Zerowait Corporation

Incremental cost of storage software to the manufacturer. Today I got a call from a NetApp customer and he complained about the costs of NetApp software licenses. I told him that we had transferable NetApp licenses & I explained that he could negotiate with NetApp since the incremental cost to NetApp of an additional license sale was essentially $0.00 . I then pointed him to an article about software pricing which helps explain NetApp’s pricing formula. I have some excepts here.

“The more you pay, the more it’s worth” goes the ironic old saying. But when Shapiro and Varian argue the benefits of personal pricing, they turn the old saying on its head and it becomes “the more it’s worth to you, the more you should pay.” Personal pricing is a practice where the information product vendor makes an offer to the prospective purchaser based upon a calculation of what the vendor believes the prospective purchaser is willing to pay.

“Let’s take everybody’s favorite (or least favorite) example, airline pricing,” says Varian. “You can fly from here to New York on a full fare basis, it’s two thousand bucks. If you stay overnight on a Saturday and purchase with a two-week advance notice then it’s maybe four hundred bucks. So now you have to ask yourself, if they could only charge one fare, which would it be. Would it be closer to two thousand or closer to four hundred? And I say it would be closer to two thousand because of the business traffic: business people who have to go! They’re the ones with the inelastic demand. What’s happening is the airlines are reaching out and offering this deal to fill up the empty seats. My claim would be that people are better off because airlines have engaged in that price differentiation.”

Is your filer’s data worth $5.00 a day? Curious? Ask Zerowait!

Looking to lower your cost of NetApp Maintenance?
You are not alone!
“NetApp worked fine for us,” he said. “It’s not a bad product at all — it was the cost of maintenance that was a problem.” Barbieri said that he was interested in a next-generation product from NetApp, “but it’s not going to be ready for another year or two, and they didn’t give me an upgrade path to it.”

Many customers turn to Zerowait for continuing service, support and upgrades of NetApp equipment. If you love the reliability of NetApp’s Ontap operating system, but are astonished by their costs give Zerowait a call 888.811.0808.

Is the data on your NetApp filer worth $5.00 a day? More information soon!

Quantum leaps or stepping on your customers?

Recently NetApp’s Dave Hitz has been writing about the quantum leaps that his company is taking. But as NetApp makes it’s leaps it seems to leave many customers behind. As NetApp’s customers recently learned, NetApp announced end of availabiltiy of its NetCache C1200 & C2100 products. These join a long list of products that NetApp has end of lifed. When NetApp ends a product their customers have come to expect a price increase on that product’s support services. But customers are getting wise to this tactic, and are increasingly relying on NetApp third party support companies to provide ongoing NetApp support and NetApp parts services. Many of NetApp customers are also puzzled by the pricing of NetApp protocol licenses, they realize that the incremental cost to NetApp of each additional license sold is near $0.00. So they wonder aloud in conversations with us why they are charging outrageous sums for these licenses. I assure them that NetApp is negotiable on software license pricing and it never hurts to negotiate with them aggresively and I always suggest that they request license transferability.

Zerowait specializes in third party support for NetApp equipment. We provide parts, service and support for NetApp’s F760, F740, F720, F810, F820, F825, F840 & F880. We also support the Netcache C1100, C1105,C1200, c2100, C760 and C720. If you are looking for an affordable alternative for your NetApp support why not give us a call?

NetApp sells used parts!
NetApp needs to recycle defective parts, many of which can be repaired, as quickly as possible. Product lifecycles in the high-tech world are notoriously short. A single circuit board might undergo 20 revisions over seven years, notes Fabiaschi. Yet customers are receiving brand new boards only between 20 and 30 percent of the time. The trick is to maximize the use of a given part before it reaches its inevitable moment of obsolescence.

The other day a large company’s engineer called us up for a quote on some NetApp cards, we quoted him and then he wrote us back that he was concerned about the cards being used. I can understand his concern, especially since NetApp charges new prices for cards that are more often used then new according to the article above.

Zerowait sells used NetApp parts, we test them and guarantee them. And Zerowait will save you a bunch of money !

Can you decipher your NetApp Log files?
Do you know what all of the NetApp error messages mean?
When is the last time you read through your NetApp log files?
Zerowait works with our NetApp customers to take the mystery out
of their log files. Understanding your NetApp log files can help you avoid serious problems down the road, but can also help you understand how to optimize your NetApp filer now. If you have some specific questions about your log files and some of the messages why not give us a call? At Zerowait we have the answers to your most vexing NetApp questions.

We were talking to a NetApp Customer the other day about upgrade options for his NetApp Storage Infrastructure. He told us that his NetApp representative had told them that the only option they had for service and support was to upgrade their systems as NetApp was no longer going to support their NetApp F720, F740 & F760 Hardware. He was non plussed as the hardware has worked unfailingly for years. He had heard about Zerowait from some of his friends in the business and called us. We processed his request for a quote for a ZPA policy for service and support and sent it off with a few references.

Later in the day he called us back and told us that he was forwarding our quote to his purchasing department because he was impressed with the comments he heard from the references we sent. He also told us that our other customers had told him about some of the other things we do, and he was interested in some of our NetApp engineering & NetApp migration services also.

Zerowait ships NetApp parts all over the world

Sometimes folks call us and are surprised how many NetApp customers we have and where we cover NetApp systems. NetApp customers all over the world have the same concerns and want to be treated fairly. Unlike many competitors, Zerowait has one price list for customers – domestic & international customers are encouraged to purchase off our web store for the same price. We also have dealers and partners that we deal with in Asia, Europe and South America. Sometimes, our partners work with us to provide on site engineering support through a region, and also act as a parts depot for us.

Whether you are looking for a transferable licensed NetApp R100, an emergency shipment of replacement parts, or a service and support plan, Zerowait specializes in NetApp equipment and we look forward to helping you.

End of year Scheduling.

As the end of the year approaches, we typically get a flurry of calls from folks who need a NetApp solution installed before the year end. Typically folks want both a trained NetApp engineer and NetApp equipment to meet their requirements. Scheduling sometimes gets a bit tight, but we can usually meet everyone’s requirements.

Currently we are working on a few installation projects scheduled for the next few weeks. So if you are in a hurry give us a call soon!

Zerowait provides affordable alternatives for NetApp equipment, service and support.

Storage and Security

On Thursday I met with Jon Toigo in Washington DC for a few hours. We discussed many subjects, but most of our time was spent discussing security and the lack of common sense in the industry. Vendors are focused on their technical solutions when selling to customers and sell security as if it were some magic software, and yet they sell their storage equipment with every cabinet keyed alike. Would you put your most valuable possessions in a bank where all safety deposit boxes had the same key? Of course not!

Ronald Reagan said ‘Trust but Verify’, it is good advice for customers involved in the data storage and data security business today.

Lot’s of times we have customers call us who need to rent a few TB of NetApp storage for a data migration or for a special project. As we have in an enormous stock of NetApp storage shelves we can usually configure an affordable NetApp storage rental solution to fit your budget and short term requirements. If you have a short term NetApp Filer requirement, give us a call. 888.811.0808