Zerowait Corporation

The more things change the more they stay the same

Recently while at the SNW show in Orlando, I heard that NetApp was switching its shelf supplier from Xyratex to Dot Hill. When NetApp shifted its purchasing from Eurologic to Xyratex it was the root cause of Eurologic going out of business. Currently, NetApp represents about 50% of Xyratex’s business. That is a big chunk of business to lose.

Sticking with your strategic suppliers and building long term relationships is something that most companies profess to admire. NetApp says it wants its customers for the long term. Why would a company that professes its strategic relationships to its customers act tactically with its own suppliers? Can a company so focused on its own short term profits provide long term value to its customers?

Silicon Valley where Politics and Venture Capital Mix

It is always interesting to see who is contributing to Congressional representatives and see if it influences their votes. Silicon Valley’s representive seems to be a favorite of the Venture Capital firms. Interesting? You decide.

MIKE HONDA (D-CA)
Top Contributors

1 National Assn of Realtors $10,000
2 Laborers Union $8,500
3 Air Line Pilots Assn $7,500
3 Intl Brotherhood of Electrical Workers $7,500
3 National Venture Capital Assn $7,500
6 International Assn of Fire Fighters $7,000
7 Acorn Campus $6,200
8 Assn of Trial Lawyers of America $6,000
8 Ironworkers Union $6,000
8 Operating Engineers Union $6,000
8 Opnext Inc $6,000
8 Transportation Communications Union $6,000
13 Mele Assoc $5,848
14 Credit Union National Assn $5,500
15 McDonalds $5,100
16 American Federation of Teachers $5,000
16 Johnson & Johnson $5,000
16 National Air Traffic Controllers Assn $5,000
16 Service Employees International Union $5,000
16 Teamsters Union $5,000
16 United Auto Workers $5,000

How long do you want your data archive to be readable?

One of our friends just told us that NetApp will not allow their R100’s to run anything above Version 7.1 of Ontap. Is this true?

Can NetApp’s Nearstore line be considered a longterm solution ? Archiving should inherently be for a longer period than 3-5 years. Isn’t that what the regulators require in HIPAA & GLBA and SARBOX?

Zerowait will have the parts for these systems for many years to come so our customers can remain in compliance, but will NetApp, their software vendor, make their newer systems backwards compatible?

Smaller footprint storage is probably coming very soon…

If I was working for Xyratex I would look into how to build a RAID shelf to fit the category of drives Fujitsu is releasing. It could save space and power in data centers, which would make a lot of folks very happy.

Fujitsu today announced the MHX2300BT series of mobile hard disk drives featuring impressive storage capacities of 250GB and 300GB, making them the first 2.5″ PMR hard disk drives in the industry to attain these high levels of capacity.

PMR, or perpendicular magnetic recording technology, is essential to Fujitsu achieving the increased capacity per platter. PMR technology places the data bits standing on end so that more data can fit onto a disc, allowing for greater storage capacity while reducing corruption factor.

And for your enjoyment today some quotes:

Senator Ted Stevens: “The Internet is not something you just dump something on. It’s not a big truck. It’s a series of tubes.” (June 28)

Larry King on the Internet: “I’ve never done it, never gone searching…. The wife loves it. I wouldn’t love it. What do you punch little buttons and things?” (Nov. 14)

Interesting Times

Monday, 11 December 2006
BlueArc Defends IP, Wins NetApp Lawsuit

BlueArc, a provider of network storage, has said that the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has affirmed the lower court’s decision to dismiss the patent infringement lawsuit filed against the company by Network Appliance.

Does this mean that Direct NAS competition is looming for NetApp from another manufacturer? Add this to the HDS agreement posted today and BlueArc may be on an upward trend.
Hitachi Data Systems has signed an investment, OEM and reseller pact with high-end NAS developer BlueArc as part of a move to enter the high-performance computing market.

Also in today’s email was this from the Equipment Leasing Assoc.

AeA has sent along the California Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) proposed language for the emergency regulation to implement the California RoHS requirements. The Director of DTSC has approved this version, and it will be formally posted once Cal/EPA signs off. Since this is being issued as an emergency regulation, there is only a 10-day public comment period (instead of the usual 45 days).
***
§66260.202 Restrictions on the Use of Heavy Metals in Covered Electronic Devices.

(a) On or after January 1, 2007, no person shall sell or offer for sale in California, a covered electronic device if the device is prohibited from being sold or offered for sale in the European Union on or after its date of manufacture due to the concentration of one or more heavy metals in the device exceeding its maximum concentration value, as specified in the Commission Decision of August 18, 2005, amending Directive 2002/95/EC (European Union document 2005/618/EC), or as specified in a subsequent amendment to the Directive.

(b) The prohibition in subsection (a) applies only to a covered electronic device that is manufactured on or after January 1, 2007.

(c) The prohibition in subsection (a) does not apply to a covered electronic device that is sold or offered for sale in California only for purposes of resale or offering for resale to persons outside of California.

(d) In determining the concentrations of metals for compliance with subsection (a), the Department shall not consider any cadmium, chromium, lead, or mercury, or any component containing any of those metals, which has been exempted by Directive 2002/95/EC, or by an amendment to the Directive.

(e) The prohibition established by subsection (a) of this section does not apply to a covered electronic device that would be prohibited from sale or being offered for sale in California based solely on metals used to meet consumer, health or safety requirements.

NOTE: Authority cited: Sections 25214.10, 25214.10.2, and 58012, Health and Safety Code; Section 42475.2, Public Resources Code. Reference: Section 25214.10, Health and Safety Code; Section 42465.2, Public Resources Code.

Bill and Michael’s Excellent Adventure!

It looks like Microsoft and Dell are going after the boys of NetApp in Sunnyvale. Way back in time Dell and NetApp were friends. But the marriage ended in a messy divorce which left a lot of customers without an upgrade path.

Now it looks like MS and Dell are taking direct aim at Java Drive’s profit center of licensing.
The Dell PowerVault NX1950™ with Microsoft® Windows® Unified Data Storage Server 2003 goes beyond traditional network-attached storage solutions. The integrated hardware and software system offers the performance, advanced management features and flexibility of a mid-range unified storage device at an affordable price. It can also help customers reduce complexity and storage costs by eliminating separate licensing for additional features and protocols such as snapshots, replication and resource management I’m sure NetApp is saying ‘ouch’ to this.

I wonder what the usable to raw storage ratios on this product offering are. At the price points that is advertised it could be quite painful to NetApp.

Available now, the system is priced from about $17,000.* Configurations with 4.5 TB start at less than $24,000.* Integrated solutions with clustering and drive expansion, along with

MS and Dell have very deep pockets – If they are succesfull in gaining market share the new competition may very well make NetApp ease their licensing restrictions, and this will be great for storage consumers.

The Economist this week leads with a story about the falling dollar.

For Zerowait, and our NetApp customers, a falling dollar is a good thing. Currently, our European and Asian NetApp business is about 20% of our total yearly sales. A falling dollar means our Asian and European customers will be able to purchase our storage at a lower cost because their currencies will buy more dollars, and our NetApp storage is sold in dollars. This in turn means that Zerowait will be able to buy more inventory in the USA, and offer our European, Asian and American customers even lower prices.

The more customers we win, the more inventory we get, and the lower our overall pricing can be. It is a circle based on a competitive markets model that would make Adam Smith proud!

“It has become dramatically clear that the foundation of corporate integrity is personal integrity.” (DiPiazza, Sam, CEO of PriceswaterhouseCoopers. May 13, 2003. It’s All Down to Personal Values. http:www.pwcglobal.com).

Jon Toigo called me on Wednesday and asked me if I had heard anything about tax trouble involving NetApp. I told him that I did not know anything regarding this issue, but I would look into it in the afternoon. By the afternoon his Blog had some insightful comments on the issue from someone who understands the financial aspects better than I do.

A short time after our conversation a customer sent me this link to an article which is worth reading completely.

And by the afternoon I had been sent a couple of other links which were interesting in regards to NetApp’s Culture and Business Ethics, but this one was the most interesting from the San Jose Mercury

Splitting fact from fiction and hype is often difficult in the technology sector, what Karl Von Clausewitz said about war can apply to technology also. – “Many intelligence reports in war are contradictory; even more are false, and most are uncertain. “

From the Wall Street Journal 12/2/06

Marketing hype and sales puffery are one aspect of the business technology culture that most purchasers understand and kid each other about. Financial hype and puffery are taken a lot more seriously. I hope it all works out okay for NetApp, Dave Hitz and the gang created some great technology that many customers depend on for their data integrity. The better NetApp does, the bigger Zerowait’s market becomes, therefore, I hope they solve these issues quickly.

Ephemeral Storage equipment

Over the last few weeks we have been speaking to a client that is rather concerned about the ephemeral nature of his NetApp equipment. Although he trusts his data is secure with NetApp, he was not so confident about the longevity of his NetApp equipment. He is concerned that according to his NetApp salesman he is going to have to upgrade his R100 and F800 series equipment, because NetApp is going to end support for them soon. Like so many of our legacy NetApp customers he is aggravated by the constant upgrade path that he is on, his conversation reminded me of the picture of a gerbil on a wheel of never ending upgrades. I assured him that we support several hundred NetApp filers around the world and that the equipment he has is very reliable. He asked to contact some of our references, and got back to me a couple of days later after speaking with them, he had a completely new understanding of his NetApp equipment and the life cycle we can provide him with. He was very excited by his newer lower cost of ownership and maintenance.

NetApp equipment can be long lasting and quite cost effective if you use our affordable alternative to NetApp for Legacy equipment support.

More Channel Trouble for NetApp?

Until recently we were told that Fujitsu Siemens and NetApp were partners, and it seems that they have been for a long time. From 2003…

Network Appliance Inc and Fujitsu Siemens Computers, announced that they will expand their partnershp to offer European customers dedicated consulting resources coupled with a server and enterprise storage platform optimized for the Oracle Database environments. Through the partnership, the two companies will open a new state-of-the-art Center of Excellence (CoE) facility at Oracle Corp’s Munich, Germany, campus. Dedicated experts and resources will be on-call at the CoE to help customers easily and cost-effectively deploy server and storage systems.

But now we learn there may be trouble in paradise

Fujitsu Siemens challenges EMC and NetApp on virtual tape

Fujitsu Siemens Computers is taking its CentricStor virtual tape appliance to midsize users, introducing two entry-level models with a mere 2.7TB of caching disk each and the ability to connect to one tape library and up to four physical tape drives.

Is there any partnership that NetApp has that is trouble free?
If you have gotten left in the cold by one of NetApp’s crumbling partnerships, give Zerowait a call we can maintain your equipment at a reasonable cost and for a long time. to come.