Note

Storage is a big ticket item that often only gets purchased every three to five years. Get best practice buyer's advise that leverages the purchasing experience of your IT peers.

Note

In selecting consolidated storage, the goal is to meet strategic business requirements while getting the most for your dollar. Find the best fit for your needs in an increasing consolidated vendor landscape.

Solution Set

This solution set will clearly describe the strengths and weaknesses of a full range of vendors in midrange storage and will apply a range of scenarios to provide deeper insight into what solutions are best.

Tool

The Storage Vendor Shortlist Tool allows enterprises to profile their storage solution requirements and generate a rank ordered vendor shortlist from a fixed list of vendors.

Template/Policy

Organizations embarking on the selection process for a storage vendor may select to issue a Request for Proposal (RFP) after determining their final selection criteria.

Tool

For organizations that have issued a formal Request for Proposal (RFP) to evaluate consolidated storage vendors, gathering and scoring the various responses can be difficult and time consuming. This tool enables enterprises to evaluate and...

Template/Policy

This script provides questions that you can explore with a reseller to clarify the specific value add that the reseller brings to the engagement. Use this interview to help solidify your vendor choice.

Vendor Research

This report is designed to help vendors and solution providers understand the market dynamics surrounding consolidated storage. The analysis and guidance provided will help in selling and marketing consolidated storage solutions.

Vendor Research

This report is designed to aid vendors and solution providers in understanding the market dynamics surrounding Storage Area Networks (SAN). The analysis and guidance provided will help in selling and marketing SAN solutions.

Video

Consolidated network storage is a strategic enabler that forms the foundation for server consolidation and a unified approach to data and system availability and recovery.

Tool

This is the Storage Vendor RFP Scoring Tool populated with actual evaluation scores created by Ken Juneau and others at TM4.

Template/Policy

The typical trigger for acquiring consolidated networked storage (CNS) is server consolidation; however, getting the most value out of storage purchases requires a strategic context. This business plan template puts the CNS acquisition in the...

Tool

In storage acquisition strategy it is ideal to balance the most storage capacity and performance with the lowest cost per unit of storage. Some solutions have a lower overall price tag, but have a higher TCO per Terabyte because of a lack of...

Note

Consolidated network storage makes more efficient use of storage resources through the elimination of waste and effort duplication across distributed islands or silos of direct attached storage. Consolidated storage is also a strategic enabler...

Tool

This tool is designed to help organizations determine top tactics for cost reduction within the server and storage service area. After the questions have been completed, the tool will generate guidance on which cost-saving actions to take, the...

Note

Servers and storage infrastructure make up a significant portion of the budget for most IT organizations. When faced with a mandate to control costs, IT managers must take steps to manage these expenses. Start with these techniques to optimize...

Networked storage vendors are aggressively targeting small enterprises in an attempt to grow market share. However, there remains considerable confusion around storage area network technology in the small to mid-range space due to considerable...