.801

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Business is improving at Zerowait

While the overall US economy seems to be stuck in a sort of malaise, Zerowait’s business is growing nicely. The number of new customers we have gotten this year, as well as the overall increase in business has us looking at opening new locations and adding additional staff and warehouse space.

The uncertainty of the business and tax environment is causing many companies to embrace our independent NetApp support, and our SimplStor product line is flourishing. I am often asked ” which business sectors are growing fastest for Zerowait?” I explain that our customers are not concentrated in any vertical market, but seem to be in the horizontal marketplace of high availability storage and are looking for ways to lower their costs of storage acquisition and maintenance.

It seems that our new customers are primarily looking for value and reliability, and we seem to be fulfilling these requirements for more and larger customers and installations. In uncertain times, we provide an affordable security blanket for many companies.

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Zerowait UK

Zerowait Supports NetApp Infrastructure in United Kingdom

Zerowait Corporation, a data-storage service company, boasts an international reputation for providing NetApp customers with an affordable solution for maintaining their legacy high-availability storage hardware.

Quote startWe enjoy working with Imagination whenever we canQuote end

Newark, DE (PRWEB) July 21, 2010

Over the last few years, Zerowait has worked with Imagination Technologies, located in Hertfordshire, UK, to provide affordable storage and support for its NetApp infrastructure.

“Zerowait has helped us reduce our storage costs substantially. Their engineering staff have always been honest and forthright and have provided us with excellent solutions for Imagination’s demanding IT infrastructure,” says John Metcalfe, COO of Imagination Technologies.

“We’re migrating to a mixed data-storage environment, and I look forward to Zerowait continuing to provide us with excellent service and support for our NetApp infrastructure,” adds Metcalfe.

“We enjoy working with Imagination whenever we can,” says Zerowait UK managing director Farat Buta. “Their engineering team always pushes the envelope, and Zerowait’s engineers like the creativity that their solutions require,” he says.

Zerowait provides affordable parts, service and support for customers throughout Europe and is anticipating an increased global demand for their third-party NetApp service and support business.

“Zerowait is continually investing in engineering, technology and operations,” says Zerowait chief executive Mike Linett. “We are focused on providing our customers the best service and support possible. Our goal is total customer satisfaction,” says Linett.

About Zerowait Corporation: Headquartered in Wilmington, Delaware (USA), Zerowait is internationally recognized for honesty, integrity and expertise in third-party, high-availability NetApp data storage and support solutions. Zerowait’s experience, knowledge and focus provide unparalleled service to its worldwide customer base. For more information, visit www.zerowait.com.

For more info on our UK and European services contact Farat Buta – Manchester ,UK uksales@zerowait.com – 44 0 161 737 0303

To preview and request product sales and hardware specifications, log on to the Zerowait Online Store at www.thezerowaitstore.com.

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The effect of business uncertainty

Over the last few weeks I traveled across the USA visiting several clients of ours. Many of the clients told me how tight their budgets were and blamed it on the uncertainty facing their business sector. In particular the medical and natural resources customers I met with were very concerned about the next 12 months.

Over dinner in Dallas with several clients I heard how our customers are planning how to remain profitable when gross revenue is down 10% in 2011. Additionally, they expect the cost of medical insurance and taxes to increase by about 10% in 2011. These folks are planning to remain profitable in a dismal business environment and that takes a lot of creativity and out of the box thinking.

Our typical customer is increasing their usage of our independent NetApp service and support and increasing the life cycle of their NetApp storage equipment. They expect that will reduce their costs of storage and support by 30% next year. So, even if their budget declines they will be able to maintain their QoS.

Thomas Sowell seems to have also noticed the issue: (http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=540126&p=2):

When you hire somebody in this environment, you know what you have agreed to pay them and what additional costs there may be for their health insurance or other benefits. But you have no way of knowing what additional costs the politicians in Washington are going to impose, when they are constantly coming up with new bright ideas for imposing more mandates on business.

One of the little-noticed signs of what is going on has been the increase in the employment of temporary workers. Businesses have been increasingly meeting their need for labor by hiring temporary workers and working their existing employees overtime, instead of hiring new people.

Why? Because temporary workers usually don’t get health insurance or other benefits, and working existing employees overtime doesn’t add to the cost of their benefits.

Rational business executives are desperately looking for cost reductions as a business survival strategy, but they need to reduce costs without increasing risk. Zerowait’s products, services and support are viewed as part of a solution in an uncertain business environment thanks to our staff’s reputation for high availability service and support. Over the last couple of months requests from customers for our help in NetApp migrations and implementations has increased as companies hesitancy to hire full time engineers increases. Viewed in this light the increase in Zerowait’s business this year makes a lot of sense.

If your storage budget is getting squeezed, maybe it is time to call Zerowait .

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Zerowait in the News

Jul 07, 2010 – With an expanding international client base specializing in the Digital Effects industry, Zerowait provided Fuel VFX with a cost-effective storage solution that satisfied their timeframe and budget. “Zerowait engineers worked closely with Fuel VFX and together deployed equipment and personnel to successfully complete the project.” says Zerowait chief executive Mike Linett.

Established in 2000, Fuel VFX has worked on a number of blockbuster movies including Iron Man 2, Wolverine and Bedtime Stories. With an immediate need to add 20 terabytes of storage to their system and an increase in overall performance, Dylan Penhale, IT Manager, Fuel VFX contacted Zerowait to execute the install. “From the first meeting, through post installation, they didn’t miss a beat. Zerowait was prepared to meet our demanding schedule and even flew an engineer out to assist us.” added Penhale.

Zerowait’s Australian NetApp business has recently seen a strong upward trend in the configuration and deployment of complex NetApp storage systems. Zerowait’s Exception Reporter enables Zerowait’s customers to easily monitor their NetApp Filer performance and capacity, which helps them optimize their storage infrastructure. “Zerowait’s Australian business is growing rapidly, and we are working toward establishing a service and support facility in the Sydney area similar to our European office in Manchester, UK.” adds Linett.

“Zerowait was prepared to meet our demanding schedule. For us, there simply isn’t a better value way to get high-end filers onto our network. I certainly will recommend Zerowait to our peers in the Digital Effects industry.” says Penhale.

About Zerowait Corporation – Headquartered in Wilmington, Delaware, USA, Zerowait is internationally recognized for honesty, integrity and expertise in third-party, high availability NetApp data storage and support solutions. Zerowait’s experience, knowledge and focus provide an unparalleled service to their worldwide customer base. For more information, visit www.zerowait.com.

To preview and request product sales and hardware specifications, log on to the Zerowait Online Store at www.thezerowaitstore.com.

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Storage after the financial panic

During the EMC show in Boston several folks stopped by our booth to discuss business, and wanted to know my thoughts on how the year of 2010 was going to turn out. Some of the conversations lasted a couple of days when we had time between events with friends. I assured everyone that asked my opinion that I am not much of a forecaster, but I was willing to discuss the trends that our business is experiencing.

Our NetApp support business is strong and it is growing, our new customers tell us that they are looking to extend the life of their hardware, and add storage to their existing systems. Zerowait has a great reputation for reliable and affordable service and support and so they are comfortable relying on us while they consider their primary storage options. For customers migrating toward EMC equipment we help them with parts replacement while they migrate and then we can purchase their equipment when they have completed their migration. Our solution helps managers struggling with tightened budgets solve their capacity requirements.

According to Gene Sperling in the Wall Street Journal -page B6 5/13/10 ” The squeeze on small business credit ” has been and remains a serious economic challenge””

Andrew Schwedel and Karen Harris wrote on page A17 5/14/10 ” For managers, the end of the easy-money era means a fundamental rethinking of how to finance investment.funding projects from internal cash flow will be more reliable but may constrain growth and will certainly favor businesses with ample cash and strong balance sheets.”

These statements confirm my understanding of why our third party support business is growing. Many customers can’t get credit to purchase new equipment. Because of this situation storage managers are rationally choosing to extend the life of their current assets while supporting them out of their operational budgets. As Schwedel and Harris say later in their article “Companies must also figure out how to keep driving down costs”.

Maintaining and optimizing already owned storage assets is an easy way to reduce a company’s IT costs while still maintaining the high availability storage they require. At EMC world it seemed that everyone agreed that business has gotten harder in the last couple of years, and it may be quite a while before storage budgets increase substantially.

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Zerowait at EMC World!

Greetings from EMC World 2010! Take a look at our flickr pictures of the show: http://www.flickr.com/photos/zerowait/

 

 

 

 

May 13- Wrap up.

EMC World 2010 was another great event put on by the folks at EMC. Linda Christensen does a great job. We caught up with a lot of our customers at the show and we met with a number of old friends also. Jon Toor is with www.Xsigo.com now and their booth was busy for most of the show. Phil Van Ettan was also very busy at the www.Azaleos.com booth. Additionally, we had a good conversation with Charles Wood at www.f5networks.com about their single name space solution. We also had a long and interesting conversation with Simon Robinson of the 451 Group. Robin Harris www.storagemojo.com stopped by to get our view of the storage environment and we had a long conversation with him.

Having our rail kit on hand was a funny experience, some folks looked at us like we were crazy, others couldn’t grab the brochure fast enough.

 

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Another international installation

Here are some shots from another satisfied customer. iWeb in Canada recently purchased some off lease systems and storage, and sent us the following pictures:


We’re off to a great start this year as more customers recognize the cost savings Zerowait can provide. Give us a call today and we’ll help you fit your increased requirements into your reduced budget. It’s not magic – but it feels like it.

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Catching up

It has been an exciting and busy couple of weeks since I returned from the trade show in Anchorage, AK. I met a lot of great folks while in Anchorage and we generated plenty of interest with our service and support offerings. I did not expect the show to be as well attended as it was and we are considering doing more of the Interface shows. The picture below is of our friend Jeremy Provencio in the Applied Microsystems trade show booth:

From May 10 through May 13 we are going to be at the EMC World show and while in Boston we will also be meeting with a number of our clients. If you are going to be at the EMC World show We have purchased a completely new trade show booth, and the graphics are amazing. Zerowait’s booth is 122, I hope you can stop by our booth. We will be right next to the Riverbed folks which is convenient, since many of our clients are also Riverbed customers.

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Introducing SimplStor

Our customers convinced us there was an opportunity for a simple reliable storage solution. The last two years have been hard on everyone’s budget, and a number of our customers asked if we had a less expensive storage solution than their current systems. We were also hearing from clients that were building out very large secondary storage pools, and they told us they simply couldn’t afford the large array vendors’ hardware, and more important, software and support costs. We talked to clients for over 8 months, taking their suggestions back to our engineering staff. From there we went back to our customers to make sure we understood their opinions on what was important and to ask them what they would pay for the product. We found that the sweet spot for this storage solution was between 50 cents and 75 cents a GB with raw capacity of 24TB to 100TB.

Once we had all the data, our engineers went to work to design a product that would be reliable and provide the customers with the alert and monitoring notifications that they are used to from the big array companies. We built a number of prototype units for customers to test. From these evaluations we made improvements to better align our storage solution to their requirements. At every step we learned something new, which we passed back to our customers for opinions and feedback.

SimplStor
meets the needs of many customers for low cost storage while providing the hardware support and life-cycle they have learned to expect from the big iron guys. And our SimplSupport provides customers the notifications they need to simplify monitoring and maintenance. One of our evaluators summarized the product as follows:

“Zerowait’s new SimplStor gives me tier 1 storage and support at tier 3 pricing – finally someone got it right.” Eff Norwood – Storage Architect

If you are interested in affordable enterprise storage please give us call. Phone 302 996 9408 – toll free 888.811.0808

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