Change your storage mind-set

Anyone in the storage market already has a consulting business, according to Graham Penn, associate vice-president, Asia-Pacific storage at EMC.

"In some cases, they're undervaluing the consulting part and putting too much value in the hardware and doing themselves a disservice," he says.

"Integrators have knowledge outside the normal user's capability to ascertain what they need."

Still, Penn believes that there is a general "reluctance" among the user community to value the services that are being offered by the storage integrator.

"The user's expectations and the real price of the service - very often there's a difference of opinion on what that is worth," he says.

Obviously, a good integrator can save the customer a lot of money on storage in the long run, he says. "Mostly what we find in this region is that if people have a storage problem their first reaction is to buy more hardware.

Until we recognise the value in savings operational costs, as opposed to the hardware costs, there is going to be pressure on integrators to survive," Penn says.

Many users have not measured all the storage and management costs they are incurring at the moment. "If you don't know what your operational costs are and you never measured them, you can't possibly decide whether you should buy more hardware or not," he says.

Companies that have employed integrators to work that out for them are getting a good return on their hardware investments and are saving money, he says.

Tim Smith, marketing manager at Hitachi Data Systems in Australia and New Zealand, agrees that while there is a big opportunity for resellers and integrators in the storage market, they need provide a "value proposition to their customers or they won't be able to justify organisations buying from them.

"We've created a complete marketing department for our channel partners to leverage and have a complete team [28 staff] in place to make an initiative happen for the reseller. We are constantly providing our partners with opportunities for them to grow their business," he says.

Too much on their plate

Storage integrator disasters such as the demise of Enstor were caused by companies wanting to do too much and compete with the top tier suppliers, according to Acer's Noah.

"It is really sad that those companies are disappearing - they went under because they were trying to do too much and compete with the big boys, and you can't do that," he says.

Storage knowledge is fairly scarce, he says, and Acer gives resellers access to one of its technical staff members for three days of training and does not charge a penny, Noah claims.

"We are seeing more and more resellers starting to bite. We only started with a handful in every city; now we have close to 40 resellers that are reasonable active, they can talk the talk and walk the walk," he says.

High cost of certification

Storage resellers often complain about the high cost of training. Storage giant EMC recently launched an updated channel program that gives partners access to all nine levels of certification for $9000 per person each year.

At the time, David Henderson, general manager of channels at EMC, said: "I challenge any vendor to demonstrate a more profitable program".

The reality for many partners is somewhat different. "It [training] is a pain," says XSI's Max Goldsmith. He did recognise, however, that vendors are trying to do something about rectifying the high cost of training.

Still, he says that certification is a difficult process. "We go through certification, spend a fortune, and 12 months later, they [vendors] come back and say that it's no longer necessary," he says.

Hitachi Data Systems offers certification for a basic storage course that lets channel partners learn the basics of storage. "It's a black art to the channel," says HDS' Tim Smith.

Partners that want to become Certified Solution Providers and have the capability to provide all the services involved in a storage implementation will be charged between $3000 and $4000 for the course, Smith says.

Rob Stirling, executive director at the Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA), says that what storage integrators need are generalised storage accreditation courses that are set by and the SNIA and recognised by the storage vendors.

The SNIA offers storage exams around technology manufactured by vendors like Cisco and EMC.

"A reseller can have his technical people accredited to an international standard, not just a local vendor standard. They know that the basics have been done and the qualifications go up to a high level," Stirling says.

"We set the exam and set the curriculum. At the basic levels, technicians should be able to pass that. We give them recognised training materials or they do a course at a training provider. There comes a point in time when the material gets so complex and hard that they have to do training.

"The point we make is that you don't have to be trained six times, you only have to be trained once. That's the problem with the vendors. If someone changes a product there are things you're going to have to know."