Zerowait Corporation

Yesterday, I was in Maryland visiting some customers. At one location the customer wants to know how much data he can put behind a Netapp 980. He wants 30 TB useable. Officially, NetApp 980’s only support 32 TB raw. And yet we have heard of 980’s going over that limit. The customer has NetApp, Blue Arc and SGI storage. He noticed that his Blue Arc and SGI storage shelves look identical. Same shelves just different bezels.

Like so many of our customers this customer likes NetApp hardware and Zerowait support. NetApp hardware is reliable and easy to manage and Zerowait provides realiable and easy to work with support, and at reasonable prices. Recently we have seen a surge of NetCache customers coming to us for service and support quotes for their equipment. Same equipment, just different bezels ; )

By the way, Robert Pearson responded to a Blog posting by Jon Toigo about NetApp with some interesting comments which ended by pointing out “IMHO, pNFS won’t help much with these lofty but worthy goals, but it will help sell a bunch of NetApps boxen. Lord knows they need help with their design architecture bottleneck.” Many customers are noticing this and that is why transferable licensed boxes are worth so much to savvy customers.

“Trustworthy emphasizes the steady and honest dependability which encourages one’s confidence, belief, or trust: trustworthy and accurate reports.” from the definition of reliability below my thoughts.

A few weeks ago I was in Dallas meeting with one of our largest customers, and to paraphrase his comments – he said that what he likes about dealing with Zerowait was that no matter who he speaks to in our office, he is always given an honest and straighforward answer to his questions about a service policy or a parts order.

Since incorporating my company, I have strived to provide our customers with the same service and support that I expect from our business partners.Just this week our first customer was in our office about a maintenance project. Many vendors we have dealt with over the years can not provide the level of trustworthyness that we expect, and over the years most of them have withered away.

Often times at trade shows I hear salesman and marketing people discuss their compensation packages and bonus plans. I even get sent Powerpoint presentations from Vendors that we compete with that tell their sales people how to earn more income with lots of exclamation points. But I have always felt that our company, and our customers, will succeed best if we strive to provide long term value for them in their High Availability environments. Short run sales goals provide short run solutions for our customers, which end up costing them more money.

Zerowait has evolved over the last 17 years with our customers. The NetApp products & Technology we support and we specialize in was not even on the radar when I incorporated the company. And while providing outstanding service and support will never be glamourous, my staff, and I are committed to providing our customers with the best service that we can provide.

Next time you are reviewing your storage options, it might pay to review how your storage salesperson is compensated. Is he going to be a long term partner, or is he looking for the the quick payout?

WWW.dictionary.com definition of reliability below.

re li a ble /rlabəl/ Pronunciation Key – Show Spelled Pronunciation[ri-lahy-uh-buhl] Pronunciation Key – Show IPA Pronunciation
–adjective
that may be relied on; dependable in achievement, accuracy, honesty, etc.: reliable information.
[Origin: 1560–70; rely + -able]

—Related forms
reliability, reliableness, noun
reliably, adverb

—Synonyms trusty, authentic, consistent. Reliable, infallible, trustworthy apply to persons, objects, ideas, or information that can be depended upon with confident certainty. Reliable suggests consistent dependability of judgment, character, performance, or result: a reliable formula, judge, car, meteorologist. Infallible suggests the complete absence of error, breakdown, or poor performance: an infallible test, system, marksman. Trustworthy emphasizes the steady and honest dependability which encourages one’s confidence, belief, or trust: trustworthy and accurate reports.
—Antonyms undependable, questionable, deceitful.
Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.0.1)
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.

pos i ti vi ty / p z t v ti/ Pronunciation Key – Show Spelled Pronunciation[poz-i-tiv-i-tee] Pronunciation Key – Show IPA Pronunciation
–noun, plural -ties.
1. the state or character of being positive: a positivity that accepts the world as it is.
2. something positive.
[Origin: 1650–60; positive + -ity]
Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.0.1)
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.

__________________________________________________________
Positive statement (1)
Yesterday, a NetApp customer sent us an email saying that NetApp does not transfer licenses. From our customer – My rep says, quote “we don’t do that” unquote.
I am positive that NetApp transfers licenses – we work with companies regularly helping them move their transferable licensed systems. Many companies, state government agencies, federal government agencies and organizations are using legally transfered systems today. Why would a NetApp salesperson misinform their customer?
__________________________________________________________
Positive statement (2)
NetApp equipment is some of the most reliable storage equipment ever made, with high reliability guaranteed, it makes sense to maintain and add storage to older systems. Zerowait helps hundreds of companies save money every year with our upgrades, service and support.
I am positive that you can get more value out of your NetApp Storage if you ask Zerowait for a quote on Service, support or upgrades and compare them to NetApp.
__________________________________________________________
Positive statement (3)
Zerowait’s business is growing rapidly because we offer a competitive, quality service for customers with legacy NetApp equipment. Our business is growing mostly by word of mouth recommendations between NetApp users, not because of our Google ads or sales efforts. The largest companies in the world depend on Zerowait for their NetApp service and support, and many of them are NetApp partners.

__________________________________________________________
Positive statement (4)
Competition is good for NetApp’s customers, and it makes Zerowait have to be better than our competition all the time at what we do!

I am positive that our business will continue to grow because of our commitment to providing the highest quality customer service and support. Long term customer relationships will remain our most valuable assets for years to come.

If you are tired of hearing that you need to upgrade from your NetApp salesperson, and are looking for a quality service and support alternative, I am positive you will be happy with Zerowait – the affordable alternative for NetApp service and support!

Also – Call us today if you want special pricing on a FAS940 Cluster with NFS and CIFS with transferable licensing

Did you ever think that making a speech on economics is a lot like pissing down your leg? It seems hot to you, but it never does to anyone else. Lyndon B. Johnson

The same can be said for storage economics – According to Robin Harris :
In storage, the capacity illusion reigns supreme. We measure storage utilization by looking at capacity in gigabytes, which, as Hu points out, is the cheapest part of storage. The expensive storage component is I/O. And the expensive management component is people.

And while the main stream computer press simply recites whatever it is that the vendors are flogging this week, it takes some detective work for customers to find out how to get the most economical return for their storage investment. However, NetApp customers recognize that Zerowait provides high quality third party service and support for their legacy filers. And as we grow our European business many more customers are discovering the logic of purchasing transferable licensed filers. It does not take much effort to look at the price point of a new NetApp filer, compare it to a transferable licensed FAS980 and see that you can get a lot of storage and save a lot of money with a 980 and 336 spindles.

Storage economics – it is a term that will become more well known over the next few years.

On Thursday and Friday I went on a few customer visits and I decided to drive. Leaving Newark,DE on Thursday morning at 5:15 AM I stopped at the Dunkin Donuts and got some coffee and a breakfast sandwich. I drove up the NJ TPKE and crossed the George Washington Bridge with hardly any traffic nightmares. I hit the Cross Bronx Expressway and ran into a small tie up. Going into CT was really no problem, and I made it to New Haven with a lot of time to spare. I had lunch with a customer and continued on up to Hartford and into the Boston suburbs for another appoinment. The calm before the traffic storm!

On Friday, I had two appoinments and left Boston around noon. I got on 95 south and ran into a traffic tie up, when it cleared I ran into a three hour mess between New Haven and the Housatonic river. I decided to spend the night with friends near Bridgeport after this nightmarish delay. Saturday morning I ran into traffic around Stamford, CT and of course on the Cross Bronx EXPY it was a mess. I got across the George Washington Bridge and ran into an hour delay at exit 8 ( Freehold, NJ) After that tie up it was clear until the 896 exit in Newark, DE .

I hit a traffic jam on every highway and in every state I went through returning home. Can you imagine if your network worked that poorly? Would you deal with a company that created havoc in every part of every transaction you made with it. Of course not! Why don’t state highway administrations treat us as customers? Why do they do major road work in the middle of the day? In our company all major network changes have to occur when the office is closed or lightly staffed. I wonder when the folks in charge of roadwork will discover the concept of doing major work when it will impact business the least? Maybe they can post some detour signs?

I wonder how much it costs our economy to have the Northeast a traffic nightmare? And I know that in every region of the country I drive in I run into traffic nighmares. Does anyone in Government care? If Government can’t maintain & fix the roads why are we paying high gas taxes and tolls?

Let’s fix the roads in this country!

Economics explained through cows.

My cousin Clive ,who lives in England, sent me a joke which I thought applied to the storage business perfectly. I only added one section at the end . I hope you enjoy it.

SOCIALISM:

You have 2 cows, and you give one to your neighbour.

COMMUNISM:

You have 2 cows. The State takes both and gives you some milk.

FASCISM:

You have 2 cows. The State takes both and sells you some milk.

NAZISM:

You have 2 cows. The State takes both and shoots you.

BUREAUCRATISM:

You have 2 cows. The State takes both, shoots one, milks the other,
then throws the milk away…

TRADITIONAL CAPITALISM:

You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull. Your herd multiplies,

and the economy grows. You sell them and retire on the income.

AN AMERICAN CORPORATION:

You have two cows. You sell one, and force the other to produce the
milk of four cows. Later, you hire a consultant to analyze why the cow has dropped dead.

A FRENCH CORPORATION:

You have two cows. You go on strike, organise a riot, and block the

roads, because you want three cows.

A JAPANESE CORPORATION:

You have two cows. You redesign them so they are one-tenth the size
of an ordinary cow and produce twenty times the milk. You then create a
clever cow cartoon image called Cowkimon and market it worldwide.

A GERMAN CORPORATION:

You have two cows. You re-engineer them so they live for 100 years,
eat once a month, and milk themselves.

AN ITALIAN CORPORATION:

You have two cows, but you don’t know where they are. You decide to
have lunch.

A RUSSIAN CORPORATION:

You have two cows. You count them and learn you have five cows. You

count them again and learn you have 42 cows. You count them again and

learn you have 2 cows. You stop counting cows and open another bottle
of vodka.

A SWISS CORPORATION:

You have 5000 cows. None of them belong to you. You charge the owners

for storing them.

A CHINESE CORPORATION:

You have two cows. You have 300 people milking them. You claim that
you have full employment, and high bovine productivity, and arrest the
newsman who reported the real situation.

AN INDIAN CORPORATION:

You have two cows. You worship them.

A BRITISH CORPORATION:

You have two cows. Both are mad.

IRAQI CORPORATION:

Everyone thinks you have lots of cows. You tell them that you have
none. No-one believes you, so they bomb the **** out of you and invade your
country. You still have no cows, but at least now you are part of a
Democracy….

SURREALISM:

You have two giraffes. The government requires you to take harmonica

lessons

HONG KONG CAPITALISM:

You have two cows. You sell 3 of them to your publicly listed
company, using letters of credit opened by your brother-in-law at the bank.
Then you execute a debt/equity swap with an associated general offer so
that you get all 4 cows back, with a tax deduction for keeping 5 cows. The
milk rights of 6 cows are transferred via a Panamanian intermediary
to a Cayman Islandscompany secretly owned by the majority shareholder. He
sells the rights to all 7 cows’ milk back to the listed company, and
proceeds from the sale are deferred. The annual report says that the
company owns 8 cows, with an option on one more. Meanwhile, you kill
the 2 cows because the feng shui is bad.

NEW ZEALAND CORPORATION:

You have two cows. The one on the left looks very attractive.

AUSTRALIAN CORPORATION:

You have two cows. Business seems pretty good. You close the office
and go for a few beers to celebrate.

Storage vendor

You purchased a new milking machine for high reliability and the expected growth of your milking operation which currently consists of two cows. The hardware vendor cancels software and hardware support for the milking machine and requires you to purchase new hardware and software. They tell you that the new software and hardware provides higher availability than the older versions did. When you install the hardware you notice that the only difference is the Bezel and the debt you have incurred. The day after your upgrade is complete the salesman stops by and tells you that the hardware has been superseded by a newer version and you need to upgrade. The salesman is driving a brand new BMW 700 series.

A purchase that makes sense.

Typcially – the news from Silly Con Valley storage companies makes little sense but this one seems to have some logic behind it. If HDS pulls it off, I think in a few years NetApp will see some serious competition.

Meanwhile, HDS is also said to be working through the due diligence process to acquire high-end network attached storage (NAS) supplier, BlueArc Inc. Neither company would confirm nor deny the rumor. A former BlueArc employee, who preferred to remain anonymous, said that there were discussions with HDS two to three years ago, but they didn’t go anywhere. “The company’s under new management now and it would be a logical move,” he said.

But what happened to the love NetApp and HDS used to share?
Hitachi Data Systems Corp. (HDS), Santa Clara, Calif., and Network Appliance Inc. (NetApp), Sunnyvale, Calif., have penned a plan to sell enterprise NAS systems. Under terms of the agreement, HDS will offer NetApp enterprise NAS gateway devices for Hitachi Freedom Storage arrays managed by HDS HiCommand Management Framework tools.

Oh yeah, that’s right , NetApp is now dancing with IBM.
Andy Monshaw, General Manager, IBM Storage Systems, states, “The IBM relationship with Network Appliance is a prime example of how two industry-leading companies, both of whom actively support open standards, can team to offer information on demand solutions.

No matter who they are dancing with today, Zerowait will support whichever legacy version of NetApp equipment you are left with for years to come.

Will Sun and ZFS take over the enterprise?
Robin Harris at Storagemojo.com has been writing about these efforts for a couple of months now, and I have to give him credit for highlighting what is going on. Enterprise Storage will commoditize, it might be ZFS that leads the way – if Sun can productize and position the product correctly. But not many companies are able to make the transition from a proprietary high margin model to a commodity low margin model. I think one of the consumer electronics companies will end up owning the market for commoditized enterprise storage in a few years time.

No change in circumstances can repair a defect in character – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Since opening our European operations we have seen a large increase in our requests for quote for our service and support of legacy NetApp equipment. There has also been a large increase in requests for service and support of the NetCache line because NetApp has sold off that line of equipment. Zerowait is focused on helping our customers get more long term value out of their NetApp infrastructure, so it is refreshing to see the following statement by a NetApp big wig that shows NetApp is suddenly actually trying to help customers get more value out of their equipment also.

“The availability of 10Gb Ethernet connectivity will benefit all of our IP-based storage solutions: NFS, CIFS, and iSCSI,” said Rich Clifton, vice president and general manager of the Networked Storage business unit. “The aggressive NetApp support for 10Gb Ethernet demonstrates the ongoing commitment we make to our customers to deliver powerful solutions that help them gain more value from their data infrastructure.”

With a commitment like that, it shouldn’t be long until NetApp provides transferable licenses to all of their customers and starts providing legacy customers with bug fixes at no charge.

“If you can’t accept losing, you can’t win” Vince Lombardi

Every quote we make does not turn into an order, and there are a variety of reasons for this. For a customer with legacy NetApp equipment that is looking to extend the life of his product we win the majority of the business we quote. The reason we win the business is that we understand that the customer is honestly trying to get the best return on investment on his current Network Appliance storage investment, and we can show the customer that by using our service and support he can save a substantial amount of money and maintain his High Availability equipment.

Maintaining High Availability equipment at a reasonable price allows our customers to spend their scant budget dollars on staff, and as many customers of ours recognize, a highly skilled staff can provide an organization with many more benefits than a brand new box does. No matter how polished the sales pitch is.