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Traditional storage vendors are large public corporations whose foremost obligation is to deliver shareholder value. Through a proprietary, closed-source approach born long ago, they promote a mindset of scarcity and create environments that lock customers into ecosystems that are difficult and costly to change.
By keeping it closed, vendors can ensnare customers into a more resource-intensive and expensive model while promising that solutions will be forthcoming. Their goal is to grow fast, improve margins, and extract the maximum customer revenues by keeping prices high and preventing alternatives from getting a foothold.
In contrast with the proprietary, closed-source approach, Open Storage (and open-source software development in general) is built around a mindset of abundance, where the best products and best user experience win in the marketplace. The combination of an open-source community, customers,, and vendor support yields a confluence of innovation that no lone source could provide.
In our model, the only “lock-in” we strive for is an experience so gratifying that users and customers don’t ever need or want to leave.
At iXsystems, we seek to give our customers more choice in how they can store, access, and manipulate their data. We call this Data Freedom, which we define as what all organizations ultimately want and expect from storage: flexibility and choice. In other words, how much freedom is available to go faster, lower infrastructure costs, and reduce operational effort?
Odds are you’ve seen articles and discussions of increasing hardware prices. Here are two recent examples highlighting expectations that storage will be even more expensive in 2024 than it was in 2023, and for the most part, you have no control over it:
There is no more serious business than protecting data, and storage is naturally the last place anyone would want to skimp on or underfund. Vendors in the marketplace prey on this emotion, persuading customers that the value they claim is worth paying more for, and the only way you can be successful. The “big” brands charge more because they must. Their business model relies on meeting Wall Street and investor expectations, where growth and profit are the measure.
Alternatives are bad for the status quo, and even worse when an alternative is rated as well or more highly. One way for an alternative to rate more highly is to be focused on delivering what the customer wants/needs as opposed to being true to what the vendors’ business model requires.
If you are part of the selection process for infrastructure vendors, the element that is most under your control is your “short list”. Alternative brands or generic medications often cost less as they are in a “challenger” position against the leading brand. Any organization has the option to broaden its consideration of “challenger” brands and might in fact also open its consideration to non-commercial tools. What might have been the best or only choice in the past, is not necessarily the same today.
While broadening the list of choices, new requirements can also be added in the spirit of “skating to where the puck is going”. Don’t plan based upon the past, rather envision what your future will bring. You have the power to ensure your investments today will align with the future of both the market and your data center infrastructure.
The best choice today is storage that is compatible with and optimized for where the market is going. The good news is that the storage marketplace trajectory is becoming more flexible in its deployment options, more capable by including functionality (such as transformation), more open in its development model, while delivering better value overall to those deploying it.
According to research, analysts recommend that organizations explore the emergence of the “edge storage platform” (ESP). The ESP is where data manipulation and transformation at the edge will create value most quickly. As part of the larger universal storage platform architecture that unites edge, cloud, and core data centers, ESPs are best optimized for certain workloads, use cases, and data service management methods.
These requirements are different from traditional and legacy data center models and must include:
We are champions of open infrastructure and prefer “data” as the descriptor for the storage platform. It will be interesting to watch over the coming years how the definition of “storage” evolves. One thing is for sure, traditional storage vendors face a significant challenge in meeting these new requirements.
If I am not paying for it, how can I trust it will not fail? It is very human to feel this way. No one has ever lost their job for choosing a top-branded, premium positioned solution when it inevitably suffers a fault. Afterall, your data is priceless, and the best solutions are always costly, so your storage should be expensive, right?
From the perspective of mathematics, how can you calculate the currency-equivalent value for reliable operations of a storage solution if its software is open source and freely distributed at no cost? Your high school math teacher stated that anything divided by zero is undefined; that sounds risky. But perhaps it might be best to take a different perspective when considering value creation for storage.
Generic medicines are considered by most (including regulators) to be “as effective” as Big Pharma medicines with the same active ingredients. Packaging, marketing, sales, etc. are very different for a leading brand as they have market position to protect and stakeholders to appease. None of this impacts the efficacy of the medication, but it does impact the price at which it must be sold.
Just as being free is not a disqualifier for having value, lower-cost open products should not be presumed to be lower quality by design. Challengers streamline or reduce much of the cost structure to deliver an equivalent product at a lower price point. Read more about how iXsystems passes these savings on to our customers.
The Open Source model has many advantages in lowering the cost of software development. It can even bring features to fruition more rapidly than traditional vendors as community members assist in the development effort. The combination of the Open Source model and Data Freedom is what we call True Data Freedom. This is a fundamentally different approach that delivers greater value at lower expense while providing what customers want in their storage solution.
Sounds too good to be true? We encourage you to experience TrueNAS for yourself today (download TrueNAS here), listen to what our customers are saying on Gartner’s Website, or if you’re storing critical data, feel free to schedule a call with one of our helpful Solution Advisors.
Still curious about why we do what we do? Check out this video with some of the faces behind TrueNAS, sharing their perspectives on what it is like for iXians to come to work every day and deliver TrueNAS to the world.
I think I’d like to send the blog more in this direction by using other areas of infrastructure that have gone “open” as the proofpoint for why storage can (and will) too.
The open + community story is a strong and differentiating one. Just avoid equating “open” with “cheap” as it should be a value articulation (community) even though the overall expense can be significantly lower. Storage has always been the last bastion of IT luddites, it’s time that it caught up with the rest of industry.
The post Why Traditional Enterprise Storage is So Expensive appeared first on iXsystems, Inc. - Enterprise Storage & Servers.
Continue reading...
By keeping it closed, vendors can ensnare customers into a more resource-intensive and expensive model while promising that solutions will be forthcoming. Their goal is to grow fast, improve margins, and extract the maximum customer revenues by keeping prices high and preventing alternatives from getting a foothold.
The Open Source Choice
In contrast with the proprietary, closed-source approach, Open Storage (and open-source software development in general) is built around a mindset of abundance, where the best products and best user experience win in the marketplace. The combination of an open-source community, customers,, and vendor support yields a confluence of innovation that no lone source could provide.
In our model, the only “lock-in” we strive for is an experience so gratifying that users and customers don’t ever need or want to leave.
At iXsystems, we seek to give our customers more choice in how they can store, access, and manipulate their data. We call this Data Freedom, which we define as what all organizations ultimately want and expect from storage: flexibility and choice. In other words, how much freedom is available to go faster, lower infrastructure costs, and reduce operational effort?
Rising Costs
Odds are you’ve seen articles and discussions of increasing hardware prices. Here are two recent examples highlighting expectations that storage will be even more expensive in 2024 than it was in 2023, and for the most part, you have no control over it:
- Market Anticipates a 50% Price Surge for NAND Flash in Short-Term
- Prices Rise as IT Spending Trends Upward for Servers, Storage
There is no more serious business than protecting data, and storage is naturally the last place anyone would want to skimp on or underfund. Vendors in the marketplace prey on this emotion, persuading customers that the value they claim is worth paying more for, and the only way you can be successful. The “big” brands charge more because they must. Their business model relies on meeting Wall Street and investor expectations, where growth and profit are the measure.
Alternatives are bad for the status quo, and even worse when an alternative is rated as well or more highly. One way for an alternative to rate more highly is to be focused on delivering what the customer wants/needs as opposed to being true to what the vendors’ business model requires.
What Can I Control?
If you are part of the selection process for infrastructure vendors, the element that is most under your control is your “short list”. Alternative brands or generic medications often cost less as they are in a “challenger” position against the leading brand. Any organization has the option to broaden its consideration of “challenger” brands and might in fact also open its consideration to non-commercial tools. What might have been the best or only choice in the past, is not necessarily the same today.
While broadening the list of choices, new requirements can also be added in the spirit of “skating to where the puck is going”. Don’t plan based upon the past, rather envision what your future will bring. You have the power to ensure your investments today will align with the future of both the market and your data center infrastructure.
Where Is The Puck Going?
The best choice today is storage that is compatible with and optimized for where the market is going. The good news is that the storage marketplace trajectory is becoming more flexible in its deployment options, more capable by including functionality (such as transformation), more open in its development model, while delivering better value overall to those deploying it.
According to research, analysts recommend that organizations explore the emergence of the “edge storage platform” (ESP). The ESP is where data manipulation and transformation at the edge will create value most quickly. As part of the larger universal storage platform architecture that unites edge, cloud, and core data centers, ESPs are best optimized for certain workloads, use cases, and data service management methods.
These requirements are different from traditional and legacy data center models and must include:
- Flexibility to scale up and down cost-effectively
- Software-defined storage with self-healing technology
- Support for Block, File, Object, and App storage with Kubernetes
- Centralized data management
- Data transfer/transformation optimization
We are champions of open infrastructure and prefer “data” as the descriptor for the storage platform. It will be interesting to watch over the coming years how the definition of “storage” evolves. One thing is for sure, traditional storage vendors face a significant challenge in meeting these new requirements.
The Elephant in the Room
If I am not paying for it, how can I trust it will not fail? It is very human to feel this way. No one has ever lost their job for choosing a top-branded, premium positioned solution when it inevitably suffers a fault. Afterall, your data is priceless, and the best solutions are always costly, so your storage should be expensive, right?
From the perspective of mathematics, how can you calculate the currency-equivalent value for reliable operations of a storage solution if its software is open source and freely distributed at no cost? Your high school math teacher stated that anything divided by zero is undefined; that sounds risky. But perhaps it might be best to take a different perspective when considering value creation for storage.
Same Outcome, Lower Cost
Generic medicines are considered by most (including regulators) to be “as effective” as Big Pharma medicines with the same active ingredients. Packaging, marketing, sales, etc. are very different for a leading brand as they have market position to protect and stakeholders to appease. None of this impacts the efficacy of the medication, but it does impact the price at which it must be sold.
Just as being free is not a disqualifier for having value, lower-cost open products should not be presumed to be lower quality by design. Challengers streamline or reduce much of the cost structure to deliver an equivalent product at a lower price point. Read more about how iXsystems passes these savings on to our customers.
Experience it for Yourself
The Open Source model has many advantages in lowering the cost of software development. It can even bring features to fruition more rapidly than traditional vendors as community members assist in the development effort. The combination of the Open Source model and Data Freedom is what we call True Data Freedom. This is a fundamentally different approach that delivers greater value at lower expense while providing what customers want in their storage solution.
Sounds too good to be true? We encourage you to experience TrueNAS for yourself today (download TrueNAS here), listen to what our customers are saying on Gartner’s Website, or if you’re storing critical data, feel free to schedule a call with one of our helpful Solution Advisors.
Still curious about why we do what we do? Check out this video with some of the faces behind TrueNAS, sharing their perspectives on what it is like for iXians to come to work every day and deliver TrueNAS to the world.
I think I’d like to send the blog more in this direction by using other areas of infrastructure that have gone “open” as the proofpoint for why storage can (and will) too.
The open + community story is a strong and differentiating one. Just avoid equating “open” with “cheap” as it should be a value articulation (community) even though the overall expense can be significantly lower. Storage has always been the last bastion of IT luddites, it’s time that it caught up with the rest of industry.
The post Why Traditional Enterprise Storage is So Expensive appeared first on iXsystems, Inc. - Enterprise Storage & Servers.
Continue reading...
