Storage efficiency is a funny thing. Vendors these days are asking customers to spend money so that they can save money on their data storage. Huh? This is a bit of a paradox. Here's the example I use, lets say my wife comes home with a brand new pair of shoes. "Hey honey, look at these great shoes I just bought! Regular price was $200 but I got them for 50% off!" My wife sees this transaction as saving us $100, but I see the transaction as $100 gone from the family checking account, never to be seen again. Who has the correct perspective? Well, that all depends on just how necessary those shoes were. If the closet is overflowing with shoes just like the new ones, this was probably a wasted expense. However if the shoes were bought to perform a specific function that no other shoe could accommodate (like this), then its probably a worthwhile investment.
Storage efficiency is kind of like that. You shouldn't invest in it unless it provides some type of new functionality that you don't already own. Plenty of vendors will offer to sell you cheaper storage, with heavy discounts to entice you, but if its just like all the other storage already in your closet, what are you buying? More shoes just like the ones you already have? When you invest in storage efficiency, you should look for something different, something that lets you do things you haven't been able to do before.
Why am I bringing this up? This week NetApp rolled out a new promo called ZIP, or Zero Investment Promise. Here's the concept: instead of buying more shoes, er I mean storage, why not make your existing storage more efficient? With ZIP, NetApp will loan you a shiny new V-Series Open Storage Controller, but before it hits your dock a promise is made that the V-Series will immediately save you x, (x is defined once we do an onsite evaluation, for free.) We'll put this promise in writing and give you 90 days to run your tests. If your tests deliver what we promised, you buy the V-Series (heck its probably already paid for itself by now anyway) - but if you believe we broke our promise, and we agree - the V-Series is yours to keep - gratis.
OK get ready, here comes the fine print. You and your data center must be in North America (some countries strangely have a problem with promos like this), you cannot already be using V-Series (duh), you have to be a current user of EMC Clariion or HP EVA systems, and you have to agree to use 5 key features on your EMC and HP system, provided via the V-Series (Snapshot, FlexClone, Thin Provisioning, Thin Replication, and of course Deduplication). That's about it.
So check it out. And don't assume you have pay alot to bring efficient storage into your world. In this case, you'll pay ZIP.
DrDedupe
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