Microsoft to Play with the Big Dogs in Storage

ENT, Oct 25, 2000 by Ted Williams

Storage management in the enterprise is uncharted territory for Microsoft, creating a problem for the software giant in its quest to become a player in the high end of the market. To tap the expertise of a couple of companies whose core competencies are in enterprise storage, Microsoft launched the Trusted Solutions Program (TSP). With the aid of Hitachi Data Systems and McData, the program delivers high availability; enhanced scalability, and reduced total cost to users of Microsoft Exchange and SQL Server applications via Windows 2000 Advanced Server. Then there is the issue of perception: When you're trying to play with the big dogs, it's nice to have some bite.

"This is all about instilling confidence," says Dave Roush, director of availability and benchmarking services at Microsoft. "It's about the enterprise guys looking to Microsoft's leadership to take advantage of our economic model, and about Microsoft joining with two partners that can ensure we present the best practices in systems management.

The TSP program is geared for greater productivity through server and storage consolidation. In Microsoft's case it applies to e-mail, messaging, and databases as mission-critical applications. Certainly the need exists for such a program with the explosion of e-mail in the enterprise, but it brings up a question that applies to a lot of multicompany ventures launched these days. Just how successful can such a multicompany program be when it comes to service?

Dave Hill, research director for storage and storage management at Aberdeen Group, sees the partnership as a win-win-win position for the three participants. It will work fine, as long as it's in Microsoft's best interest to work.

TSP has been benchmarked at a minimum of 5,000 Microsoft Exchange e-mail users with RAID 5 and a 280-GB backup capacity per hour minimum for SQL Server. TSP links Windows 2000 Advanced Server clusters with Hitachi's Freedom Storage Lightning 9900 subsystem and McData's ED-5000 enterprise-class Director. The scaleable service can be accessed by end users today.

"Where we really need to help is with very large applications," says Chris Henderson, vice president for high availability at Hitachi. "An example I can give you is a large insurer with 500,000 mail users looking to upgrade to 800,000. That's the kind of thing that can be a manageability nightmare. But we've been able to assimilate the technology that can allow us to be able to go from 500 users per server to 5,000. We've been doing serious benchmarking on this since May. We know we have a real winner here."

Beta tests indicate that TSP implementation teams, ranging from two to six technicians depending upon need, can deliver solid configuration in two to eight months -- again depending on the scope of the configuration.

"One very big value the program creates in the B2B [business-to-business] environment is the proper configuration of servers," Henderson says. "One of the major availability problems surrounding Microsoft servers is they simply haven't been configured properly."

Jeff Vogel, vice president for solutions and integration services at McData, sees the potential popularity of such a program as boundless.

"When you look at data across the enterprise, you see 60 to 70 percent of data utilizing NT platforms," Vogel says. "When you consider there are 400 million people using e-mail today, you can bet plenty of customers are looking to grab processing solutions and support."

"Think about how much of your company's life is tied up inside of Exchange," Henderson says. "Customers are not just thinking about expanding storage today. They're thinking 12 months down the road. They have to pay more attention to quality products and services."

Down the road is where this program will be properly judged, Hill says. "On the surface, it's a good thing when different sets of companies combine to provide services they can't provide individually," he says. "Exchange, Outlook, and everything surrounding those applications are growing exponentially everywhere, so it's certainly advantageous for Microsoft to take advantage of Hitachi's and McData's storage position in the enterprise space -- and for them to take advantage of Microsoft's name and enormous customer base."

While Hitachi and McData are old hands at service at the enterprise level, it's a new ballgame for Microsoft. Because Microsoft has so many irons in the fire, Hill says it's most likely incumbent upon the other two partners to make it work with the blessings of Microsoft.

"If they can make it work with limited manpower, software, and development from Microsoft, that's great. If Microsoft must provide more that that, it may not have a long-term interest in making the program succeed. Those are the risks you take when you sign on for these things."

Microsoft[R]

McDATA HITACHI DATA SYSTEMS

Microsoft's Trusted Solutions Program enlists Hitachi Data Systems and McData to deliver high availability and enhanced scalahility to Exchange and SQL Server via Windows 2000 Advanced Server.