Scratching Post

Those are just Storage Pains

TheInfoPro recently published Wave 7 of their research study of storage in IT. I like those guys and their methodology of directly polling end user customers on pain points, adoption of new technologies, vendor performance and so on. A refreshing change from some of the prognostications common to pundits of the storagesphere-- ILM, CDP, CMDB, (insert your acronym here).

One thing that leapt off the page in browsing the results of the study was the reference to "Your two biggest pain points in storage." Now we'd all expect to see managing growth (#1) and capacity forecasting and planning (#2) on the list, but the third most highly ranked issue was a real surprise-- backup administration and management. Close to 20% of the respondents ranked backup pain in their top two storage related issues. I find it simply amazing that after all this time, backup continues to be a sinkhole of cost-- software, hardware, services-- yet it still ranks right up there as a leading pain in the you know what. Think about it: where in IT can you find any proxy where so much money, technology and sweat go into to a process that ultimately makes onto the Painometer! Can you imagine what it is like to be in on the big new business pitch team going into MegaBank trying to unseat one of your competitors in the backup application space. Must sound something like this: "We'll hurt you less." That's not good marketing.

The incredible issue is that after all the technology  and money companies have thrown at it, the failure to reduce backup pain comes down to a basic issue: people. People are responsible for managing a complex, un-standardized, far flung process across time zones, policies, political boundaries and myriad vendor platforms. And, people get fired when things screw up. And, getting fired, = pain!

But the irony is, they're set up to fail! To be successful, these folks in backup administration, like all other people working in the business arena, need information to actually do their job. Amazing concept right? Giving people the information to make decisions, understand outcomes, predict, plan, manage and communicate is somehow necessary to a successful, and painless outcome. Same story that goes on everywhere else in the corporation, like down in sales where the whole machine can't move an inch forward unless salesforce.com says it's so. That's just the way it is: people require information to meet their goals. That's why there's like a billion and one companies in the BI, BPI, BPO, BTI, B-whatever space right now. Information is the key to the success of the people who manage systems.

Unfortunately, down in the bowels of the engine room where the backup team toils away, the numbers bear out-- no information, no decision support, no visibility, but lots of pain to go around. A whole bowlful. In fact, they'll run outta that endless supply of plastic coffee stirsticks and the feeding of the 5,000 single packet of coffemate before all the pain goes away.

All the technology in the world, yet no vendor gets it-- your customers won't like you or your product until you remove the pain. Boo yeah. Put that into your roadmap and smoke it! Meantime, I say power to the people. Let's start the revolution: it's time to remember that people power IT and do something about it.

Now where's that Advil.........

More on Lacking Standards

Mary Jander over at Byte and Switch echoes Toigo with her post this am in Storage Bits, entitled Storage Resource Mismanagement. Let's see how the comments rack up!

Toigo Sez

A few weeks back, Jon William Toigo, wrote a piece in Byte and Switch where he lambasted the Storage Networking Industry Association, more commonly known as SNIA. It was a lengthy piece and you can find it here if you like.

Toigo's basic stance: Standards have failed because they are vendor, rather than customer-driven. In effect, standards have become little more than "play nice" agreements between vendors that don't amount to anything as far as customers are concerned. All the placation has produced a lot of heat, but no light so to speak. Meantime, interoperability of hardware and formation of software standards continues to elude the market and customers in storage.

Toigo: insightful, candid, outspoken or simply looking for his 15 minutes by shaking his fists at the Man?

Welcome and yada yada.

Bocada has launched the ”The Scratching Post” as an experiment. We wondered if an informal, no-holds barred blog would be a good (informative, cathartic, provocative, interactive) means for pros focused on data protection to sound off about what’s on their minds. Think Slashdot for storage if you will.

Over the past 5 years of building our company, we’ve heard it all when it comes to what’s on the minds of IT staff in the datacenter. For whatever reason, our prospects and customers vent to us. Like the guys in the datacenter in Chicago who are still seeking the “light of truth” from their backup vendor. Or the team in at the large telco in the northwest who’s negotiations over disk got so bloody, they refused to talk to the sales rep ever again. And then there are issues of standards, governing bodies, in-sourcing, out-sourcing and so on. A long list of healthy debate and discussion we want to bring to you.

Pro versus con, good idea versus bad idea, paper versus plastic—we’re here to capture it all. All you have to do is pile on. So weigh in. And welcome to the Post.