Please release me, let me go...

After the announcement last week that the Govt are spending over the odds on IT due to what was termed an "oligopoly" of vendors and suppliers, infrastructure decision-makers may now feel obliged to look at their options. On the topic of hardware which, in many cases, is one of the most expensive parts of any project, virtualisation technologies have enabled choice. But not, it would seem, in the storage industry.

Storage seems to be one of the last remaining bastions of quasi-compulsory vendor lock-in – something  that is no longer the case with desktops or servers. If we take desktop virtualisation as an example, the main proponents provide the opportunity to access a hosted desktop with whatever device you like, whether that be a desktop, laptop, tablet, smartphone or whatever. In fact diversity is positively welcomed with Citrix being amongst the leaders in the “BYOD” (Bring Your Own Device) initiative and the embracing of what is often described as the consumerisation of IT.

Equally VMware revolutionised the server hardware industry and enabled customers to rationalise their antiquated server purchasing routines, which generally consisted of buying new boxes very cheaply and very often. This was neither green nor cost-efficient and the success of the hypervisor has provided choice of both manufacturer and technology. The old 3-year hardware lifecycle, in this economic climate, has all but disappeared in some verticals and IT admins are being increasingly forced to “sweat their assets” for longer. This is now possible because the hypervisor takes care of software advances during that time.

Storage appears to be different. Companies still seem to grudgingly accept they are locked in to one vendor, regardless of whether that vendor is right for them, both in terms of their products as well as their price. Need a second site for DR? Great – but you’ll pretty much need to buy the same, often very expensive, manufacturer as your primary site, despite the fact your DR site may never even be used! Had enough of vendor A and want to migrate to vendor B? Good luck!

DataCore is the “Switzerland” of storage if you will. We act as a hypervisor for the storage infrastructure, giving customers the choice, both of vendor and of technology. We can often provide zero-day ROI just on hardware savings alone, let alone all the soft cost-savings and increased performance and manageability we offer. When customers have a choice, they can buy what’s right for them, when it is right for them to do so. It also then gives them the option to take ruthless advantage of end of quarter deals throughout the year from whichever hardware vendor or distributor happens to be slightly shy of target.

Cisco recently announced what they see as the top 10 technology trends and number 2 on the list was the unstoppable tsunami of data. Apparently, we're creating a zettabyte of data globally every year and this will only accelerate. All this data needs to be stored and managed so surely performance and enablement of disk choice must be top of the list of critical factors? Not all of that data is needed all of the time but frequently accessed information requires fast disk. Fast disk is not cheap. Added to that, legislation and insurance companies are now demanding secure data archival with realistic accessibility timeframes (i.e. not tape).

With such disparity in data requirements, customers need flexibility to ascertain what’s right for them. There are plenty of smaller storage hardware companies out there that have fantastic solutions at a fraction of the cost of premium label kit. Surely this is therefore now the time for customers to embrace storage virtualisation as they did with server and are now doing with desktop and finally realise some of the cost-savings that can be achieved by avoiding vendor lock-in?

This piece formed the basis of an interview with CRN in the UK, the result of which you can read here.

And, for those of who still remember the title of this post and are partial to some cracking 80's mullets and moustaches, here's Engelbert for you. Nice.