Zerowait Corporation

Is this a verifiable claim?

NetApp also claims that its RAID-DP technology is “4,000 times more reliable” compared to conventional RAID-1 systems, in terms of safeguarding disks against failure.

How did NetApp come up with this figure? The News reporter doesn’t say. I would be interested in finding out how much more reliable their RAID-DP is compared to RAID 5, which seems to be the most prevalent raid in the Data Centers we visit. Also, it would be interesting to learn why RAID-DP was released after SATA Disk technology was put into NetApp systems. Was there any linkage between SATA unreliability, as compared with FC disks, and the Release of RAID-DP? Is the RAID 4 that NetApp used to recommend inferior to their RAID-DP? Perhaps the SATA disks are more unreliable, so a dual hot parity disk solution is required? Maybe Keith Brown, NetApp director of technology and strategy, or one of our loyal readers at NetApp can answer these questions for us?

Have a great Holiday weekend !

Transferable Licenses

This subject comes up almost daily. NetApp provides transferable licensing. Zerowait stocks systems with transferable NFS,CIFS,Cluster and Snap mirror. If a NetApp Salesman tells you that there is no such thing as a transferable license Call Zerowait. 888.811.0808 immediately. Ask to speak to Mike Linett. I will fax or Email you a copy of a transferable license from NetApp. This document is on NetApp stationary and signed by NetApp employees.

Zerowait has the largest third party stock of NetApp systems with transferable licenses. Additionally, we stock thousands of parts for most NetApp systems. We provide outstanding service and support to customers around the world. If you are not currently a Zerowait customer I hope that some day soon you will give us a try.

Dave Hitz discounts from NetApp. Dave Hitz, cofounder and head of engineering at NetApp. “We have a single software system, and we can cut our prices to gain market share,” he says.

Tuesday was an interesting day. It seems that many customers are starting to receive their lower price quotes from NetApp’s direct sales force and resellers.

We had one customer call us from Toronto who was getting 30% discounts on his NetApp FAS 270 hardware and software, but only getting15% discounts on his support. We had another customer call us that was getting 50% discounts on his hardware and software but also getting a 30% discount on his 3 year support. This confirms what I heard last week from a client in Maryland who was getting 30% discounts on hardware and 15% discounts on support. Another customer in California was able to get NetApp to meet our prices on hardware last week! So, if you are looking to get a price reduction from NetApp, it can’t hurt to show them our Zerowait quote as part of your negotiation process.

NetApp typically aggressively discounts hardware and software at the end of their fiscal quarter or the end of their fiscal year. But it seems that savvy customers can get steep discounts from NetApp now by using a variety of negotiation tactics. Please give us a call if you need some help with learning the ins and outs of NetApp’s negotiation process or need a competitive quote for your NetApp storage.

If enough of you send us your NetApp quotes we can put together a database of their quotes and see if there are regional price differences as well as product line price differences. It could be a very interesting database and provide a great negotiation tool for NetApp customers.

“Diligence is the mother of good luck.”
— Benjamin Franklin

Over a week in the office I probably speak to an average of 20 different customers. And every week our engineers probably speak to the same number of customers. I can’t provide an average week’s shipments, because some days we have a lot of small boxes and other days we have a couple of big pallets shipping, some days we have a mix and some days we hardly ship anything at all.

Some days we are making complicated system quotes and some days we are simply quoting out parts and upgrades. Some days we are out and about visiting clients and some days we are entertaining clients in our offices.

And we must be doing something right. Because every week we gain new customers, who like our commitment to providing the best service, support and upgrades for their NetApp equipment. So, if you need a transferable licensed NetApp Cluster or just a Gig card please keep us in mind, we would like to hear from you! And I hope you can join the Zerowait family of satisfied customers.

Last week a customer called us up in a panic. They needed 28 DS 14 36GB drives in a hurry and wanted to know if we had them. We checked our inventory found we had plenty in stock and said that we did have them and could ship right away. He said he would call us back, because NetApp told him they could not ship immediately and he was desperate. He called NetApp and told them Zerowait had the drives and could ship them immediately. NetApp then had a person drive our customer the shelves right away. He called us up and told us what happened. I was very sad to lose the sale but happy to help a customer. Other customers have shown Zerowait Quotes to NetApp in order to help them get lower prices on NetApp new gear and licenses.

If you are trying to get NetApp to quicken their reactions, or lower their prices give Zerowait a call. There are many ways to get a better deal out of NetApp, perhaps the best is to ask for the Dave Hitz Discount “We have a single software system, and we can cut our prices to gain market share,” he says.

Disaster Recovery or Disaster Prevention

There was a great article in search storage on the ten reasons DR plans fail recently, I suggest that you read it if you are concerned about your business continuity after a data loss event. Following the attacks on the Pentagon and the NY World Trade Center, Zerowait took actions to build what we termed our Disaster Prevention Strategy. The Project took us about 1 year to completely implement but was relatively inexpensive and has proven itself in all of our tests. What we did was to build a VPN between all of our remote offices and our HQ in Newark, DE . Then we extended the VPN to a Colo Center about 10 miles away at Serveon. We placed duplicate storage there, and servers including a mail server. Since all of our data is kept on transferable licensed NetApp Filers it is quite simple to move data between the filers.

Is it a perfect solution, of course not. But if all power and Internet Connectivity goes out in Newark, DE. we are ready. Our tests have proven that we can be up and running within a few hours from our home offices and our remote site. Our NetApp storage infrastructure helps us streamline our Disaster Prevention strategy, but it was only part our High Availability strategy.

At Zerowait we believe in High Availability. If you are concerned about your Disaster Recovery plan’s reliability, please give us a call. I am certain that we can help you build a High Availability Disaster Prevention Strategy that is cost effective and reliable.

In case you did not know, Zerowait provides affordable service, support and upgrades for NetApp equipment. We have an enourmous stock of transfrable licensed units from which you can build an affordable high availability NetApp storage infrastructure.

Email Compliance Conversation

I received a call from a customer who was worried about regulatory compliance for his email. He had looked into a solution and was suffering sticker shock from the price quote he received. I asked him how many email accounts he had, and whether he was running a spam filter or not. I told him ” Spam storage costs money” and told him we use a Barracuda to eat our spam. We like it so much we sell the product now. I asked him how many terrabytes of email storage he had and he was not certain. This concerned him as he did not know how big his problem was, or how fast it was growing. I asked him if he wanted us to provide tape back up, or disk to disk at our remote location. He said that the recent tape loss events are quite scary. “No Problem” I said, ” what we will do is create a three leg email solution. Primary email is at your location, followed by a copy to our location and then a back up to our remote site. No tape, all encrypted on spinning disk and no spam! ” I said. He said “You can do that! ” . I answered “Yes, when do you need it implemented.” Once we get his storage requirements figured out we will be able to provide him a monthly price which is exponentially cheaper then buying an in house solution.

Zerowait provides customized storage services for clients currently, and it is a growing part of our business. Often your must vexing storage problems are every day solutions we provide! Zerowait has the engineered solutions and we can solve your problems NOW.

On Sunday, I had lunch with Zerowait’s first customer. We still do work for them and
we had to get together to discuss a project we are working on for them. We have been working with this customer for 16 years on various types of projects. The company has recommended us to various other companies over the years, and we have picked up projects here and there from their recommendations. In addition to business, we talked about our parents, and our families and what we are doing for the summer holidays. Over the years we have met each other friends, and it seems that everyone knows everyone else now, so when we work on a project together we can trust that everyone will do what is expected, and we make sure the deliverable is as described in our discussions. There are clear economic benefits to this relationship for everyone because of the trust we built up over time.

As a private company, Zerowait does not have to meet Quarterly numbers for analysts, we have to make our customers happy year in and year out. Of course, we do have to make money. It seems like a large part of a successful business formula is to make your customers happy and be a reliable resource and they will recommend you to other customers. Everyone at Zerowait understands that we can’t win every deal, but we all try our hardest to provide our customers with the best quality, prices, service and support that we can. Two large NetApp upgrade shipments on Tuesday went to customers recommended by other customers. We certainly appreciate your kind words and recommendations. THANK YOU!

Last week a customer spoke to me at length because they need a NetApp storage specialist for a few month assignment. He wanted to know if we could help them find a person for a 6 month assignment which is all they expected their storage consolidation and migration to take. I spoke to him and listened closely, and we came to the conclusion that they did not want actually to hire someone for six months but actually wanted to find someone who could help them for a period of about six months while they implemented their changes. After about another thirty minutes on the phone it turned out that all that was really required was someone on call 24/7 and someone who could come in when they needed it.

Our customer already knew that his engineers depended on us for their technical support but never realized that we provide consolidation and migration services also. The customer pointed out that most companies he deals with always push their professional services and that Zerowait does not. We laughed together about our lack of marketing skills for our professional services, but he agreed that he would keep Zerowait professional services his little secret.

Zerowait provides NetApp storage migration and consolidation services . There you go – the hard sell!

Last week I was having breakfast with a customer who was complaining about the limited lifecycles of most IT equipment. He went through the usual list of problems that are caused by manufacturers who only support the current and last generation of products. He knew that we were supporting many generations of NetApp products and he complimented us for saving customers a ton of money by allowing them to maintain older equipment for the medium term, but beyond the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) . He wanted to know why we don’t cover more brands of equipment.

The reason is simple, our engineers can ‘t be the best in multiple brands, so we specialize in one thing, and it is NetApp. Many companies sell & support many different brands of equipment. When we sold new NetApp equipment, we only sold NetApp storage. Well over 90% of our business is service, parts and upgrades for NetApp equipment. Zerowait is commited to providing outstanding NetApp service and support, and our customers share the rewards of our dedication to this purpose.