My 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….