Toigo Takes on SNIA

Most enterprise users of storage networking technology would probably agree that this is a chaotic and confusing space -- but will another trade organization or another analyst firm solve the problem? Industry veteran Jon William Toigo certainly thinks so. Next week, he'll be launching one of each.

Of course, not any old organization will do for the man dubbed by some as "Two Egos." Toigo has formed the Data Management Institute (DMI), which he says will look out for the best interests of users instead of focusing on vendors, unlike the Goliath of storage trade groups, Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA).

"We wanted to create an environment where end users could interact," Toigo says. He claims his new project isn't meant to compete directly with SNIA, but rather to complement it. "I'm hoping at some point we'll have a very synergetic relationship," he says. "They do a great job at what they do, but they don't represent the end user. They represent the industry."

The membership fee for joining the DMI will be about $1,000 a year, he says.

Meanwhile, Warren Smith, the marketing chair at SNIA and head of strategic marketing network storage solutions at Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE: HPQ), is quick to point out that SNIA has created a number of customer-focused organizations, including the Consumer Executive Council, the Customer Advisory Council, and StorageNetworking.org, a recently established joint initiative with the Information Storage Industry Center at the University of California at San Diego (UCSD). "The industry certainly needs to address the end user," he says (see Users Get Their Say).That's true, Toigo says -- but he notes sarcastically that in five years, SNIA has been able to attract only 800 users.

Still, at least one end user believes SNIA has been doing a good job of addressing customer concerns. Gary Foote, a systems manager at Aetna, says he was impressed with the cooperation and progress he saw at the latest Storage Networking World conference in Phoenix (see Three Days in the Desert).

"There seems to be some movement there," he says. "I'm not sure why Jon thinks a new organization is necessary."

Toigo says his organization, which among other things aims to advance a "consumer bill of rights," will be vendor-agnostic. He's promising a "fair and factual" assessment of technology products and services. At the same time, DMI will welcome vendors to sponsor its publications and conferences, act as speakers and trainers, and provide hardware and software for tests and for use in its reference model development efforts.

This won't, however, mean that the DMI will be playing favorites with vendors, Toigo insists. "If Seagate Technology Inc. [NYSE: STX] wants to throw their name on the back of a book, fine with me," he says. "It doesn't mean anything."The "institute" is a subsidiary of Toigo's new consulting firm, Toigo Partners International LLC. He asserts that other analysis and research companies in this space tend to favor vendors, whereas his new firm, like the "institute," aims to help the underserved consumer group. [Ed. note: Apparently, only Toigo has enough integrity to keep his hands clean.]

The consulting firm will offer training programs for storage managers and administrators and will also serve as a test lab for storage technology, he says. It will also offer data managers the opportunity to certify their skills on a "vendor-agnostic" basis at an affordable price, he says. Members will be charged $995 a track, he says.

"DMI is its own certification body," he says. "I don't care if vendors recognize it or not... It's not tied to any specific vendor's products." It's worth nothing that one of the industry's main SAN training and certification organizations, Infinity I/O Inc., is affiliated with SNIA.

Toigo Partners International, which is a joint venture between Toigo's independent consulting practice, Toigo Productions, and a number of peer organizations in Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, the U.K., and the U.S., has vowed not to accept money from any vendors. Instead, it will survive on investments from the consumers themselves, and is targeting especially Fortune 1000 end users for financing.

The question, of course, is how many end users will line up to pump money into Toigo's new ventures. He says the firm has already received $2.5 million in initial funding from private investors, and that he has received overwhelming feedback from storage consumers saying that this is something they're interested in.But several users Byte and Switch spoke with were less than enthusiastic about the prospects of joining the new club. Andy Argento, VP of information systems at Dynamex Inc., a provider of same-day delivery services based in Dallas, says he wouldn't be interested in joining the group, saying that it would be more trouble than it's probably worth.

"We are doing fine with the present solution that we have in place," he says. "It would not be worth an investment of time for my staff to pursue, as we are extremely busy."

Eugénie Larson, Reporter, Byte and Switch