Two VARs Get A Helping Hand

Hewlett-Packard supported Nth Generation, a San Diego-based solution provider and HP's largest storage partner in the western United States, by sending Howard Elias, vice president of network storage solutions for HP's Enterprise Systems Group, to an Nth Generation event.

EMC, meanwhile, publicly unveiled its new DMX arrays on the West Coast at Stack Computer's end-user event. Stack Computer is EMC's third largest solution provider.

Both solution providers hosted a slate of speakers consisting mainly of network administrators and CxO-level personnel from private and public companies.

In addition to Elias, who described HP's enterprise storage strategy, Nth Generation's event also featured Richie Lary, who 20 years ago started DEC's StorageWorks line, a series of products and technologies that passed through Compaq via acquisitions to form the foundation of much of HP's current storage business.

Now an independent consultant, Lary said he expects the industry to further consolidate as customers continue to shy away from buying storage from startups.

Nth Generation also invited Charles Curtis, manager of nearline storage for network storage solutions in HP's Enterprise Systems Group, who said that while using inexpensive hard drives for backup offers advantages such as instant and point-in-time recovery, tape is still the safest media in most situations.

The keynote speaker at Stack Computer's event was Esmail Adibi, professor of economics at California's Chapman University.

Adibi said he does not expect the United States to experience a long-term recession. However, his prediction does not take into account a possible war with Iraq. "The war will have a good effect on the economy if we go in clean and fast," he said. "That will keep oil prices low. But the war will have a negative effect if it is a messy one and oil wells are burned."

Adibi was followed by Jeff Goldberg, corporate evangelist at EMC, who introduced the company's new Symmetrix arrays; Keith Zubchevich, director of operations and storage networks at Cisco Systems, who discussed the company's Andiamo product; and Michael Spotts, technology evangelist at StorageTek.

Attendees said both events were worthwhile.

Danny Rodriguez, network administrator at the Rancho California Water District based in Temecula, Calif., said he prefers to work with Nth Generation more than direct with vendors because the solution provider has access to a wide range of technology that can be applied to the water district's business requirements.

Rodriguez said he came to Nth Generation's event to see storage management software from Legato Systems and NSI Software. However, after seeing Diamond Lauffin, senior executive vice president of NexSAN Technologies, plug his company's disk-based backup product, Rodriguez said NexSAN's products could be a better alternative. "If this were an HP event, NexSAN probably wouldn't show up. Here, I not only learn about it, but I can go see it."

Scott Harvey, western region general manager for In.Vision Research, a St. Petersburg, Fla.-based software developer that also hosts customer applications on multiple Tbytes of storage, said Stack Computer's presentations were excellent. "I got to see where the industry is," he said. "It's tough to tell what's real, what's viable, and how to implement the new acronyms."