SNW Vendors Promise Agile, Capacity Optimized, Extensible Storage Solutions. Confused? Don't Be. They are De-complexified, Guaranteed and Well-Received

This year's fall Storage Networking World in Dallas, TX, kicked off with no shortage of promises from vendors that their technologies were guaranteed to deliver high ROIs, fast installs and problem free administration that are always "well-received" by every user that listens to their presentation. And for those users who have what they perceive as unsolveable problems in their storage environments? No worries. Dell's new storage solutions are so simple that they can de-complexify them.

Normally when I attend storage conferences, I do a daily blog entry that journals the conversations I had and briefings I attended as a way of sharing with users what trends I am seeing and new technologies I see emerging. But by the middle of yesterday, it became obvious that all of the vendor's marketing representatives had collaborated in some secret way and collectively decided what key words that they would repeat during briefings, conversations and presentations. So here are the top 6 words that vendors are using at this year's SNW to describe how much their solution has changed in an industry that changes, well, like never.

Agile (or "Agility" as used by the more sophisticated vendors). Since the last SNW, vendors discovered that every enterprise needs to become agile to survive in the coming financial apocalypse. Six months ago at the spring SNW vendors advised companis to lay storage foundations that could last years or even decades. Scratch that. Now these old foundations should be torn up in favor of technologies that can create a more agile enterprise that can nimbly respond to even the most complex storage problem even when managed by the most incompetent of administrators.

Capacity Optimized. This one users have to watch out for because it takes different forms so vendors might slip it in and catch you unawares. While NetApp and StorWize seem to have embraced the "capacity optimized" term and use it freely, repeatedly and unabashedly when describing their technologies, others like NEC are more subtle about slipping "WAN optimized" into the conversation so that you find yourself feeling good about something that you can't touch, taste or feel but you can most surely buy.

De-Complexified. This was my favorite term that I heard on Day 1. While it was admittedly a slip-up on Dell's Praveen Asthana's part and we both chuckled about it after he said it, I think it typifies the pie-in-the-sky thinking that sometimes enters the vendors' train of thought after drinking too much of their own Kool-aid. Because when a product goes from being "simple to use" to "de-complexifying your environment", it's obvious that maybe they need to take a step back and not take their product so seriously.

Extensible. I am still trying to figure out what the hell an extensible product is, especially when it comes to a storage system. Last time I checked, a storage system stores stuff. You know, data, files, pictures, databases, movies, etc. But suddenly storing stuff is not good enough anymore. It has to be "extensible" so it can extend and do things like storing more stuff than it used to. (I'll pass along a definition as soon as I figure this one out.)

Guaranteed. Now vendors are guaranteeing that what they promise is true. Ok, so what does that make everything they were promising up to this point, a lie?  I know NetApp last week just announced their 50% deduplication guarantee so that any user that turns on their dedupe will save 50% of their capacity and if it does not, they get more storage capacity. Great, so what kind of capacity and is that guaranteed?

Well-Received. No matter what technology I was briefed on, every vendor assured me that it was "well received" by every other user who they have briefed on it before me. Really? Does that include the user who I talked to just prior to this briefing that didn't believe a word you said. Or does that include me who is blogging about this wondering why I should "well receive" information on a product that hasn't fundamentally changed in 10 years? I know, I know, I'm just not being extensible.