I Want To Hear About EMC's Storage Strategy

Should be music to any storage vendor's ears, shouldn't it?

But, more lately, I've started to groan a bit when I hear those words.

Don't get me wrong -- EMC still generally sets the industry standard for advanced storage thinking and capabilities, much to the continual consternation of our competitors.

No, there's more to it than that.  It has to do with how IT is changing, and how I think that specific request is symptomatic of growing and uncomfortable problem.

Team Planning At Big IT Shops

It's a simple enough scenario.  Big IT user needs to map out game plan for next few years.

They split into teams: storage team, server team, application team, network team, management team, security team, etc.

Go forth and figure out what we should do in each category, and report back with your recommendations.  Divide and conquer -- makes a certain amount of sense, right?

EMC gets the call on one or more topics from the various teams to present our current capabilities and medium-term strategy on one or more of these topics on a very regular basis.  I do a lot of this sort of thing -- day in, and day out.

For storage, we typically lay out all of our capabilities "south of the server farm".  Trends in storage media, storage architectures, advanced functionality, backup, archiving, replication, storage management, storage networking, etc. 

Given that it's EMC, we can easily fill a day or two with a meaty agenda on the storage topic by itself, let alone all the other stuff we do.

We may get a visit from the customer's security team (RSA), or the management team (Ionix), or in some cases the information management or application team (our CMA division). 

Unfortunately, it's usually the case that each of the teams are working as relatively independent entities.  There's only a casual awareness of how the other teams are thinking about the problem.  There's rarely a  "big picture" of the architecture or the end state the IT organization is trying to achieve.

So we can end up having devolved discussions along the lines of "we can do this, and we can do this, and we can do this ..." and the evaluation team takes it all in.

How much better would it be if these teams took a few minutes with all us vendors, and said "here's what we're trying to build, and why we're trying to build it" and then invite us to offer up specific areas where we think we can help?

Context Matters

Maybe it might be useful to give some specific examples?

I always ask the question -- are you "all in" on this virtualization thing?  With VMware specifically?  Because is the answer is "hell yes" or "mostly", that shapes the rest of the discussion.

You're now interested in storage technology and strategy in the context of the majority of your environment being virtualized.  Ditto for management, security, backup, etc.  It's a much more productive discussion.

However, if the answer to that specific question is "don't know, the other team is working on that one", well -- you get the generic storage viewpoint without any ability to tie things into the bigger picture.

Even if we're going to have a storage-specific discussion, I usually ask a straightforward question -- what kinds of important information does your organization generate, and how is it used to make money? 

Sometimes I get a nice answer to that one; sometimes I don't.

Now step outside of the IT world.

I, as a vendor and a partner, would really like to know about what's going on in your business, rather than what's going on in IT.  That's not an insincere request.

Are you under new competitive pressure?  Trying to enter new markets or businesses?  Trying to get more out of your most valuable knowledge workers?  Under the gun to get cost out quickly?  Business getting frustrated with IT's response time?  New anxiety about compliance and security?  New global dynamic to deal with?

We as IT vendors tend to talk mostly to IT people.  Doing so frequently can lull you into the hypnotic IT-centric mantra that cheap is good, reliable is good, simple is good. 

Please don't get me wrong, I have no argument with any of that, but the business might have an entirely different agenda above and beyond the usual that's worth discussing with your vendors.  It gives us the opportunity to position our capabilities in a different (and potentially useful) light -- if you'll let us.

We as vendors also get the chance to talk to hundreds and thousands of different IT organizations, and we can share what we've learned not only in your industry, but what other industries are doing to solve similar problems in different contexts. 

But only if you give us a chance :-)

Connections Matter

We're moving from a world of specialists to generalists, and what generalists are good at is making connections.

I'm always interested in three broad categories of connections.

First, I'd like to understand how the global economy and competitive landscape is affecting your business or organization for good or for bad.  Any connections between your organization and the broader world are definitely interesting to us as vendors and partners. 

We may not be experts in your specific industry, but you might be surprised at what you find.  At a bare minimum, it gives us an excellent context to operate from.

Second, I'd like to get a sense of the connections between the business and IT -- what's working, what's not.  From the organization's perspective, what are you doing well, and what do you need to get better at?

It's OK to be honest with us.  We try to be honest with ourselves as well.  I've found it's a good habit to get into, generally speaking.

Third, I'd like to understand the connections within IT itself.  What are the major initiatives, where are they being driven from, and -- more importantly -- where are the key interlocks where one portion of the IT game plan affects another portion?

Please don't feel you need to be shy about sharing funding challenges, internal politics, cultural biases, potentially incomplete thinking, or even the occasional piece of dirty laundry. 

We have our fair share of those things in our own organization as well.

A Shining Example?

I can clearly remember a handful of customer briefing events that started with three or so slides that -- at a very high level -- gave us a sense of those three categories.

It took about 20-30 minutes.  We asked a lot of questions.  We learned a lot about our customer in that time.  Ideally, the vendor people present thought less about "what we have to sell" and more about "what are they trying to get done, and how can we help?"

And, hopefully, we were able to put what we learned to use by positioning our capabilities and plans in a way that was far more relevant than just bragging about a long list of features :-)

Comments

[Yursil]

Chuck, you need to figure this FAST stuff out now. I am in a position to make a purchase of a VMAX (non-SE) and I'm being told a lot of conflicting things about FAST.

It was three pages of the booklet presenting the technology, and on the last day of purchase I'm being told I will have to pay extra some day when its released.

On top of that I'm paying for Symm Optimizer, a tech which I really dont see benefiting me in my configuration.

I went back and asked for tiered storage because of the promise of this technology and its availability on this platform, but I can't even be promised that I will be entitled to it when it arrives?

Your sales team, marketing team, and engineers are completely out of synch on this one and are really close to collapsing this deal.

[Chuck Hollis]

@Yursil

Sorry for the frustration.

Anytime we propose a big capability with a progressive set of releases (i.e. FAST), things can get confusing with regards to precise availability dates, pricing, past entitlements, etc.

We do need to get better at this, so your point is taken. Is there something I could do to help tactically?

-- Chuck

[Yursil]

Chuck, on this deal it would be nice to know that FAST is something that will be delivered to our company when it arrives.

I know we have certain leverage in discounts before the purchase vs after. If FAST cant be promised or negotiated into our deal, its not really worth our while to buy this now.

We are migrating because our old SYMM is nearing end of support life (late next year). So we're not in any major rush to make a deal. It seems the advantages on waiting (flash memory price drops, FAST) are outweighing the desire to have a new toy for christmas.

[Yursil]

Maybe you could send some educational materials on the FAST sku how its being sold and marketied, and how it works into a half a million dollar purchase of VMAX to Adam Rosenberg rosenberg_adam@emc.com or Mike Scillia (former EMC?) mscillia@gothamtg.com

[the storage anarchist]

Yursil -

Allow me to assist. The final polish is being put on the materials, even as the product beta test is getting into full swing. If all goes to plan, the launch kit of materials will be in your sales team's hands within the month.

Meanwhile, I'd be happy to orchestrate getting early drafts of these materials to your account team - have them drop me an email at my office account and I'll get things rolling, as well as clear up any misinterpretations.

On behalf of the Symmetrix development team, I apologize for any confusion - it appears an inevitable side effect of announcing future direction and intent before the product itself is completed. As Chuck says, this is an area of constant improvement.

Sincerely,
Barry Burke, Chief Strategy Officer, Symmetrix Product Group
aka the storage anarchist