Zerowait High Availability Blog

Global Conference and Class

2012-06-01T09:48:00.002-04:00

Over the last week Zerowait held our Global Conference near Dallas,TX and we also had one of our customer training classes. It has been a great week!

Making a difference

2012-05-18T14:32:00.001-04:00

This week we had a conference call with an old customer that has moved on to a new company and he told his new team about Zerowait and the outstanding service and support we provide to our NetApp support customers. Suddenly there is a need for additional storage, and budget is tight at his new company so he recommended that it was time to call Zerowait. Our customer recognizes that high availability storage can provide years of service beyond the OEM’s End of Life, when you have a reliable service and support organization like Zerowait in your court. The conversation went well, and it looks like we have added another customer to our list.

Building a global service company that provides individual attention to all of our customers has taken a long time, and the foundation of this company is a great staff that provides honest and dependable service and support that our global customers require. Folks often ask me how we built a global company and found the business niche. The truth is that it was our customers who asked us to help them, and by helping folks and treating them right the business grew one step at a time. Our customers suggested that we build and productize our SimplStor product line. We did, and it is growing steadily in the Energy and Video FX market sectors.

We spoke to many people before we opened up in Europe and we were told that it was nearly impossible to run our type of company there. We have been in Europe since 2006, and it is a great place to have a business. When our customers asked us to open up in Australia, we were told by many people that it was too far away and you can’t be successful there. Our Australian business has grown nicely and we are working on expansion in the region now.

A small business can make a big difference in the world but you need to keep a positive outlook. As Mark Twain said “Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you can become great.” At the end of the month we are having our first Global Sales Conference in Dallas, TX. At the same time some of our customers will be in a training class during the conference. The class was scheduled at the suggestion of our customers.

Zerowait Training Helps NetApp Customers Reduce Storage Costs

2012-05-16T09:25:00.000-04:00

Zerowait Training Helps NetApp Customers Reduce Storage Costs

Zerowait’s NetApp training class gives storage administrators the tools they need to optimize NetApp legacy equipment reducing the need for expensive system upgrades

When a student leaves our class they have targeted skills and knowledge that they can apply to their NetApp infrastructures.

Wilmington, DE & Dallas, TX (PRWEB) May 16, 2012

As NetApp’s data storage solutions become more expensive, IT Departments are increasingly seeking to lower cost of ownership and extend the lifecycle of their legacy storage equipment. Improving the Return on Investment (ROI) of the expensive data storage often starts with an understanding of how to optimize the current storage infrastructure. Zerowait’s training can help.

“Over the last several years Zerowait’s customers have embraced our hands-on training, whether at their location or at our corporate headquarters,” said Mike Linett, President of Zerowait. “As we have grown, customers have asked us to offer classes in different regions of the county and at our Australian and UK offices. We decided that based on customer demand, we would have the class in Dallas at the same time as our Global Sales Conference--starting May 29, 2012. This way our customers can meet our teams from around the world.

Gary Lehr, PhD, Zerowait Senior engineer, will be leading this course. Gary says, “ I was a customer of Zerowait’s for over ten years while director of technical engineering at one of the largest global service providers, managing thousands of systems and petabytes of storage. With Zerowait’s help I was able to introduce NetApp to our international customers in the late 1990’s. We reduced the costs of management, service and support for our NetApp systems as they became viewed by the manufacturer as legacy equipment. I am excited to be teaching Zerowait’s customers ways to manage their NetApp equipment and reduce their costs of storage.”

Rob Robinson, Zerowait’s VP of Sales and Marketing agrees. “An educated client is our best customer,” he says. “When a student leaves our class they have targeted skills and knowledge that they can apply to their NetApp infrastructures. We’ve priced the class very competitively at only $1500, and as a bonus Zerowait offers a 10% discount on the next order after a class. This savings typically offsets the price of the class completely. In this global environment, with data availability critical to business success, Zerowait training provides our customers with the knowledge they need to succeed in the always on-line world.”
To learn more about Zerowait and our training programs go to http://www.zerowait.com/index.php/netapp/netapp-training

About Zerowait: Headquartered in Wilmington, Del., USA, and with offices around the world, Zerowait is the worldwide leader in independent service and support of NetApp filers. Zerowait solutions include off-lease fully licensed NetApp systems and the new Zerowait SimplStor line of single-name space archive storage. Storage administrators throughout the world rely on Zerowait to provide affordable solutions to the skyrocketing costs of data storage. http://www.zerowait.com

NetApp Training class Dallas May 29th

2012-05-10T09:48:00.001-04:00

Over the last several years of providing practical, operational training to our NetApp customers there have been several times when we have been asked to hold a class in the Dallas area. We are scheduled to hold our first Dallas class at the end of May.

Our Dallas Three day NetApp training class is scheduled for May 29th and we still have a few seats open.

If you want to join the class, or would like to schedule a class on your location please give us a call to discuss your needs.

Right Tiering your Storage to Match Usage

2012-05-08T16:02:00.004-04:00

It is hard to argue with the logic of storage tiering. The consensus among storage experts is that most stored data is not active data and that it makes economic sense to store it on cheaper disk, tape, or some sort of less expensive storage media. At Zerowait we call this process Right Tiering.

Some organizations tier to public cloud storage providers, and some enterprises try to build their own storage clouds for their storage tiers. But reducing costs for storage is a major concern for all types of customers and each rationalizes their costs, and the security risks of public cloud storage in their own way.

From this Register article it seems that many customers are looking for ways to tier their own storage internally on reliable affordable disks, as Chris Mellor mentions:
"At Western Digital's executive forum event in Vienna today, a person close to WD said: "In our business 15,000rpm drives are not all dead. In the 2.5-inch, 15K enterprise disk drive area the market is growing."

This view is diametrically opposed to the idea – espoused by NetApp a couple of years ago – that disk drive array storage would evolve to flash-and-trash, with primary data stored on flash and everything else on big, fat SATA drives."

Zerowait's domestic and international NetApp customers are embracing our SimplStor products as an affordable high reliability Disk Storage solution's for their archiving and secondary storage needs. And our government customers agree with Nathan Eddy that their storage is growing :

"Agencies need to look at big data solutions that can help them efficiently process, analyze, manage and access data, enabling them to more effectively execute their missions."

How often do Big Business and Government agree on something? Zerowait's Government and Business customers agree that Tier one Storage is too expensive. Tthe Federal Government, and most companies with large data storage needs can no longer afford Tier One storage for all of their data storage. As budgets are getting slashed more government agencies, and Corporate IT departments are being forced to Right Tier their storage resources and put archival storage and secondary storage on affordable storage solutions like SimplStor.

If you are looking for a simple way to save on storage, please give us a call or drop us an email.

Resources and Technology

2012-05-04T10:04:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I was visiting with customers around Baltimore and one of our customer's offices overlooks the Constellation. It was a nice day and the view of the ship was perfect. I had a good day of visiting customers and all of the folks I visited are struggling with their costs of storage and storage growth issues.

The issue of resources, technology, and upgrade costs are on everyone's mind in the IT space. Clearly corporate budgeting is being effected by the uncertain US tax environment and the increase in the costs of business that is due to hit US businesses in January. Uncertainty is driving many decision makers to be cautious and only purchase the IT equipment that is needed to get by.

Our third party NetApp support business is growing in companies that are purchasing new NetApp equipment, as well as with customers that are buying transferable licensed - off lease equipment, and our customers that are just expanding their storage on their Legacy filers. Zerowait support and equipment offers a high availability alternative for our customers with tight budgets.

Additionally, every one one of the customers I met was looking at affordable alternatives to NetApp storage and considering our SimplStor product line as the alternative they would select because of Zerowait's excellent service and support. For over 20 years we have been providing outstanding customer service to customers requiring high availability technology services, and it has grown into a global business.

Big storage does not have to be expensive

2012-04-30T08:59:00.002-04:00

Over the last few weeks I have been working with several of our international clients in the energy, defense, and media sectors to help them solve some of their big data cost issues. Our customers are using RedHat throughout their enterprises and are looking for affordable big storage solutions.

One of our customers sent us a link a few weeks ago about the updates to XFS and how it is going to be included in the next release of RedHat as a supported file system. The video link below of Dave Chiner giving a talk provides a great overview of how the improved XFS can help our clients manage their large storage requirements.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FegjLbCnoBw&feature=relmfu

Additionally, Redhat’s management is aggressively pushing storage development as Jim Whitehurst – RedHat CEO - has said recently:
http://techcrunch.com/2012/04/27/i-would-like-to-work-at-red-hat/
“Open source is ultimately where all companies are heading,” Whitehurst stated flatly.
“…So far at Red Hat, my focus as been squarely on our datacenter business, trying to execute really well on our core offerings. I think the future is in the cloud and big data. Our acquisition of Gluster last year and the work we have done around these storage offerings gives us a huge opportunity — an opportunity that I think could actually be bigger than the Linux business.”

Our customers tell us that they need a way of controlling their storage costs while maintaining their high availability storage equipment. After all, it was our NetApp support customers that helped us develop our SimplStor product line because they knew that we could provide them with enterprise level service and support for their hardware.

Yesterday I visited a large defense contractor and in addition to the NetApp support he was getting quotes on he wanted to know if our SimplStor products could help him with his large data archiving project without blowing his budget. It was an interesting conversation, and as with so many of our customers there was a recognition that Enterprise hardware support and Enterprise RedHat with a great file system can provide an affordable high availability storage solution.

Transcontinental travel and coffee

2012-04-12T19:01:00.002-04:00

As regular readers of this blog know I travel a lot on business to see our global clients, and in the last three weeks I have been in Sydney, NSW; Australia, Dallas, TX; USA , Charlotte, NC; USA, our offices in Wilmington, DE; USA, and the last couple of days I have been in Toronto, ON; Canada.

A lot of the time I am pretty tired due to the time zones and I like to drink coffee. The Flat White that I get in Australia is absolutely the best coffee. Also, in Australia it seems that a lot of business meetings are in the coffee houses or the clubs over a Coopers beer. As you can imagine it is easy to stay hydrated while traveling to visit customers in Sydney, but there is the issue of drinking a lot of Flat White coffee and a lot of beer to contend with. Somehow business gets done, and Zerowait Corp. PTY in Australia is doing quite well.

In the USA, we just don't have coffee as good as a Flat White. I like Newman's Own for the Kuerig, and I drink a lot of it especially after I return from a trip to Sydney either in our Dallas, TX office or our Wilmington, DE Headquarters. I drink a lot of coffee in meetings in the USA also, but there are not as many meetings with beer as there are in Sydney. At home I like Sam Adams Cherry wheat on a hot day, or a Shiner Bock just about any time.

For the last couple of days I have been in the Toronto area visiting our customers. And when I am in downtown Toronto I often go to Jimmies Coffee. Today I went there with some customers and we ordered their Flat White. It is not as good as the Flat White I get in Sydney. At dinner with customers in Ontario I like to order the Rickards Red. For lunch in Toronto I like to go to Indian Restaurants, and they are really good here.

I have never done a statistical study of the business derived from meetings with coffee or meetings with beer, it might be an interesting project for a graduate student's masters thesis. I think meeting personally with our customers helps Zerowait understand what our customers' needs are and also helps me learn how we can help our customers accomplish their goals easier.

Over the last few years of traveling I have learned that folks around the world like to discuss business over coffee or beer, and that is one of the things that makes my travel schedule enjoyable. And I can dream that someday even the Airlines could make Sydney quality Flat White coffee.

Changes in Federal Storage Procurement

2012-04-10T09:18:00.002-04:00

Zerowait provides hardware support and transferable licensed NetApp filers to a lot of Federal, State, and Military organizations. The Federal government and Military, in particular, typically hold on to Enterprise storage equipment longer than the commercial market does. Therefore, Zerowait’s NetApp Legacy support business for government organizations is growing steadily. Zerowait can and does save the agencies tremendous amounts of money, but due to the complex procurement process it takes quite some time to acquire new business from the Government. Perhaps this new IT procurement initiative will make the process a little more efficient.

http://www.technewsworld.com/story/74819.html

“Federal agencies will be moving significant portions of their annual IT spending to "commodity" type procurement vehicles by the end of 2012. As part of continuing reforms in IT acquisition and management, the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has directed agencies to immediately begin the process of consolidating IT procurement, with a focus on shared service arrangements.

The initiative is designed to accelerate the adoption of more efficient private sector IT acquisition practices by federal agencies.

"The stovepiped and complex nature of the federal enterprise has led over the years to a proliferation of duplicative and low priority investments in information technology," Jeffrey Zients, acting director of OMB, said in a March 31 memo.”

However, as Doug Gaines mentions in the article:

"OMB states boldly that the new annual portfolio review process will 'ensure that any inertia, which would relegate the federal government to the status quo, be rooted out on a recurring basis.' But the Clinger-Cohen law set out to address many of the same issues in 1996, and the pace of progress has been glacial in the following years," Gaines noted.

"Perhaps growing budget austerity will be the catalyst for real change," he said.

Zerowait has been providing outstanding service and support to Government agencies for most of our 23 years in business, over the last 15 years our business with Federal, Military, and State IT groups has grown to about 15% of our annual business. As budgets tighten the government organizations we deal with are keeping their equipment longer and are looking for affordable high reliability service and support. And they know they can depend on Zerowait's affordable high availability alternative to expensive OEM service support programs.

Focusing on our customers' requirements

2012-04-02T12:34:00.002-04:00

Last week I was in North Carolina visiting customers and at one of my stops our client told me that his NetApp support quote for his 3020 cluster was over $11,000.00 which he thought was ridiculous. He heard about Zerowait from several peers and was interested by what he heard, and so he did some research. His organization is now a customer of ours.

During our conversation he wanted to know about our company, and was surprised to hear that just the week before I was visiting clients in Sydney, Australia. Since 2002 when Zerowait went into the independent service and support business at the request of our NetApp clients, we have grown into a global parts and service business. I believe that the best way to understand your clients' requirements is to go on as many customer visits as you can. I have learned a lot over the years from visiting with our customers, and occasionally the discussions I have result in new products for our customers.

Our SimplStor products were developed based on the input and requests of our customers, and recently a few of our clients have asked us to provide support for other parts of their network infrastructures. Our HD Rail Kits were also developed based on customer input, and these have proven to be very handy for our customers with constantly growing infrastructures.

Zerowait's customers know that they can depend on our team to come up with solutions to their problems. And we are helping our clients meet their goals from our offices in around the world.

Honesty and Transparency

2012-03-26T13:10:00.001-04:00

I spent a good part of March in our Australian office near Sydney. During my time there I visited several of our customers and friends. Our NetApp support business is well established and growing rapidly in Australia and several customers asked us if we could add support for other equipment to our hardware coverage and support business. Our Australian customers recognize that we provide honest and transparent service and support, and they would like us to maintain more of their systems.

Our internal systems which maintain our inventory of parts and service policies were all written in house, and by making some simple adaptations we can provide service and support for other hardware vendor’s products that our customers want to us to maintain.

Our Australian customers often use the term “ the tyranny of distance” to describe the problems they have with the delays in getting freight and the costs associated with deliveries over the vast distances to Australia and within their country. They like that our global inventory system and service policies automatically track parts delivered from our depots so that their parts replenishment is seamless and quick.

In order to provide our global customers with the global service and support they need we built a highly integrated knowledge base to provide timely information for our engineers, customers, and warehouse personnel. The only part of the replenishment process that Zerowait does not control is the international freight companies and customs. And no matter how hard we try to overcome the hurdles of international freight and customs, we end up with unexpected delays. Our integrated systems take this into account and we hold extra parts in our Sydney warehouse due to the delays caused by freight companies, customs, and the tyranny of distance.

As our company grows our customers around the world know they can depend on Zerowait to deliver on our promises and to uphold our commitments. Honesty and Transparency are the most important factors in our growth, since most of our growth is from the referrals of our customers.

Some time in Australia

2012-03-12T23:04:00.004-04:00

Our Australian business is now over a year old, and is growing strongly. I am working with our team here for a couple of weeks, and visiting with several customers in the Oil and Gas business, FX business, and financial sector. The response to our NetApp specials has been strong in Australia, and we continue to grow our SimplStor sales in Australia also.

It looks like this is going to be another great year for Zerowait in Australia.

Cyberlaw and the Future of Cloud Storage

2012-01-31T17:12:00.002-05:00

Several of our customers have been asking us questions about the viability and future of public cloud storage based on the recent government shutdown of MegaUpload. The concern is that, due to the malfeasance of another customer on a shared cyberlocker company, your own corporate data may be unavailable when you need it.

I forwarded several questions from our customers to our Attorney Philip Corwin, one of the leaders in the field of Cyber Law ( www.vlaw-dc.com ). Phil’s answers highlight the uncertainty surrounding the future of public Cloud Storage, as a result of recent actions.

1) Can the DoJ take down any cloud storage provider without any prior notification to the legitimate users of the storage service? If so, how do legitimate users get their critical data access restored?

The DOJ will provide no advance notice to the users or operators of a domain and associated file-hosting/sharing service it believes to be engaged in unlawful criminal activity. The DOJ has made it clear that it has no near-term intent to restore any files to Megaupload.com users – that such users should not have kept their only copy on a remote service. It is unknown whether and to what extent the DOJ is reviewing files on the seized servers in a search for additional evidence of criminal activity. Some (primarily non-U.S.) Megaupload users have threatened to sue the DOJ for return of their files but no such action has yet been brought and there’s no telling how it might fare; in any event, no near-term relief is likely.

2) If our company is using a cyberlocker service, for back up and archival usage and the DoJ impounds the storage servers, how quickly can I get my data from the DoJ if I need to a restoration?

As noted above, the DOJ has given no indication as to whether or when it may permit any user of Megaupload.com to have access to and recover their files from the servers that have been seized.

3) What is the differentiation of a service provider like MegaUpload and Amazon S3 in the DoJ's definition? Can the DoJ pull down our Amazon storage due to another user's data storage usage practices?

It is not at all clear from the Megaupload indictment while it was criminally charged while other very similar services – such as Rapidshare and MediaFire -- have not been, yet (as we have seen with domain seizures undertaken by the ICE division of the Department of Homeland Security, once a new criminal copyright enforcement tactic is employed it will likely be used again in other instances). One key element may have been the allegation that Megaupload paid users to upload infringing content in the past, although they had discontinued their “rewards” program at the time the criminal complaint was lodged. Amazon’s Cloud Drive is a no-frill cloud storage service with a 2GB limit on individual files and no file sharing function, so it is much less likely to be used for infringing purposes and become the target of a DOJ action.

4) If a public access storage provider can be shuttered by the DoJ for one or two suspect cyberlockers , can a Colo Facility or a Network Provider also be shuttered?

Any entity that is knowingly and willfully engaged in large scale online infringement for profit can be a potential target of a DOJ enforcement action. Network service providers do enjoy secondary liability immunity under the DMCA’s notice-and-takedown procedures safe harbor, but only if they expeditiously remove infringing files and refrains from any activity that constitutes direct infringement.

5) Is our data loss insured in the event of a felony or RICO action by the government when it takes down a public access storage provider?

That would depend on the exact terms of your insurance policy. But even monetary compensation cannot replace seized files, so it is best to retain at least one copy of all stored and shared files on hard drives under your direct control.

6) Would you recommend that customers move their data to secure internal clouds, based on the new legal uncertainties surrounding public cloud storage services up time guarantees?

If you can afford to do so a private cloud under your own control would be the safest bet. If that isn’t feasible, at least one copy of all files placed on remote servers should be saved on your own devices. And there will be a need for much greater due diligence investigation of file hosting and sharing services to determine whether they are likely targets of criminal enforcement actions that include website shutdown and server seizures.

Philip Corwin’s Website is www.vlaw-dc.com and he is Of Counsel to Greenberg + Lieberman www.aplegal.com

What is increasing in this list?

2012-01-19T16:18:00.004-05:00

1) Your CapEx budget for Network Storage infrastructure.

2) Your OpEx budget for Operation expenses like service and support.

3) Zerowait's international service and support business for NetApp hardware.

Well, that was pretty easy. Zerowait's service and support business is booming because it is a very rare company that has an increasing IT budget for storage hardware or services, even though demand for storage is increasing all the time. That is why more and more companies around the world are contacting our international offices for service and support quotes for their NetApp equipment. In the USA our NetApp support prices start at just $1500.00 a year.

In 2012 we expect our service business to grow 25% based on the current trend line. I hope that we can discuss your NetApp infrastructure support costs over the next few months. Since the new year we have added new customers who love NetApp's reliability but due to budget restrictions have embraced Zerowait's attractive prices on NetApp filers with transferable licenses.

Additionally, why not try our Free Exception Reporter to help you manage your NetApp infrastructure? Organizations around the world rely on it to help them manage their storage and its associated costs.

Zerowait's business is increasing

2012-01-10T13:19:00.001-05:00

Usually our business gets slower through December and January, but the last couple of months have been a whirlwind of new orders from our established customers and many new customers.

According to our customers our business is increasing for many reasons:

NetApp has increased their hard drive prices, due to the shortage and Zerowait has plenty of storage in house and ready to ship.
NetApp is trying to influence customers to upgrade to 64 Bit versions of OnTap but many customers are perfectly satisfied with their current 32 Bit OnTap versions. or want to purchase NetApp systems with transferable licenses.
In a slow growth economy even the largest companies and government agencies are looking to reduce their support costs, Zerowait services like our Free Exception Reporter can help Filer customers economize.

Most of our new business still comes from the referrals and references of our customers. And as our client base grows, we get more referrals. If you are looking for an affordable alternative to NetApp for components, service, or support please keep us in mind.

EMC drive shortage and price increase

2011-12-22T12:16:00.002-05:00

The uncertainty surrounding the enterprise disk marketplace seems to be causing EMC to mention that it has a disk shortage and there will be a price increase. Dave Raffo in his blog has the following interesting information:

EMC vice chairman Bill Teuber sent an email to customers and partners stating the vendor has eaten price increases so far, but will begin to pass them along to customers after this month. He also wrote that EMC does not expect supply problems because it is the largest vendor of external storage systems, but it has to pay more for the available drives.

“EMC has absorbed the price increases that have been passed on to us and will continue to do so through the end of the month,” Teuber wrote. “Unfortunately we will not be able to sustain that practice. Beginning in Q1 2012 we will be increasing the list price of hard disk drives up to 15% for an indefinite period of time. While we hope that this increase is temporary, at this time we cannot forecast how long the flooding in Thailand will impact HDD [hard disk drive] pricing.”

Another email Teuber sent to EMC personnel said the price increases will be from 5% to 15%. He also wrote the increases will apply to all EMC product lines.

The shortage is expected to affect PC drives more than enterprise drives, but EMC enterprise storage rival NetApp lowered its revenue projection last month because of expected shortages.

Teuber referred to NetApp indirectly in his email, stating “Many of our competitors have already announced drive shortages and price increases and have stated that this will have a material impact on their ability to hit revenue expectations now and in the future.”

Zerowait has been experiencing an uptick in our array shelf and disk storage sales over the last few weeks, but we thought it had to do with the great prices we are now offering on some of our storage specials. But the upward trend in our storage sales business could be because we have a lot of stock which we can ship immediately, while the OEM's may be allocating disks based on their own supply calculations.

We had a great year in 2011, and we are looking forward to next year.

No Disk Shortage at Zerowait!

2011-12-16T10:23:00.000-05:00

Yesterday afternoon I had a long conversation with a customer of ours in California that told me that they were looking at some new NetApp storage equipment, but were told by their Salesperson that the floods in Thailand have rippled through NetApp's supply chain and that NetApp could not guarantee a delivery time frame. This was predicted by NetApp and discussed by Thomas Georgeons:

http://seekingalpha.com/article/308538-netapp-management-discusses-q2-2012-results-earnings-call-transcript

"Looking ahead, the impact of the Thailand flooding can potentially be the biggest swing factor on both our top and bottom line in the second half. The large buyer drives we did, as this was all unfolding, should sustain us through a good part of Q3 but probably not all of it. Although enterprise class drives are considered to be the least impacted, we still anticipate some amount of supply and pricing complexity. We have all heard the predictions of the industry analyst and the drive vendors themselves. Some of the information is conflicting and most of it is changing daily in regards to scope and ultimate impact."

We are working with this customer and several others to help them get through their end of year storage requirements with transferable licensed filers, and shelves of disks that we have in stock and ready for shipment.

We want to help loyal NetApp customers maintain their equipment, and we can help them grow their NetApp infrastructure even during the disk shortage. If you need storage during the shortage, please give us a call at one of our international offices .

Economic Uncertainty? Zerowait’s NetApp support business is booming

2011-12-07T10:30:00.001-05:00

2011 Is shaping up to be the best year ever for Zerowait’s independent NetApp support business. We have already surpassed last year’s sales of our Zerowait Parts Assurance contracts on NetApp equipment from our offices in the USA, UK, and Australia. We expect to see our growth continue next year due to economic uncertainty. At Zerowait we understand that our customers are under severe budget pressure to control their storage infrastructure costs, and with our customers help we have come up with several support programs which help our customers control their NetApp storage growth and support costs.

Recognizing that post warranty support and extending time in service for systems reduces new unit sales, I am occasionally asked by storage analysts focused on NetApp how much of an effect Zerowait has on NetApp’s new product sales. I don’t believe there is any way to calculate how many NetApp customers have put off a system upgrade due to Zerowait’s support in any single period. However, over the last decade Zerowait has built a dynamic, thriving, international business in third party support for NetApp equipment. And our customers in the financial, entertainment, health and government sectors throughout the world continue to recommend our company to their peers.

Whether you need an additional storage shelf, transferable licensed system, or a support contract, Zerowait will work with you to meet your support and budget requirements.

Zerowait SimplStor – Affordable Disaster Prevention

2011-11-28T10:01:00.001-05:00

Over the years I have advocated that organizations embrace a Disaster Prevention model instead of a Disaster Recovery model. Using server load balancers and some multiple MX records it is relatively easy to create a high availability web presence. Creating a high availability solution for the critical data behind the firewall is also getting easier as disk capacity and network bandwidth increase. Using legacy high availability equipment provides an easy second tier solution and based on the response of our customers, Zerowait’s SimplStor is a great tier three solution for tape replacement.

The European division of EMC has a pdf available that illustrates the issues surrounding Disaster Preparedness.

Across Europe, 49% of companies are obligated by either insurance policies or regulatory requirements to have a disaster recovery plan. However, with the right backup and disaster recovery approach, companies can achieve cost-savings from insurers. Just over a quarter of the organisations surveyed were offered reduced premiums by their insurance provider depending on their IT systems backup/disaster recovery strategy.

Unraveling tape: 40% still depend on tape
but majority are looking to replace it
The research found that businesses are spending, on average, 10% of their IT budgets on backup and recovery, and 29% of businesses do not feel they are spending enough. For backup and disaster recovery purposes, 40% of companies still rely on tape, with an average annual cost of €74,000 on transporting, storing, testing and replacing tapes. Where tape is used for disaster recovery purposes, 10% still have an employee take home a copy of the backup tapes with them.

Overall, 80% of organisations using tape are looking to move beyond it, with the top reasons cited as:

Speed of restoration 39%
Faster backups 33%
Lack of durability 26%

EMC has done a service to the industry with this report, and it highlights the costs and problems very well. If you think the costs of an EMC solution exceed your budget I hope you will consider Zerowait’s solutions. We can provide your organization an affordable alternative for your Disaster Recovery plan in Europe, Australia, or the USA.

SC11 - NetApp Transferable License specials

2011-11-18T11:05:00.006-05:00

This week I was at the Supercomputer show in Seattle visiting with our customers and friends. I ran into people Zerowait has been doing business with all over the show floor and it was hard to walk down an aisle without bumping into someone I knew. Repeatedly, I heard about how our customers and friends were having a hard time coping with expanding storage requirements and shrinking storage budgets.

Based on the conversations I had at the show on Tuesday, I emailed back to our office and the marketing department created a special based on the transferable licensed filers that we have available, and distributed it on Wednesday. The customer response to the specials has been enthusiastic and many of our customers want expedited delivery and installation.

If you are looking for an affordable NetApp Filer with transferable licenses please call one of our international offices to discuss you exact configuration requirements and the delivery schedule you require. Whether your company is forecasting a great 2012 or looking at how to muddle through, Zerowait can help your organization get the enterprise class NetApp storage you need at a price your management can't ignore.

Three cheers for an affordable three tiers

2011-11-10T14:26:00.001-05:00

The path to a successful storage archive solution should not start with a Root Cause Analysis. Looking back and pointing fingers is often the easiest path to take, but reviewing your storage strategy and current infrastructure may reveal a very easy and affordable data protection strategy. Archiving to tape is a great solution but it is not a 100% solution; tapes get lost, data gets corrupted and often there is an expensive time lapse between a discovery of data loss and its recovery. Keeping all of your data on tier (1) arrays is expensive and does not make sense for rarely accessed data. Thanks to our customers’ requests for an affordable end to end solution, Zerowait now has a complete storage solution for customers who love their Filers and are looking to get rid of their tape headaches.

Many of our NetApp customers would like to use NetApp equipment as their tier (2) storage, since it allows them to use the same interface and tools on their tier (1) storage, minimizing management issues, but the cost of new systems is too high to make this work. For these customers Zerowait provides readily available off-lease NetApp systems with transferable licenses to build affordable tier (2) storage solutions. Many customers locate these systems in remote back-up sites, and our customers snap mirror updates between their Tier (1) NetApp systems and off lease NetApp tier (2) systems to achieve a reliable archive strategy.

The next tier for many customers has been tape, but quite a few of our customers have decided that they are tired of the warehousing headaches and rush delivery costs of their tape archives and want to reduce their tape costs and frustrations. They are replacing all or most of their tape with Zerowait’s SimplStor for tier (3) archival storage. Using NetApp’s tools, our customers can mirror their data between NetApp filers in multiple locations and then copy the data to a SimplStor tier (3) archive using standard software tools. SimplStor costs about the same as tape, but provides instant access when there is the requirement for a quick restoration of data.

Zerowait‘s customers around the world are able to satisfy their requirements for an affordable high reliability storage strategy. Our customers have embraced a strategy of data tiering strategy using new NetApp equipment for tier (1) highly accessed data, off lease Filers for tier (2) and remote mirrors, and SimplStor for tier (3) archival storage requirements. If you have chosen NetApp for your tier (1) storage, why not use transferable licensed NetApp equipment your tier (2) storage? It is an obvious cost effective solution. Our customers in the Animation, Science and Petrochemical business helped us design SimplStor and now are our biggest customers for the product. They knew they needed a reliable tier (3) solution and they recognized that Zerowait could provide the enterprise support they required. Thanks to our customers‘ ideas Zerowait now provides high reliability hardware, service and support for all three tiers of enterprise data. Please contact us if you want to discuss how Zerowait can provide your organization outstanding Quality of Service at a reasonable price.

November Storage Clearance

2011-11-07T09:05:00.006-05:00

Many of our customers are at the end of their budget cycle and asked us to help them get the storage they need at a price they can afford before the new year. We put together these specials to help our customers weather the economic storms. It certainly seems that whether the economy is going up or down storage demand continues to grow.

Zerowait will be attending the Super Computer Show in Seattle next week. We will be visiting with many of our Animation and Big Science customers. We hope to see you there.

Zerowait begins building a channel organization

2011-11-01T16:32:00.008-04:00

Wilmington, DE (PRWEB) November 01, 2011

Zerowait Hires Lauren Lueders as Director of North American Channel Sales -Increasing Demand for Low Cost Archive Prompts Move into channel

"Our reseller partners need to be able to offer their customers total solutions that help solve critical business needs. Cost and support are two of the most critical components, and SimplStor delivers"

Zerowait today announced the appointment of Lauren Lueders as Director of North American Channel Sales, responsible for creating and rolling out channel sales for the SimplStor product line in the US and Canada. With extensive experience gained over the last 17 years bringing new and exciting storage products to market, Lauren last worked with Syncsort developing their South Central territory. Prior to Syncsort, Lauren worked with Pillar Data Systems, Dell, EqualLogic and Avnet in various channel sales management roles.

Mike Linett, President of Zerowait said, “We are very excited to have Lauren join our management team; her mission is to create a SimplStor channel that will provide excellent earnings for our partners and outstanding value to their customers. SimplStor’s combination of open source/off the shelf low cost storage with tier one support offers our customers tremendous value. SimplStor's growth in the marketplace has been steady and strong since we introduced the product line in 2010. To better service all of our customer requests for SimplStor Lauren will be building the SimplStor channel from the ground up with select partners offering the highest levels of integrity and customer service."

Ms. Lueders added, “Over the past two decades I have worked closely with reseller partners helping them build profitable storage practices with solid product offerings. I joined SimplStor because I saw a tremendous need for low cost archival storage solutions that still provide Tier one, world class service. In today’s economy, organizations are being forced to do so much more with so much less, and storage requirements continue to grow exponentially. Our reseller partners need to be able to offer their customers total solutions that help solve critical business needs. Cost and support are two of the most critical components, and SimplStor delivers.”

About Zerowait: Headquartered in Wilmington, Del., USA, and with offices around the world, Zerowait is the worldwide leader in independent service and support of NetApp filers. Zerowait solutions include off-lease fully licensed NetApp systems and the new Zerowait SimplStor line of single-name space archive storage. Storage administrators throughout the world rely on Zerowait to provide affordable solutions to the skyrocketing costs of data storage. http://www.zerowait.com

Another day in DC

2011-10-25T13:41:00.001-04:00

: Even the government can save money!

Last week we went to DC to meet with a few clients who are looking to expand their Data Storage without busting their budgets. We discussed how Zerowait helps organizations around the world with our legacy service for NetApp equipment and also the ins and outs of acquiring NetApp systems with transferable licenses. One of our Federal clients is very interested in our SimplStor products for their on line archives and tier 2 /3 storage.

Many Federal departments and agencies are Zerowait customers. And it was really fun to go to the Pentagon!

Saving the government money is everyone's business.

How are you going to reduce your Storage Costs?

2011-10-11T10:48:00.001-04:00

Our customers are telling us every week that they want to simplify their data storage and network infrastructures. Overwhelmingly they feel that the best way to accomplish a reduction in complexity is by removing pretentious proprietary software and hardware vendors from their supported systems. They need to reduce costs without affecting their high reliability data access. Is it possible to reduce costs while data storage and content delivery requirements continue to grow?

When it comes to storage most organizations find out fairly quickly that the vast majority of their data has not been accessed in the past 90 days, and much of it has not been looked at in over a year. Executives are asking their IT staff’s “Why is this storage being kept on the most expensive storage in the organization?” Before the 2008 Financial Panic the answer was typically “It is easier to keep all storage on the primary disk although it is expensive, we require less staff.” In technology simplicity often trumps cost and when times are good no one was looking at their marginal cost of storage for secondary, tertiary and dead data. Putting everything on your recently purchased EMC or NetApp storage solution made things easy. But technology has moved on, multi vendor storage maintenance, interoperability, and support is not as complex as it was just a couple of years ago. As many of our customers have suffered staff reductions, Zerowait is now helping them manage their storage infrastructures and helping them retain the high availability they need at a cost they can afford.

Can your organization easily reduce the cost and complexity of your data storage assets and infrastructure? There are plenty of alternatives available now that will allow you to reduce the cost of your archival storage. Clearly all organizations view their storage assets differently based on history, experiences, and cost. There have been plenty of books, and hundreds of articles written on data storage classifications, and I am certain there will be many more written.

I think everyone can agree that organizations have multiple tiers of storage, although they classify them very differently. Whether you are looking to cut your costs by using cloud storage providers, outsourcing, off shoring, or a managed service provider, there is one thing you must be certain of, your organization absolutely must have access to your data storage assets to succeed. Without data access your organization won’t have the competitive edge it needs to survive in the global marketplace.

Zerowait can help your organization classify your data, reduce your costs, and maintain high availability data access.