Zerowait Corporation

On Thursday we were arranging a shipment from the Netherlands to Zerowait in the USA, and also putting together a shipment that will be going to Amsterdam. Additionally, we were packing an order to go to Hawaii, and got out a couple of overnight shipments to companies in the lower 48. Our Engineers were working with clients on migrations and back up strategies in the USA , Russia, and the UK. The diversity of our clients is astonishing, but we recognize that each one of them has an urgent need to keep their high availability data storage network running within a budget. Another typical day at Zerowait, providing outstanding service, support and upgrades to NetApp customers throughout the world. I hope you will keep us in mind the next time you are thinking of upgrading your NetApp system.

A customer called us up recently who had been quoted a price of over $16,000.00 by NetApp for NBD hardware support for his Filer. He was absolutely non plussed over the quote NetApp gave him, and wanted a competitive quote. I explained that we certainly could provide a competitive price quote, but I did not see how NetApp could possibly be charging that much for hardware support for the 3 year old system he was describing. We quoted him significantly less and it looks like we have gained another satisfied customer.

The incident reminded me of a meeting I had in September of 2000. I was meeting with the CIO of a Fortune 100 company and he told me that often it comes down to a decision to buy hardware and software support or to keep talented engineers on staff, budgets are tight and tough decisions have to be made between staff and infrastructure. I sympathized with him and explained that Zerowait’s competitive hardware support prices give IT managers the budget flexibility they need to keep talented staff and maintain their high availability hardware. Of course, readers of this blog already know that! Zerowait provides an alternative to NetApp’s high prices, we’ve been doing it for years and our loyal customer list keeps growing.

It looks like there might finally be some price competition coming to the enterprise storage market thanks to competitive market forces and it should help NetApp’s customers. I don’t think I have ever seen a more fragmented product marketing strategy by one company.

Over the last few weeks we have seen some very interesting comments from NetApp on their pricing and their marketing strategy. First there was Dave Hitz saying NetApp will lower prices to gain market share “We have a single software system, and we can cut our prices to gain market share,” he says.

According to NetApp’s Leonard Iventosch “Before, we dialed for dollars, set up appointments and sent the lead to the partner,” he said. “Now we will get the lead, follow up with the customer and the channel partner, and make sure the customer stays engaged.” So it looks like the customer will be able to negotiate price with the partner, but also start shopping with other NetApp sales channels. Where will the IBM OEM versions of the NetApp products fit into the pricing picture? Will IBM sell their OEM versions for less than the NetApp channel and direct sales force? Will customers be able to get competitive bids for the same product from NetApp’s direct sales force and NetApp’s partner sales force, and IBM’s direct and channel sales force?

How will Pillar Data affect the pricing picture especially within the Oracle NAS storage Niche that NetApp values so highly? And now there is competition from Larry Ellison’s Pillar Data – “ $100,000 for 12 Tbytes: This system seems to target a real sweet spot that’s missed by other storage vendors. It’s unusual for us to buy from a startup. But it’s such a departure from the existing storage paradigm that it’s worth it to take a leap.”

It seems like there will be a lot of competition for NetApp’s sales in the next few months. Savvy customers will get quotes from all of the different competing sales forces and take the lowest price, because the service and product will be identical.

Competition is good for the customer, and the coming months look like a great opportunity to grow your storage while reducing your costs. There are several successful purchasing strategies that our customers have used over the years in negotiating with NetApp, but getting competitive prices is always the best.

Yesterday, I received an email from a customer who had been given a quote for a NetApp FAS270. He wanted to know if we could quote him a similar unit. I wanted to know what his application was and what his data growth forecasts were, I also inquired as to the number of clients he had that were going to be actively using the storage from the FAS270. I needed to know these answers so that I could see if there was a good fit between the FAS270 and the client’s needs.

Spec.org provides online test results for NetApp filers and they are quite revealing. For the customer, it turned out that the quick review showed that there were potential bottlenecks in the performance of the FAS270 that could be a show stopper. I suggested he review the results for the F840 and F820. It turned out that these older systems fit his usage and growth profile much better. Additionally , we were able to save him about 50% of his budget over a new system. This is because Zerowait stocks systems with fully transferable NetApp Protocol licenses, ready to ship and configured to your requirements.

Next time you are told that it is time to upgrade your NetApp system, check the specifications and test results prior to making your PO, or give Zerowait a call and we will try to help you increase your NetApp storage while maintaining your budgetary integrity.

I got back last night from a great trip visiting our customers in Europe at the ASCDI
meeting in London. It was my first trip to London and I found it a very nice place, it really did not seem much different from any other major city. If you have time, I recommend going to the Science museum which is behind the Albert Hall. I wish I had another couple of hours to go through it.

Most of the folks at the meeting were interested in how we could help them provide more value to their customers. NetApp is telling their customers that they must upgrade to newer filers and then NetApp’s sales folks tell the customers that the price of service and support of older systems is going to go up so it makes sense to upgrade. It sounds like twisted logic to a lot of our customers.

As readers of our Blog know – Zerowait provides affordable service, support and upgrades for NetApp equipment. We supply Next Business Day (NBD) parts services to many of the Fortune 100 companies who want to keep their older NetApp systems running. So if NetApp is telling you that you must upgrade, why not give Zerowait a call? There are other alternatives to NetApp for service and support .

I just got in this morning from a very busy flying day! The plane I was flying had just come out of a major maintenance inspection. It was in the shop for 6 weeks! One thing experience has taught me is that no matter how good your mechanics are, after a plane comes out of “heavy maintenance” there are a lot of little problems that pop up from having things apart, nothing dangerous, just annoying.

Why do I bring this up here, well I’m learning that filers and storage equipment are the same way. Anytime you re-arrange a system, move a system, or somehow change a system, you will often find little annoying issues that get in the way of smooth operation. Sometimes these problems may not even seem related to the maintenance that was accomplished.

Last week Zerowait got a call from a customer who was having problems with their system. The Zerowait Engineers were also receiving auto support emails from the system, indicating a problem. After many phone calls and dead end troubleshooting, it came out that the customer had recently moved the system from one location to another. During the move a fiber cable got bent or stepped on and was not efficiently transmitting information. No one there suspected that simply moving a system from one location to another could cause such troubles. Once the ever-alert Zerowait engineer heard about the move, the cables were the first things to come to mind. Had the information about the move been discussed earlier, many hours of trouble shooting the wrong problems could have been saved. It is important to give the engineers all the information you have!

Zerowait’s chief engineer also points out that if you are going to use your older shelves with a newer system, many customers have found that the transition goes much smoother if they send their old shelves to Zerowait to blow out old volumes, zero drives and flash new firmware. Basically this will make your old seem new and more compatible with your new system.

In flying I have learned to take a plane out for a few “shake-down” flights, before you set out on any long or important flights. Your IT system might benefit from the same process. Before you trust your newly changed system with critical data, let your system burn in for a few days (a week even), run a few processes with it, check it out and make sure everything is working the way you expect tit should. Once you are confident all is well, you can also be confident that you will not lose critical data.

Always keep in mind that anytime you are making changes to your system, big or small, Zerowait is here to help!

It seems that inventory management is of interest to a lot of people, many blog readers and Zerowait customers have called or emailed to ask how Zerowait handles a large inventory as well as, service and support systems.

Well, if you look into the history of Zerowait you will see that Mike Linett started out as a Database programmer, working on inventory systems. Mike actually has a degree in this stuff! Michael and the Zerowait staff have written and designed their own systems. They built a completely relational database that keeps track of all inventory prices, and quantities and also interfaces with engineering and support. A lot of customers with multiple support locations require special service and delivery solutions, so they are constantly tweaking the systems in response to specific customer service and support requests.

As Zerowait’s growing family of satisfied customers seems to suggest, Zerowait is committed to providing the highest level of service, parts, and upgrades for NetApp equipment, all at a reasonable price. Efficiently managing inventory is just one part of how Zerowait is able to do it.

Mike and July left for London today, so the rest of the Zerowait staff will be working harder than usual to cover the phone calls, orders and daily business operations that would normally be covered by them.

Today, other than the absence of Mike and July, is a typical Zerowait day. The phone calls started early this morning, as usual the first calls come in from international customers, followed by more local customers and finishing off the day with west coast customers. The topic of phone conversations has run from answering questions about F840’s with transferable licenses, software revision numbers, and the availability of legacy drives for FC-9’s. These are only a few of the typical phone calls that Zerowait fields daily, and this doesn’t even begin to cover the customer support calls, shipping questions, or those “May I speak to the person in charge of copier maintenance?” calls.

I guess what I’m trying to say is Zerowait gets call from Europe, Asia, and the USA, but as busy as Zerowait is, there is still time to hear from you with your questions or concerns. Excellent service and excellent prices make Zerowait an excellent phone call!

Thank you!
All of us at Zerowait appreciate the difficult job our customers have in managing their data storage networks while working within a tight budget. We work diligently to provide our customers with the highest quality of service and support possible. We strive to maintain the most complete inventory of NetApp Legacy parts in the marketplace. Because of the number of customers we have, and the depth of our inventory, we can provide our customers outstanding service, support and inventory stock at a reasonable price. The cycle continues to turn; the more customers we get, the bigger our inventory reserve requirements become , and the more customers we can service and so on.

So thank you for working with Zerowait, we appreciate your business and look forward to working with you as your NetApp storage requirements grow.
Thank you!

OK, I hate to sound like a broken record here, but I just can’t overlook some of this stuff! It seems as if Dave Hitz is contradicting himself again. In this article from Forbes.com, Dave is quoted as saying, “We have a single software system, and we can cut our prices to gain market share,” Yet just back in December SearchStorage.com has this, “The aim is not to disrupt ONTAP customers,” said Dave Hitz, VP and co-founder of Network Appliance. “Think of the upgrade like moving from Windows to Windows NT. There’s a long overlap period … All future development is focused on the next-generation product, but we’ll support both.”

Is NetApp supporting 1 or 2 operating systems? Will the one you are using be the one they drop? What do you think? Make sure you use the link to the right and drop me an email. I really would like to know your opinion.

At Zerowait you will get straigh talk that is both knowlegable and helpful. Give Zerowait a call and talk about your storage needs!