Training for your future in storage

By Louise Durack.

The storage market is growing exponentially in the Asia Pacific region as data levels continue to increase. Today, almost every solution needs storage of one type or another.

Analyst group IDC estimates continued 60 percent yearly growth of new disk petabytes shipped in the near future, with an increasing complexity of storage management skills becoming ever more sought after.

This, however, is the key for savvy resellers enthusiastic about capitalising on the explosion of unstructured data that is causing end users to transform the way they do business.

There are three primary drivers concerned with storage, said IBM system storage channels manager Joe Screnci.

“End users still have to store data. They want to store it. And there are many forces making them say ‘I can’t store it’.

“End users’ next generation information infrastructure must be able to easily integrate new technologies, ensure security at all times, and be ‘green’ to respond to these drivers and manage the exponential growth of data.”

With IBM aiming to provide its channel community with a range of benefits to help them become key players in the storage market, Screnci said business partners should select a vendor with the ability to execute the next generation information infrastructure and storage training that not only covers the hardware and software, but also the industry and solution segments.

“IBM business partners have the unique opportunity to pick up one or many of IBM information infrastructure solutions and learn about technologies such as SVC, DS8000, N-Series and Metro Mirroring which can provide the best-of-breed solutions required by their clients, as well as how DR550 and SOFS (Scale Out File Services) can address the significant challenges of companies around archiving
and retention.”
SMB market provides opportunity

Much of the current storage opportunity for resellers lies within the small and medium-sized business (SMB) space.

“Whilst the complex storage market is generally manageable for large enterprise customers with full-time dedicated staff, this can often lead to a maze of confusion for the smaller entities with overstretched IT resources and staff,” said Simon Piff, IDC program director Asia Pacific. “The opportunity for resellers is in addressing the storage needs of the SMB space.”

Piff said that having a thorough understanding of the technologies – both established and emerging – is central to resellers seeking action in the storage market. “They need to understand the advantages and limitations of a number of architectures, such as three-tier storage, thin provisioning, virtualisation and off-site storage. These being the current trends within enterprise businesses, they will eventually start to have more than a passing relevance to the average SMB. Architectural challenges of data integrity, back-up and restore must also not be forgot about in the rush to the new technologies.”

Armed with an understanding of these requirements, and the relevance to the customer, resellers will, according to Piff, be more able to secure longer-term relationships. “This is important as storage requirements are continually growing and any customer with any IT infrastructure will need ongoing, long-term support in this area.”

With the growing storage demands of end users, resellers will need to keep pace with their customers and business needs, according to Michael Costigan, marketing director for Avnet, an IT distributor which offers resellers specialised educational sessions covering storage and virtual solutions.

“Training is not just regarding the technologies themselves, it also concerns the business skills and sales techniques involved in selling these technologies.

“We always conduct a market analysis with our reseller partners to see where they are headed with which vendor solutions, and apart from the obvious technical skills that are required in understanding these technologies, we try to also make them aware of the business drivers that are currently influencing things.”

Costigan highlighted compliance as one of the biggest issues currently influencing storage and how it is sold. “Many of our resellers’ businesses are in the mid-market (with a relatively small customer base) and often are confused as to the legal requirements of what they should be archiving.

“What with so many regulatory pressures out there in the market now, as opposed to say just five years ago, it is really important that resellers are trained up on compliance matters. Many of our resellers look to us to help them understand these complexities.”

IDC’s Simon Piff agrees on the importance of the legal side. “Understanding the legal and compliance issues concerning data management and retrieval should be the underlying foundation upon which all storage considerations begin. Until resellers know the specifics of retrieval for their local market, the layers of storage cannot be meaningfully applied.

“For example, in a multi-tier storage environment, when archiving data to tape storage - does this provide a company with sufficient legal time to retrieve the tape, reproduce the documentation, and comply with the law?

“Admittedly, in most cases the answer would be ‘yes’. But how would the company respond if a court order were issued? This is where there’s an opportunity for the reseller to become an integral part of their customer’s storage strategy.”

Matching up resellers for training needs

In addition to encouraging resellers to partner with the company for its training needs, Costigan highlighted the ‘Value Net’ program which Avnet has been operating for its reseller channel for the past three years.
The program ‘matches up’ resellers with other business partners to provide them with the skills and business expertise in which they may otherwise be lacking.

“For example, we often partner-up systems integrators with independent software vendors (ISVs),” said Costigan. “The ISVs are typically competent in the application area of the sales process but may be less confident at the hardware aspect of the sale.”

He commented that when it comes to training, resellers need to be targeted in what they are trying to achieve. “Training can be time consuming, so it is crucial that resellers focus on what is driving their core competencies in their business before embarking on specific training.”

A combination of skills

Clive Gold, director of product marketing for EMC, maintains that a combination of training opportunities is a safe way for resellers to obtain the skills they need within the storage space.

He said that in addition to the array of vendor programs that are out there, it can also be good to get an independent flavour for storage from an industry body. He pointed to the Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) as an organisation offering vendor-independent training.

“Particularly for new resellers within the storage market, it can be a good idea for them to get general training in other generic areas, such as administration,” said Gold.

He pointed out that the storage market is still relatively immature and, accordingly, that the rate of technological innovation is quite high. “Servers, for example, are very fast nowadays, but they are not changing a great deal. So there are many things for resellers to learn, especially regarding new and emerging technologies such as virtualisation and thin provisioning. Resellers need to get ahead in these types of areas now if they want to take advantage of
upcoming opportunities.”

Gold also mentioned the burgeoning demand for environmentally efficient technologies, an area which is taking centre stage in the storage arena.

“Energy efficiency is now huge and the question of whether the use of ten drives or maybe just the one drive [being] sufficient for needs will increasingly arise. Resellers need to be aware of these issues, as well as the other big market drivers, so that they can be well-informed as to where their training needs lie and be able to take these skills to market.

“The more that resellers know, the more their margins can grow. But they also need to maintain close relationships with their vendors, because as the sophistication of these products is ever evolving, they must develop relationships that can evolve with them for the long term.”

Klikon is a reseller specialising in storage consulting and architecture, alongside hardware and installation services. Sales director David Abouhaidar said the company currently sees storage consolidation and virtualisation as two of its biggest focuses.

“Becoming certified with the vendors on their partner programs covers most of our training needs and really helps us to understand the technologies, back to front and inside out. I think that having a thorough understanding of the technologies is at the heart of what is required to succeed in this market.”

Training as a sales opportunity

A not-for-profit organisation, SNIA has recently established an education committee to look at the potential for selling storage networking training through the channel to end users. “We have seen a steadily growing take-up of SNIA education courses by end user customers, many of whom do not know how to implement, use and protect these types of technologies, said SNIA chairman, Jacob Van der Eyk.

“By selling bundled packages of storage training through channel resellers, resellers will be given the opportunity to take some margin from the sale, as well as provide an added value proposition to their sales side, and thus increase the trust of their customers.”

He added that “resellers who may have a consultancy division could have the option to become a certified trainer and deliver the content under license themselves”.