Storage Networking Times

Issue 6, October 2007

European End User Council Update
Charles Inches, Chair, SNIA Europe End User Council, eurousers@snia.org

As the Chair of the SNIA Europe End User Council (EUC) I would like to give an update on the status of our activities as representatives of the storage end-user community, and what better means of communication than our newsletter?

Let’s start by putting our work into context. When the SNIA Europe Board of Directors decided to embrace not only the vendors but also the buyers and the end-users, this idea received a great welcome from the entire industry. However, the local national boundaries, which we often map to cultural, religious, linguistic, social, etc confines, seem to be inhibiting a fast and broad adoption of end user members.

As a result, in 2006 the Council decided to take a different approach: we formed a Committee with representatives from ten well-known European companies from a number of different market sectors. After a couple of meetings, we are now in the process of updating our charter, again following international guidelines so that we don’t create too many differences with other SNIA end user groups round the globe, yet always in respect of the local specific differences. Interested in joining? Please drop me an email at eurousers@snia.org.

Last year, for the second time, we ran a survey across a broad base of end-users. Once again this was done in tight collaboration with the SNIA EUC in the US, giving us the possibility to compare US respondents with European ones. As an extract here are a couple of the main results:

Biggest worry: Upgrades:


• End users worry more about upgrades than about integrating new hardware, interoperable management software, and outdated management software;
• Storage management software requires the most frequent upgrades;
• 60% of support-recommended upgrades fix problems; 15% do not;
• 25% of support-recommended upgrades make problem worse.

End users have a strong desire for interoperability:


• 55% would pay more for an interoperable solution;
• 32% would de-select a product that did not offer interoperability;
• 6% weren't sure;
• 7% did not value interoperability.

We are always looking for more end users to join our Council so to become a member or to simply share some thoughts please don’t hesitate to email me. Alternatively I will be happy to see you at SNW Europe 2007!

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