Why Listening Might Be The Most Important Step in Your Cloud Journey
Much of my day is spent listening. I listen to customers talk about the business problems they are trying to solve. I listen to them describe their own unique situation. I listen to partners who are making massive investments as they transform how they can help their customers.
I have found that it is vital to listen rather than talk so I can understand on a deep level what each individual is trying to achieve, their environment, the nature of how their company does business, and their budgets, constraints and timelines.
Why Listening Leads to Partnership
I have to get on my soapbox here, because at NetApp, we’re not just a storage company anymore; in fact, we never were just a storage company. We’ve always provided complete solutions to serve our customers. I believe that is what has differentiated us from our competition: we listen, we understand, and we build unique solutions to address the issues of our clients. And of course we never do it alone. We always choose from a wide mix of technology and partners, including hardware, applications, services, or a combination of all three.
Building a Cloud-Ready Data Center
There is a general misconception that if NetApp is offering cloud solutions, it only has to do with data storage. Nothing could be further from the truth. In actuality, we offer everything from strategic planning at the C-Level, through IT as a Service workshops, through data management and migration solutions, along with completely integrated hybrid architectures validated with our partners.
While it is true that storage is a big part of cloud architecture, there is also the need to move computing and other resources out of the data center. Using technologies such as VMware, OpenStack, and Microsoft server virtualization, literally anything from desktops all the way up to the entire computer room can be moved to the cloud. And NetApp has the experience, the passion and the chops to help you get there.
Protecting Your Data
Your company depends on your computing resources, and it’s important to prepare for any level of disaster. This includes not only your data, which is of course important, but also your applications and your people themselves.
One of the areas I love working on with our partners and our customers is helping to design rock-solid solutions for near instant recovery from failures, with zero data loss, in the event of a disaster. Getting this right is priceless for companies. Architecting cloud-integrated backup and archive solutions are all about having your back and reducing your exposure by ensuring your data is safely stored off-site in the cloud, with options to perform on-site backups as well.
Enterprise Application Solutions
While hardware and cloud technologies are important, customers judge your company based upon your applications, and your business operates due to the availability, performance and reliability of your data. After all, it doesn’t matter how glamorous your cloud solution or hardware is if the application experience of the user is suboptimal, or if management cannot get the reports it needs in a timely manner. I remember one CIO laughing has he told me that after they worked with us, his users called him and said “why are our reports running so fast – what did you do.” He admitted it was the first time in his career he had ever had a call like that. It felt good for him and it felt great for us.
Conclusion
It all comes back to what I said at the beginning. The first most important element we can bring to help you in your cloud journey is our ability to listen. And if we can do that right, the rest is simply a terrific walk in the park.
Let me know your thoughts on this blog posting – when did really listening make a difference for you?