StorageMojo

Self-service pricing is coming
A reader wrote in the other morning to say:

I wanted to take a moment to thank Robin for this invaluable tool. As an architect I often use this site to get Rough Order of Magnitude costs for components and set these up in spreadsheets that allow others to apply thier vendor discounts to get my ROM costs closer to their actuals. The site lets me rough out a Vendor A solution and a Vendor B solution and quickly get to comparative pricing without waiting for negotiations around pricing.

You are very welcome.

But now there is something better
An approval-based system that gives you up-to-date pricing. Go to pricing pages for 3par, CommVault, DataDomain, Lefthand, VMWare or EqualLogic and click on the reseller ad.

That will take you to their site where you can request a quote. This isn’t an anonymous system - you have to provide personal information - and the reseller has to approve sending you the quote.

Normally that should be a quick process. I tried it once and got a response in 5 minutes. The service is available from a company named Echoquote.

The StorageMojo take
Marketing, and many sales people, like to keep a tight hold on pricing for reasons that may have once made sense but don’t today. As we saw with the latest “Dear Uncle StorageMojo” a qualified buyer limited his research because pricing and feature opaqueness made it too difficult to compare many vendors.

That is just wrong if you’re the company losing the business. And since smaller companies are the ones losing most of the business, they’re the ones who should be easiest to deal with.

At DEC I used to hand out our thick price lists - marked “Company Confidential” - to all the regular customers. With a $20,000 per working day budget I didn’t have time to quote every cable and network interface. My value was product knowledge - not pricing.

And not to worry, I will still update the StorageMojo price lists every 6 months or so.

Comments welcome, of course. Who is the easiest storage company you’ve dealt with?

Who the heck is Adva?
A couple of months ago a commenter asked for pricing info on Adva. I’d never heard of them, but as part of some web site work I checked into them.

Turns out they are a fast-growing German-based company specializing in metro-are optical Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) of Ethernet. WDM runs multiple optical channels over a single fiber using lasers of different colors. A single fiber can carry many high-speed links.

If you are interested in a disaster-tolerant metro area replication using iSCSI and/or NAS you should check them out. And with their price list online you can get budget numbers without the hassle of calling a salesman.

Sepaton is an enterprise de-dup company
I spoke to Sepaton CTO Micky Sandorfiat SNW. BTW, Sepaton is “no tapes” backwards.

Other work
I’m gradually closing comments to older posts in an effort to discourage comment spam. I also moved the consulting content to my TechnoQWAN LLC web site.

What other price lists would you like to see?
No promises, but that is how I learned about Adva.

Get ‘em while they’re hot!
There is a rumor that NetApp, seeking to strangle baby Isilon in its crib, is giving away product to win deals.

At $1/GB I might buy one
If true, this could reflect continued weakness in NetApp’s results, as noted by analyst Tom Curlin at RBC Capital Markets in late July. They’d be plumping up the top line at the expense of the bottom line.

NetApp’s quarter closes Friday
If you are looking for a deal on a NetApp filer, this is the week to get one. Maybe if you call Isilon you can get an Isilon coffee cup overnighted to you to subtly make the point that you are looking at alternatives. At this late date though, just telling your NetApp rep that you are looking at Isilon and will delay the order for a week might get you the rumored break.

The StorageMojo take
Isilon is vulnerable right now. They’ve disappointed Wall Street for 3 quarters and that has hammered their stock. It is one thing to buy from a startup whose stock is trading at twice the IPO price and quite another to buy from one trading well below the offering price.

Taking advantage of a competitor’s weakness is smart business. And getting fabulous end-of-the-quarter deals is also smart business for storage buyers.

Update: Isilon’s VP of marketing, Brett Goodwin, wrote in to say:

Our core underlying business, technology, value prop—is unchanged. We also have $90M in cash and no debt. While we recognize that the stock price has taken a hit—it doesn’t reflect the market demand for clustered storage and Isilon’s leadership position in the category.

Fair enough. Disclosure: I have no financial relationship with Isilon. Darn!

Update I.V: Brett also said he has 125 nifty Isilon coffee cups in stock and ready to ship. Call for yours today!

Update II: RBC Capital Markets is also saying that EMC is having a tough quarter in the enterprise storage space. Flirting with Isilon will enhance your bargaining position with EMC come December.

Comments welcome, of course. Tell me about your NetApp deals, if any.

I’ve updated the price lists for these companies.

• ADIC
• Avamar
• Brocade
• Documentum
• EMC
• EqualLogic
• Falconstor
• Finisar
• Hitachi
• HP
• IBM
• Isilon
• Lefthand
• McData
• NetApp
• Nexsan
• Omneon
• Oracle
• Pillar
• Riverbed
• RSA
• Sun
• Texas Memory Systems
• VMware

Many are called but few(er) are chosen
I’ve decided to drop Dell and Seagate from the list because up-to-the-minute pricing is available on the web.

I’m also dropping Quantum, and this is probably the last ADIC list. Lots of companies OEM their stuff, so you can look on other lists to get pricing, or check the web for the lower-end kit.

I didn’t get around to some of the smaller companies, either. But I may yet. If you see a big hole in the list please comment or email.

I know some competitive analysts use the price lists. If you are one of them I’d appreciate a Paypal donation as a token of your appreciation. I’m considering cutting back on pricing info since it it is a lot of work. If you have any suggestions about how to improve the usefulness of the lists please comment or email me.

If you’d like your company’s price list to be on the page with your competitors feel free to send me one.

StorageMojo will soon return to its regularly scheduled programming.
Update: I asked a question about the RSS feed and several folks answered. Thanks! I don’t know a thing about RSS feeds but I’ll see if there is anything I can do to improve it.

There’s been a fair amount of interest in the VMware and Documentum price lists, so I thought I’d go a little further afield and offer an Oracle price list.

Maybe an Oracle customer could explain how to configure their products. Seems complicated.

Enjoy.

It might not look like it, but the StorageMojo elves have been hard at work combing the internet for publicly available pricing information. These aren’t exactly storage companies, but they are owned by a storage company, so what the hey?

Check out the new lists:

• Documentum
• RSA Security
• VMware

Help StorageMojo
Looking at VMware’s price list makes me wonder how cost-effective it is. Could someone who is knowledgeable on VMware explain how the pieces get put together to make a working configuration?

Comments welcome, of course.

Gosh, I hope they didn’t sprain anything in the process . . .
I just got a nice note from an EMC representative.

Hello Robin,

We’ve been regular readers of StorageMojo for quite a while and welcome the efforts of you and others in the blogosphere to facilitate open dialogue and provide feedback about our industry. As you correctly point out, pricing information is publicly available on EMC’s website. For our part, we have no desire to hide this information - which is why it is posted. You are obviously free to post any information that we publicly make available, and if the information you posted falls into that category, our letter to you was unwarranted. Hopefully your readers can appreciate the importance of protecting intellectual property and trade secrets in a highly competitive industry. That is all that our lawyers were attempting to do.

Best Regards,

Michael Gallant
Senior Director, EMC Public Relations

Well, that’s a load off my mind . . .
I spent way too many years working in big corporations, and I’m well aware of the “right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing” problem. I hold no grudge against the lawyer. I’m confident he wasn’t out surfing the web looking for contraband IP when he saw StorageMojo.

I smell a rat
The guy who ratted out StorageMojo, however, is a jerk. I don’t believe that a rank & file EMC’er stumbled upon the price list and got a lawyer to dash off a cease & desist letter? I believe it took some clout along with poor judgement. EMC doesn’t need people like him.

The StorageMojo take
Even though Mr Gallant’s note refrains from saying I am out of the woods - a nice lawyerly touch, wouldn’t want to foreclose any options - my take is that this is as close to an apology I’m going to get. And I’ll take it as such.

As I noted in my last post:

. . . I have no problem with EMC defending its trade secrets. One reason I don’t sign NDAs with companies that aren’t clients is that I don’t want to be . . . possibly revealing someone’s trade secrets. I prefer to look at publicly available information and to draw my own conclusions.

EMC is a large and powerful company. As Peter Parker’s Uncle Ben used to say, “with great power comes great responsibility.” IMHO that power was used a tad precipitately, and I’m glad EMC responded as quickly as it has.

Comments welcome, as always. And special thanks to all who wrote or called to express support. It meant a lot. Moderation is a virtue except in the defense of liberty.

The Empire strikes back
An EMC lawyer sent me the following email last week:

On Mar 14, 2007, at 11:10 AM, Clark_William@emc.com wrote:

Robin Harris: Your Website StorageMojo.com posts a price list of EMC Corporation. Having worked in the industry for over 20 years in both large and small companies, you certainly must know that EMC’s Price List is Confidential Information of EMC, and is protected as a trade secret. Without waiving any remedy that we may have, we hereby demand that you (1) remove the EMC price list from your Website, (2) cease and desist posting it there or anywhere else, (3) destroy all electronic and hard copies, and (4) confirm the above to us by return email. Your actions in this regard will be taken into consideration by us in deciding how we handle this matter.

William R. Clark
Sr. Intellectual Property Counsel
EMC Corporation
clark_william@emc.com
508 435-1000 x77225

Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi; you’re my only hope.
I immediately downloaded the price list to my faithful ‘droid Snort and . . . . Oops, wrong story.

I cobbled together this reply:

Dear Mr. Clark:

I was surprised to receive your email claiming that EMC’s price list is confidential and protected as a trade secret. Although I am not an attorney I (and everyone I have spoken to about this matter) believe that EMC has not protected its price list’s confidential nature. EMC has allowed its price lists to be published on the web by its employees and its resellers. Those published prices lists are freely available, at least one of them from EMC itself. Therefore, as I am confident you will agree, EMC has failed to protect its price list as a trade secret.

So that you may educate yourself and the rest of EMC’s legal group I offer the following URLs:

http://www.emc.com/sales/stateoffl/
Please note that this is posted on the EMC’s corporate website by EMC employees. It is listed on the first page of a Google search for “EMC price list”. EMC also maintains several prior price lists on this page.

http://www.berkcom.com/EMC/list-emc-storagesystems.php
This company sells EMC equipment and publishes its prices.

http://www.ecamerica.com/manufacturers/legato/
This company offers the Legato portion of EMC’s corporate price list as a PDF.

http://www.documents.dgs.ca.gov/pd/masters/imaging/documentum.pdf
This link downloads a PDF of a Documentum price list, helpfully last updated on January 30, 2007.

https://www.gsaadvantage.gov/
Enter EMC into the search box and many EMC federal contractor prices are displayed.

Now that you know the facts of the matter I expect an email from you confirming that you have examined the links and documents provided above and that you now understand that EMC’s price list is not a trade secret, despite what you were led to believe by the person who referred StorageMojo.com to you.

Also, you might want to consult with EMC’s public relations and analyst relations groups as to the advisability of continuing to press confidentiality claims against StorageMojo. The internet community - StorageMojo.com had over 100,000 visitors last month - does not take kindly to attempts to limit the free flow of information and First Amendment rights.

Sincerely,

Robin Harris
Editor, StorageMojo.com

The StorageMojo take
Lawyer Clark is in his early sixties, and I doubts he surfs the web all day looking for EMC trade secrets on blog sites. Somebody pointed him to StorageMojo.

Yet I have no problem with EMC defending its trade secrets. One reason I don’t sign NDAs with companies that aren’t clients is that I don’t want to be in the position of knowing and possibly revealing someone’s trade secrets. I prefer to look at publicly available information and to draw my own conclusions. It may keep me out of the loop on some cool stuff, but so be it. The bottom line is that EMC’s price list isn’t a trade secret if they publish it on their own website and it shows up on the first page of a Google search.

Let’s see how EMC responds. I hope we’ll see an admission of an honest mistake. Maybe even an apology.

Developing. . . .

Update: Lawrence Dignan over at ZDnet weighs in with a fresh perspective. I’m starting a new blog with ZDnet in addition to StorageMojo.

Comments, and in this case, support, welcome. More than ever, moderation is a virtue, except in the defense of liberty.

It may be a three-day weekend for most Americans, but nobody told my oppressed minions. Bwa-ha-ha-ha!

Updated 3Par, EMC and Pillar Data Price Lists Now Online
Just click on Price Lists to see the complete selection of tasty, fat-free and affordably priced StorageMojo price lists.

Want to compare ONTAP GX pricing to Isilon’s IQ6000? Be my guest.

Just click on Price Lists in the nav bar above and knock yourself out.

Click on the “Price Lists” link above in the navigation bar, or click here to go the Price Lists page. Then select the EMC price list.

Enjoy.

Comments welcome, as always.

A new addition to StorageMojo.com Price Lists
A reader turned me on to them today. I see a number of the guys at Omneon worked at Tektronix, the company I sold to back when I was a dewy-eyed DEC salesman. Tek’s Grass Valley Group was a long-time leader in broadcast equipment, though exactly what they were doing 25 years ago escapes my memory.

I’ve just added Omneon Video Networks to the Price List (click on the Price List header above), or you can go direct to the page.

Omneon, the broadcaster’s friend
Omneon Video Networks is a specialized storage company that provides broadcast quality storage for digital media, along with the gear needed to convert video streams to bits. At least that’s how I read it, and I’m no expert on TV broadcasting. They do clustering, in their MediaGrid product, which is a pretty sophisticated architecture for the kind of beating stuff gets in 7×24 broadcasting.

The StorageMojo take
Think of Omneon as a giant, industrial grade iPod. They’ve taken the same storage the rest of us use and wrapped the interfaces and packaging that broadcasters are already familiar with around it. I don’t plan to get into their technology unless there is popular demand - or unless (hint, hint) someone there wants to write a technical overview.

Comments, corrections, amplifications welcome as always. Spamsters, save your breath: some half-baked comment is not going to get a link to your site.

A number of price lists have been updated by off-duty elves (Thanks, Santa!). The Price List page has them all.

I’ve also noted that a number of companies listed are no longer independent, including ADIC, Avamar, CreekPath, and McData. I expect to see a number of other companies sold next year.

Here are the latest updates.

• Equalogic
• Falconstor
• Finisar
• Isilon
• Lefthand Networks
• Nexsan
• Panasas
• Riverbed
• Storeage
• Texas Memory Systems

Happy New Year!

Click on Price Lists above. The others are coming, slowly but surely.

Joerg, over at c0t0d0s0.org pointed to a good article by Paul Murphy about the Economics of ZFS over at ZDnet.

He is responding to another article that proposed to estimate the OLTP price/performance of various boxes, including Solaris 10/ZFS boxes, without taking into account the cost advantages of fast software RAID.

The money quote
Murphy says the

. . . ratings ignore important differentiating technology - had he bench-ti-mated his Solaris costs and performance on a ZFS/JBOD basis, Sun would have placed at the top of every grouping.

All of which suggests an important question for readers of this blog: how many of you are making the same mistake? How about your colleagues and bosses?

As I recall, it took customers almost 8 years before RAID controllers and arrays became the dominant data storage hardware choice. How long will it take to unmake that decision?

Comments welcome as always, though my moderation may be slower than usual.

For those of you who celebrate Christmas, Merry Christmas. For those who celebrate other holidays - and I can think of several - happy holidays. For everyone else, take some time and smell the roses.