We’ll learn your infrastructure setup. We’ll tell you what you are doing right and where you can make improvements. We’ll do it without charging you a penny.

We see it not only as an opportunity for you to get valuable information about your infrastructure, but it is also a great chance for you to find out if we are the right IT company for you!

Tools

We have various assessment tools at our disposal to help us gain the infomation that you require, here are some of them: -

DPACK Assessment: This performs a host-level assessment of your infrastructure, including servers, storage and workloads. You see peak I/O (input/output) levels, as well as server utilization rates, to ensure your solution will successfully address the key pain points in your specific environment.

Data Duplication Assessment: Determines real-world data Deduplication (de-dupe ratio) of the scanned data set.

File Systems Assessment: Determines how much customer file data could be archived, as well as the growth and breakdown of types of file data.

Email System Assessment: Gathers configuration and capacity utilization metrics for Exchange, in order to optimize the health and scalability of the Exchange server(s).

Microsoft SharePoint Assessment: Gathers configuration and capacity utilization metrics for SharePoint, in order to optimize the health and scalability of the SharePoint Farm.

Backup Assessment: With the use of specific scripts or instructions to gather and metrics and information on your backup software in order to optimize and determine the health of the infrastructure.

The underlying problem with most storage systems is that they manage data in complete volumes, restricting system flexibility and performance from the outset. To realize storage efficiencies and reduce data center costs, you need to manage data at a more granular level – within the volume itself.

Dell’s storage is enabled by a dynamic Fluid Data architecture that actively, intelligently manages data at the block level. Specific information about each block is captured in flight throughout the day to provide real-time intelligence for dynamically storing, migrating and recovering data. These use characteristics are gathered using minimal system overhead but can be extensive. Examples include the type of data stored, disk drive used, RAID level, time written, frequency of access and more.

Empowered by this intelligence, built-in storage automation optimizes the provisioning, placement and protection of data throughout its lifecycle. Business applications are implemented faster, information to make decisions is always available, new technologies are instantly deployed and data is continuously protected.

Capacity conundrum

The past few years have seen the school struggle with its data storage, as it had no central server in place and numerous disparate and temporary systems were being used to accommodate vital databases and information portals, as well all manner of academic material. Desktop computers were even being used as storage systems and the storage space within the school was rapidly running out.

Ash Mudalair, head of IT at the school explains, “Our disk space was running out, and the performance of the temporary systems we were relying on was poor. There was also the very real threat of system failure and data loss.

“The implementation of a central storage array was essential, as we needed a finite repository for all our digital data. As we had seen our storage requirements expand rapidly over the years, we needed a solution which we could increase in capacity in the future with no disruption to the infrastructure.”

It was a major purchase for Abbeyfield School and therefore vital that the right solution provider was selected.
A number of companies were considered, but it was 101 Data Solutions which really shone.

Top Marks

Mudalair continues, “We spent considerable time looking at both small and large providers, and 101 Data Solutions stood out head and shoulders above the rest. We wanted a supplier which could not only provide us with a cost effective solution, but which could deliver good advice and be responsive and hands on when needed.

“Unlike the other suppliers we spoke to 101 Data Solutions weren’t just sales people; they were not only able to meet our requirements but exceeded our expectations in many different areas.”

Classmates

101 Data Solutions has installed an EMC VNX 5300 SAN central storage array, providing a centralised, easy to use expandable storage solution. It integrates all Abbeyfield School‟s vital data and provides storage and back up for all of the shared areas and vital databases, all central to critical services provided within the school. This provides cohesion to the current data stored and the security of back-up provision with potential for additional capability in the future.

101 Data Solutions exceeded expectations, also providing on-site provided on-site consultancy, as Mudalair explains, “Rather than just focussing on the sale of the technology, 101 Data Solutions provided a consultative and knowledgeable approach, visiting us to evaluate our requirements on site, and providing detailed specifications of the options available to us and what the key benefits of each option were. The team was also extremely responsive and was available to discuss the project and provide any information whenever we needed them, which was a huge help.”

The company has traditionally operated a largely direct sales model in the enterprise space, but is now giving its channel the run of large accounts with an addressable market of between $1m and $3m (£1.9m) per annum.

The storage giant will also issue a new set of rules of engagement for its resellers at the end of this week, and has promised to open up $100m in services opportunities for its partners.

The strategy forms part of the NASDAQ-listed firm’s plans to double its turnover to $35bn between 2010 and 2015. Last night the vendor reported 2011 annual sales of $20bn – up 18 per cent on 2010.

The midmarket – which EMC has traditionally served through the channel, alongside the public sector – forms EMC’s other big bet for growth. To support this, the vendor will boost its UK sales headcount for the midmarket to 60 this year.

EMC works with about 200 UK resellers including a core of 30-40 top partners, but currently has direct relationships with about 1,000 UK enterprises.

Under the new approach, the company has pared this back to a hard deck of just 150 UK accounts that it will reserve the right to serve directly. About a third of these are the UK HQs of global accounts, with the remainder being very large enterprises which EMC thinks have an addressable market of more than $3m.

Chris Gould, director of channel and midmarket at EMC (pictured below), said: “This opens up $3bn in enterprise opportunities that didn’t exist before.”

Shuffling the pack

In 2013, the UK hard deck will be cut again to 100 accounts, and EMC is setting up a quarterly governance board to ensure the strategy remains fair and consistent. A sales compensation plan for EMC’s enterprise sales force will also be introduced, to ensure its internal employees work hand in hand with the channel.

Channel sources said they understood this would see EMC’s direct sales staff paid more for pushing deals through the channel than for a direct sale.

Together, the changes are designed to bring more predictability and professionalism to the channel, the vendor said.

Worldwide, EMC’s hard deck of direct accounts stands at 1,000 firms.

The vendor said it will also work with its partners to help them build a $100m services business.

Historically, EMC has enabled its partners to provide implementation services in a formalised fashion, but has not done the same for customer support and cloud services.

The company launched a service provider programme last year for large partners but will now look to cement ties with local resellers that have an appetite to embrace a cloud services model, as well as professional services.

EMC is already the kingpin of the external storage market, with 27.1 per cent revenue share in Q3 2011 in the UK, according to IDC. At the high end, encompassing systems priced above $250,000, its share was 31.6 per cent, behind only IBM.

Gould denied that EMC’s heavyweight status will preclude further growth, claiming its recent acquisition of Isilon will open up new opportunities in the oil & gas and medical industries in particular.

“We are not going for a mass partner recruitment drive,” Gould added.

“We are selectively looking to recruit 10-15 new partners where we have capability or geographic gaps. We do not have an HP, VMware or Cisco partner model, as we want to be important to a relatively small number of partners.”

Reseller revelry

Martin Hellawell, managing director of EMC partner Softcat, welcomed the vendor’s shift in strategy.

“I can’t see any downside to this,” he said. “If more business is coming into the channel partners, then it’s fantastic.”

Brett Edgecombe, director of EMC partner 101 Data Solutions, said: “It looks like EMC is not acquiring new resellers but investing heavily in its existing resellers. Part of the growth opportunity for us is in the enterprise accounts that are being handed down to the channel and aligned with specific resellers.

“We also see a huge opportunity in the SMB space and EMC now has the proposition to address that with VNX and VNXe.”

Edgecombe said he is awaiting details of how the 850 enterprise accounts will be allocated to resellers.

“They are working on that right now and we don’t yet know if it will be aligned by skills sets or geography.”

He added: “EMC has made big changes in the last 3-5 years in how it engages with the channel. This seems to be the last evolution in them moving pretty much all of their business into the channel.”

Richard Flanders, product marketing director at MTI – which claims to be EMC’s third-largest partner across Europe – also welcomed the changes.

“We are enthusiastic about the reorganisation,” Flanders said. “We see it as a refocusing of EMC’s efforts to support partners that are making the effort to expand the market. A lot of our business comes from the top of tier-two – below the main enterprise market – so it makes sense for us that EMC is refocusing its efforts on that area.”

Of the 850 enterprise accounts going spare, Flanders added: “There are a significant number of accounts in that 850 with which we feel we have a great engagement.”

From a personal perspective we should all be aware and give some thought of the impact this has had on the personal circumstances of many individuals there both in relation to loss of lives, livelihoods, standards of living and of course loss of personal possessions.

From a business perspective this situation as many of you may already be aware has and will equally lead to a significant impact on the production of technologies that are produced there including with some impact, the production of Hard Disk Drives with major producers such as Western Digital, Seagate & Toshiba all experiencing unavoidable manufacturing disruption as a result of this sad & unexpected act of nature.

Pricing stability has absolutely been impacted by these conditions and it is forecasted that such instability will continue as far forward as Q2 2012 so you may wish to take some consideration of this when planning your storage requirements for the months ahead and whilst we cannot control the pricing, 101 Data Solutions will continue to do all we can to maintain availability for all our customers and we will continue to share what we learn as relevant updates are received.

There are two products in the FAS2000 product line, the FAS2040 and the higher-end FAS2240. According to NetApp, the FAS2040 is “excellent for consolidating virtualized environments with one to three Windows applications and lighter file-serving workloads,” while the FAS2240 is “ideal for consolidating virtual environments with multiple workloads and Windows applications.”

The FAS2040 is available in a 2 rack unit (U) form factor with 12 drive bays, while the FAS2240 is available in either a 2U or 4U form factor, both with 24 drive bays. The FAS2040 and FAS2240 both feature dual controllers, remote management, and support for FCP, iSCSI, NFS, and CIFS storage protocols. The FAS2000 series systems use NetApp OnCommand System Manager 2.0 to simplify, control, and automate system setup and management and run the latest version of NetApp’s proprietary operating system, Data ONTAP.

Key features of the FAS2000 series, operating with dual-controller, active-active configurations, include:

• Support for dual controllers;
• Maximum raw capacity of 408 TB (FAS2040), 374 TB (FAS2240-2U), or 432 TB (FAS2240-4U);
• Support for up to 136 disk drives (FAS2040) or 144 disk drives (FAS2240);
• Maximum of eight Ethernet ports;
• Up to four 4 GB fibre channel ports (FAS2040 only);
• Support for 8 gigabit fibre channels on the FAS2240, when using the optional dual-port 10 GbE or 8 gigabit fibre channel mezzanine card and a single slot per controller;
• Two (FAS2040) or four (FAS2240) onboard serial-attached SCSI (SAS) ports;
• 10 GbE support (FAS2240 only);
• Remote management; and
• Support for FCP, iSCSI, NFS, and CIFS storage protocols.