Making a difference

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

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

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

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

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.