Zerowait Corporation

Every company goes through its ups and downs, according to this report it looks like NetApp SAN solutions may be in for a rough ride. Only time will tell.
“It appears that NetApp’s move into the SAN market is meeting some resistance despite its dominant position in NAS,” the report’s analysis of the numbers reads. “On the plus side, just over 40% of the respondents that are candidates for NetApp’s SAN offerings have purchased or are planning on purchasing these products, up slightly from our August 2006 survey. However, the biggest shift between these two surveys is a steep decline in the number of respondents that are currently evaluating NetApp’s SAN offerings and a corresponding increase in current customers that are only planning on using its NAS products and have no plans to even evaluate its SAN lineup.”

Out of our large customer base of clients , very few are using filers as a NetApp SAN .

Does $50,000.00 a TB sound expensive to you?

NetApp’s newest software costs that much.
ReplicatorX is available now for $50,000 per Tbyte of replicated data.

Let’s do some simple math on a typical small NetApp system which has 10TB on it

10TB * $50,000.00 = $500,000.00 Doesn’t that sound expensive to you?

That is just for the software, you still need a second filer to replicate too!

I wonder what the commission structure is on that software!

If you think the Enterprise Storage business is nuts, just try to figure out Congress.

The strange world of enterprise storage

Something weird is going on here,” said Arun Taneja, founder and analyst with the Taneja Group, who said he’d been working with NeoPath since the company’s inception and had not been aware of the plan to discontinue the products. “For the life of me I can’t understand why NeoPath’s products would be end-of -lifed. It’s a good product. It’s functioning well.”

Perhaps the new owner of Neopath wants to sell its own proprietary solutions, or is about to come to market with its own solution?

How will a trade war with Asia affect your storage infrastructure?

1) Most of the components in enterprise storage systems are made in Asia.
2) Most of the assemblies in your storage infrastructure are made in Asia.
3) A lot of software engineering and technical design is done is Asia.

So when I read things like this from the Economist – I get a little worried.

After a long drawn out, and highly fraught, negotiation that pushed right up against the deadline, America and South Korea have inked a new trade deal. It is the largest America has signed since NAFTA. However, tensions between the Bush administration and resurgent protectionists in America’s new Democratic Congress make it highly uncertain that the pact will be ratified. In related news, China is protesting an about-face on anti-dumping suits by America’s Treasury department, which has resulted in punitive tariffs on paper products

Maybe it is time to write our Senators and Representatives, so they will stop this silliness?

What will your storage network look like in three years?
Brocade has some ideas that may change the cabling and wiring of your
storage infrastructure.
April 01, 2007 (Network World) — Brocade Communications Inc. this week announced plans to incorporate 10Gbit/sec Ethernet and iSCSI technology into its Fibre Channel switches.

“You are going to see us incorporate [Silverback’s 10Gbit/sec Ethernet and iSCSI technologies] and incorporate it into the infrastructure that we are filling out for the future of the data center,” he said

Interesting times.

Dell is caught in an accounting scandal

Is it possible for public companies to comply with all of the rules of the stock exchanges and Sarbanes Oxley any more?

An internal investigation into Dell’s accounts has uncovered “evidence of misconduct” and accounting errors, the struggling computer maker said on Thursday night.

Dell has done more to commoditize technology than just about any company. I would hate to see them go away.

Playing high stakes poker with your storage strategy?

Cisco has decided they hold the winning hand.

March 27, 2007 (Computerworld) — Last week’s announcement that Cisco Systems Inc. intends to acquire NeoPath Networks Inc. (see “News Briefs”) passed by with little fanfare other than with competing vendors lauding it as a validation of the file virtualization space as a whole. But on a larger scale, this announcement may signal that switch vendors are willing to step out from under the shadow of storage vendors.

This acquisition also brings Cisco directly into competition with companies whose products it had carefully avoided competing against. For instance, Cisco’s MDS9000’s Storage Service Module (SSM) switch complemented other storage vendor’s virtualization offerings by allowing them to install and run their software on Cisco’s Fibre Channel directors without directly competing against them.

What does this mean for the Cisco NetApp partnership?

Yesterday I was visiting customers in Chicago, and all of them said our support was better than NetApp’s Support.

One customer is a new customer of ours that we just installed a transferable licensed FAS 940 for. They are migrating more data to the filer now and already thinking about more data they can transfer on to their filer. Over a lunch of Chicago hot dogs we discussed their storage infrastructure and growth plans now that they have an affordable enterprise storage solution. Another customer that loves filers when combined with Zerowait support !

Another customer I met with needs us to support their F740’s. NetApp has cancelled support on these units and they are of vital importance to their operation. The third customer I met with was looking at purchasing a NetApp upgrade for their Data Center. They used to deal directly with NetApp but now they have to deal with a NetApp reseller who has not ever visited their operation and does not understand what they do. So he works with Zerowait.

It was a good trip to Chicago .

The other day I was at a user group meeting with a bunch of NetApp users. Some of these folks are old customers and friends and others had never heard of Zerowait. At the meeting, I was asked not to discuss what Zerowait did, but I was allowed to ask questions about the NetApp engineers presentations. The NetApp marketing folks were not very happy I was there, but I thought since we maintain and support a tremendous number of filers that I would be welcomed as a user. For some reason, NetApp is not happy that they make a lot of software revenue from our legacy hardware support customers who we advise to maintain their software support through NetApp. It seems contradictory to most business models – NetApp makes money for doing nothing, and they are not happy about it. Most companies love a cash cow like legacy software support, but not NetApp. It would seem to be the perfect business for private equity to buy at a discount. Since NetApp does not like supporting old code why not sell it to Blackstone or KKR? It is a cash cow, therefore private equity companies should be interested. It would be good for NetApp’s shareholders, good for the NetApp’s customers, and good for the new owner.

Since the NetApp marketing folks were so unhappy I was there I did not eat any of their food or drinks and afterwards when we went out to eat I made sure to pay for my own food and beverages. If Zerowait was sponsoring a User Group meeting I would make certain NetApp sales and marketing folks would be invited, an open exchange of information is best for everyone. That is why sunshine laws are passed.

In a world of contradictions and hypocrisies NetApp’s legacy hardware users are left to navigate an arcane world of transferable licenses and protocols. For example , we learned last week that some hardware may or may not be supported for 5 years depending on the designation of the customer type. It came to light in regards to R150 customers. Those that are government related have longer support available to them than non government customers. How many companies in the USA don’t do any business at all with any government agencies? How can a company determine whether they are a government related business or not?

Is it Nonsense or not?

JABBERWOCKY
Lewis Carroll
(from Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There, 1872)

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.