Sometimes the best ideas come from just listening.  So when our enterprise customers talked to us about the difficulty of managing storage, the increasing complexity, and the unaffordable consulting, we really listened. 

With the launch today of Dell's Storage Simplification Assessments portfolio, we're ushering in a new way to simplify storage, particularly for the under-served mid market.   You might say that other companies also offer storage services, and that is certainly true.  But this globally-consistent set of offerings is radically different because they are designed to simplify the evaluation and selection of storage, backup, recovery and archiving environments.  The assessments identify the core issues driving complexity and provide a simple path to simplifying customers' storage and backup environments.  They include validated repeatable processes for assessments which are reliable, decrease risk and drive faster resolution to understanding IT infrastructure. Rather than sending an army of consultants, Storage Simplification Assessments practice starts with a simple evaluation. Then the customer can choose one or more of three assessment offers:

• The Storage for Server Virtualization Assessment, which quickly evaluates the existing storage infrastructure to ensure that data is properly managed in a virtual server environment.
• The Backup, Restore and Archive Assessment analyzes the entire backup , restore and archiving environment to proactively address recovery time objectives.
• The Data Management and Storage Technology Assessment, which gives a detailed analysis of the existing storage infrastructure with recommendations to improve the overall data management environment and determine the most appropriate storage technology needed to meet business needs.

How does this differ from what everyone else is offering?  First, it is a departure from the industry's traditional storage and backup consulting approach because it can deliver information in days, instead of weeks.  The assessments use non-disruptive tools and processes.  Also they offer technical and operational inventories of storage and backup environments and help customers more rapidly decide which solution will best meet their needs.

Dell's Storage Simplification Assessments are available immediately through Dell and will be offered to Dell Registered Partners.  Here are a couple links you might want to look at on storage consolidation and backup, recovery and archiving.

Let me know what you think of these assessments and if they meet your needs.