Enterprise Computing: Vendor Guarantees
Enterprise Computing, Featured — By Chris Evans on February 2, 2010 at 9:35 AMMy previous post regarding HDS and 3Par’s savings guarantees generated a few replies and rather than respond in comment, I’ve written an additional post in case I rant on too much.
First thought: vendor guarantees need to be genuine; no hiding behind obtuse configurations that help to fluff the figures, or restrictions on the type of data suitable for reduction. Admittedly, this means the data to be migrated can’t be on *any* source platform but common sense dictates that if someone like 3Par are selling on the basis of thin provisioning, then the saving is going to come from using that feature. Therefore migrations where TP is already in place probably won’t get the benefit or the guarantee. The upshot is, make the guarantee on the basis of a feature (or features) you think the customer could implement to save money.
Second thought: why wait for a vendor to offer a guarantee? Here’s the logic. If you’re spending anything from £50,000 – £1,000,000 upwards, why shouldn’t you expect the product to deliver to your requirements? Imagine you were embarking on a building project; would you give your builder a set budget and be happy if he delivered your house 20% smaller because he undersized the cost of the job? I doubt it.
So, if you’re looking to buy a new storage array, get the vendor to contractually commit to levels of performance and availability (that remain consistent as capacity scales) with penalties if their proposed solution isn’t fit for purpose. If they are confident in their solution, they will happily (well probably begrudgingly) sign. If they’re not confident, then they will have a vested interest in getting the solution right in the first place, not selling it at the lowest price.
Remember, there are half a dozen or so enterprise-class vendors in the market place today. With a well architected solution, you can use just about any of them, so you have no reason not to ensure the deal works for you….
Oh, if you’re wondering who the 6+ vendors are (in no particular order), how about these for starters: EMC, IBM, HDS, HP, Netapp, 3Par….
Tags: 3par, EMC, HDS, HP, ibm, Netapp, savings guarantee
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10 Comments
I wrote a blog on the NetApp gaurantee quite awhile ago – frankly it is a joke. If you want a laugh and have 30 minutes to waste, read the fine print. Last week I published a blog on the 3PAR gaurantee. Ostensibly, it’s even sillier. It is clearly a marketing gimmick, no more, no less. But they won’t let you see the fine print up front, so I suspect it is far worse. The good news is that with 3PAR, you don’t need to read it, the gaurantee itself is plenty of laughs. The blog is at http://blog.pillardata.com/ and if I do say so myself, it is pretty funny…at least I laughed out loud when I wrote it.
Mike
Hello Storage Architect – how genuine these marketing gimmicks are is always a question….but have you checked out Pillar Data? – we’ve been offering 80% utilization, as well as performance, and availability guarantees for over 2 years – no gimmicks, all straightforward…if you bring up those other 6 companies, you owe it to your constituency to put Pillar in the mix…yes, I work for Pillar….bob
Bob
Although I’m aware of Pillar, I’ve never had hands on access to one. I sort of guessed you worked for them…
Chris
Well Chris – I’m the CEO of Pillar – and I will be happy to take you through the gaurantee we offer or arrange for you to get a demo of the Axiom if you are so inclined. It won’t hurt my feelings if you aren’t inclined, but ya can’t say we didn’t offer!
You guys are always amusing and fun – thanks for that.
Mike
Not to be outdone, Isilon also has an 80% utilization guarantee: http://www.isilon.com/guarantee/. I’ll be the first to agree that this is somewhat of a marketing tactic, but (I imagine similar to Pillar) it is effective in bringing awareness to users that they could be wasting storage and money: http://www.isilon.com/isiBlogs/82
A guarantee does add some emphasis behind a vendor’s claim – obviously, the less strings attached, the stronger that emphasis is.
Chris, You should have titled this post: “Calling all less-known Vendors”. Mike, we’re all glad to know that you amuse yourself!
Nick, good luck with your program, I hope it works out well for you
@ Mike Workman-
Sorry you thought NetApp’s 50% guarantee was a joke (luckily our customers didn’t) Take a look at our newest promo – ZIP, the Zero Investment Promise. Let us know if we’re getting any better…
http://www.netapp.com/us/solutions/infrastructure/zip/
Thanks,
DrDedupe
Mike
Thanks for the offer. I’d definitely be interested in learning more about Pillar. Just need to work out when I can schedule it. Do you have a UK presence with hardware?
Chris