Vendor Landscape: Mid-Range Storage
The storage market is changing – your storage and data needs might be too.
View Vendor Shortlist
What is a shortlist?
A shortlist is a personalized list of vendors based on the criteria you define. Your shortlist offers more information about vendor's strengths, weaknesses, price-points, etc, and ranks them according to your needs.
Access this Vendor Shortlist by logging in with your Info-Tech Research Group membership or unlocking this content.
What is a Value Score?
The Value Score indexes each vendor’s product offering and business strength relative to their price point. It does not indicate vendor ranking.
Vendors that score high offer more bang for the buck (e.g. features, usability, stability, etc.) than the average vendor, while the inverse is true for those that score lower.
Price-conscious enterprises may wish to give the Value Score more consideration than those who are more focused on specific vendor/product attributes.
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Your Challenge
- The storage space is growing and diversifying, making it more difficult to decide on the right storage solution and vendor.
- Data continues to grow at an exponential rate, and the variety of data types is growing faster than ever, further complicating future-proofing for storage adoption.
- As costs continue to decrease, flash will become a viable choice for many enterprise workloads, further diversifying your options for storage adoption.
Our Advice
Critical Insight
- Flash is more than storage caching. Flash cost continues to go down, while the capacity of flash continues to increase. Coupled with higher performance features like deduplication, flash storage is reaching a TCO lower than that of traditional storage.
- Storage is becoming a commodity. If the minimum standard is all you need from your mid-range storage solution, the best differentiator is the vendor you choose. Dig deep to find the vendor that fits your organization’s needs.
- List pricing is just that. All vendors have list pricing, but discounting in the industry has become very competitive. Vendors have been known to offer discounts that are going as deep as 50%, depending on the size of the purchase.
Impact and Result
- Explore the major vendors in the storage space and identify what they have to offer for mid-range storage.
- Review the changes in the storage space, such as the utilization of flash, and see if adopting these technologies is right for you.
- Evaluate mid-range storage vendors and products based on your enterprise needs.
- Determine which products are most appropriate for your particular use case and scenario.
1. Evaluate the leading solutions for mid-range storage
Understand the market and available options.
2. Identify the mid-range storage solution that best meets your needs
Develop a shortlist to speed the selection process.
3. Issue an RFP to the shortlist of vendors
Solicit responses from shortlisted vendors to find optimal enterprise fit.
4. Review RFP winners
Ensure that selected proponents can deliver when it counts.
Guided Implementations
This guided implementation is a three call advisory process.
Guided Implementation #1 - Shortlist Assistance and Requirements
Call #1 - Get off to a productive start: Discuss the market space and how vendors are evaluated. Decide which platform suits you best and narrow down the options based on customized requirements.
Guided Implementation #2 - RFP and Budget Review
Call #1 - Interpret and act on RFP results: Review vendors’ RFPs and ensure the solution will meet your needs. Discuss average pricing of solutions and what can fit into your budget.
Guided Implementation #3 - Negotiation and Contract Review
Call #1 - Purchase optimization: Review contracts and discuss best practices in negotiation tactics to get the best price for your solution.
After each Info-Tech experience, we ask our members to quantify the real time savings, monetary impact, and project improvements our research helped them achieve. See our top member experiences for this Blueprint, and what our clients have to say.
Client
Experience
Impact
$ Saved
Days Saved
Tiller Corporation
Guided Implementation
10/10
$82,767
20
Workplace Safety and Prevention Services
Guided Implementation
9/10
$25,000
2
Sunnyside Community Services
Guided Implementation
10/10
$63,667
5
Sunnyside Community Services
Guided Implementation
10/10
$63,667
10
City Of Durango
Guided Implementation
6/10
N/A
2
