Product v Support

After 15 years in the storage and data protection game, I have come to a number of realisations.

Outside of specific requirements most products are the same, designed for the same job to get the same results. Obviously some are better designed and more robust, but all in all not a lot between them.  One product may have a new feature today, but within a very short period of time others will have a me too but bigger, better and faster.

So if there isn’t a lot between them, why do some installations succeed and other fail miserably?

It comes down to design, implementation, support and people. Any solution that stems from a bad design, or is badly implemented, or heaven forbid is badly supported, is doomed to suffer problems. That being said, even if you get all of the above right but the attitude of the people involved in the ongoing operation is lacking, it is ‘good night Viena’.

Even badly designed and poorly implemented solutions can be resurrected with good support and a supportive operations teams, but poor support or operational muppets will always cause problems.

It is like the single ‘pain’ of glass. Instead of the features and fiz, look at the vendors ability to support because at the end of the day this is one of the major factors in success. Forget about the success stories, ask them for a couple of failures that they have resurrected, or not – that will get their attention!