Storage Appliances: It’s the Software Stupid

This article has been written by   Ken Cheney, VP sales and marketing at Likewise Software that makes integrated software platforms for identity, security and storage used by storage vendors such as HP and EMC.

Storage appliances: It’s the Software Stupid

 
The value of storage as an integral part of an application platform is growing by the day. Just look at the storage appliance news flowing lately VMware’s vSphere Storage Appliance being the most important recent example, but there are plenty of others, like AMAX CloudMax Apex.
 
This VMware software-only product targets small and mid-sized businesses without shared storage resources. It takes the internal storage residing on company servers and virtualizes it into a SAN useable by multiple applications.
 
This trend illustrates growing awareness that much of the value, the ‘secret sauce’ in storage application platforms, is in the software. The hardware underneath most storage vendors tends to be standard, off-the-shelf, powerful-but-inexpensive componentry.
 
The biggest of the big storage powers have been working hard to make the shift to a software focus. But as much as they repeat that software mantra – and purchase software companies to prove their provenance – they’re not software companies. At heart, they are tied to their hardware legacy due to established buying patterns that are slow to change, and a fiduciary duty to avoid shifting or cannibalizing their established business models – resulting in more hardware sales (and the support and maintenance associated with that hardware.)
 
There is also a huge push by data center hardware vendors – HP, Oracle (with Sun) and others to embed storage as part of an overall data center appliance – one piece of equipment that melds computer and storage hardware with software. These are pushed as high-value-add, high-margin, high-priced turnkey systems.
 
If you look under the covers, however, once again what you’ll find is inexpensive, commodity hardware -x86 processors, standard enclosures and power supplies doing the grunt work. What you’re really paying for with your multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars is the software.
 
There is a continuing belief in many circles that this appliance hardware is ‘special’ and justifies a robust price. In reality, savvy IT shops would be better off separating the hardware and software purchase and layering software to run and manage storage applications atop inexpensive hardware bought separately, or even on hardware already running in-house.
 
The basic argument: There is no need to pay a premium for non-premium hardware. What is needed to build a first-rate storage platform is basic hardware and not-so-basic software.
 
Old habits die hard but sophisticated IT buyers are figuring this out. The IT buyer is getting smart enough and mature enough to realize he doesn’t need to pay the overhead on turnkey appliances and can source the hardware and software separately.
 
At some point, the perceived strength of the integrated storage products offered today by storage vendors will become their ball and chain. The value of software-only storage appliances, such as what VMware has announced, is disruptive enough to force significant changes in how enterprises buy and deploy storage. Until the market fully realizes this, storage companies will continue to perpetuate the myth of value-added hardware and the perceived safety and comfort of such offerings.