All this week I will be attending a training event at IBM called Tech Fest. Kind of Comic Con meets IBM Storage University. Technical engineers from all over the country descend upon Washington DC (ok it’s really Gaithersburg) to learn about IBM Storage.
The goal is bring everyone up to speed on the latest products coming out of IBM Storage: SONAS, XiV, DS8800, Storwize V7000, etc. A pure technical deepdive with the R&D teams to get a better understanding of the new storage and features.
Training is essential to keeping a sales force moving forward. Not only to present new ideas to clients but to solve those issues that has been around for years. With out training, people are forced to pick and choose their products they get up to speed on and with a large portfolio of storage at IBM, which can be a huge undertaking. I for one try to keep up with the NAS systems and that is a never ending saga.
One idea I have had in the last few weeks leading up to this is how to simplify the entire IBM Storage portfolio. We have a ton of products that have great features but they seem to cover a certain area in the data center. You need storage virtualization, we have a system that can do that (actually two now with Storwize V7000). You need a high performance box built on all sata technology? We have a system that can do that too. I was really hoping the big wigs at IBM would start simplifying the product line and have the systems be more universal than they are today.
We have a good thing going with the Storwize V7000. If we could put NAS technology in that system, and integrate the XiV interface into our products, we could start simplifying our products. We should have a low end storage, mid and enterprise storage all based on the unified platform. I am sure we can do this as the products are mostly based on commodity parts, it’s just the software integration.
There are definite advantages in simplifying the product line and I bet we can work towards that goal. Besides sales, support and development can be simplified and improved as there would be fewer things to learn. I think there are lots of benefit and some risk.
So this week I am going to be talking to lots of people and getting their opinions on IBM Storage. If you want to follow me on twitter, subscribe to richswainWORK.
