As we close for another financial year a BIG THANK YOU to all who had a hand in making this year very successful for all our Customers, Channels, and Vendors. We have seen enormous growth this last year that will continue in the new year.

Some highlights from the last 12 months:

• AustSTOR First to ship UDO-2 Technology
• Energy Efficient technology gets exposed using AutoMAID technology and comparing archiving technologies Magnetic Disk Vs Magnetic Tape Vs Optical
• Shipping fist LTO-4 Tape Drives and Libraries
• Shipping first AIT-5 Drives and Libraries
• Availability of BridgeHead Software Archiving Suite and Data Grooming Tools

Around the corner and into the new year:

• Exciting new opportunities for Customer and Channel Partners
  
• New Extended National and International Support program through Computergate
  
• New Leasing Service offered through LeaseChoice
• New eNewsletter and Website

Last month I was given the opportunity to travel to Sorrento, Italy with one of our Vendors (QStar) to eat, drink and discuss current trends in the Storage Industry.  

One very prominent analyst was there (Jon Toigo - www.drunkendata.com). Jon has been to many industry events in Australia/New Zealand covering various topics. His wealth of knowledge and experience into all things storage (specifically Archiving) was a breath of fresh air for all delegates.

If you have ever been to one of Jon’s Open Forums, you would agree that it is his no BULL approach to the topic and really keeps you hooked on his comments and experience. Jon commented heavily on big vendor hype (marketecture – not  architecture).

My take on it all; we all see it, read it and hear it; ‘do more with less’. IT budgets are not getting bigger and there is more demand being placed on IT to deliver more performance, more capacities, more availability, and secure the whole lot. The Big Vendors hears it and their response (vendor-speak) is to half bake a number of ‘their own solutions’ together and call it another name ‘silver bullet’.  The take home; there is plethora of different technologies in the market and no matter what any one vendor say’s, there is no such thing as a ‘silver bullet solution’ to solve all your problems. The answer is ‘bake your own solution’ it costs less, it meets your needs specifically and it tastes a hell of a lot better, cause you know what has gone into the mix. And the best person to mix it all up for you is your local Systems Integrator.

If you would like any further info on the discussions or presentations that took part in Italy, send an email or give me a call.

Alternatively I will be presenting the findings at the IIM (Institute for Information Management) National Conference in Canberra on the 14-16 of August 2007 (http://online.iim.org.au/minigen/)

Jon Toigo has put together a series of online videos presenting on topics such as;
Toigo on Storage
Toigo on "Storage Networking"
Toigo on Archive
Toigo on Data Protection
Toigo on Storage Security