This book could not have happened without the assistance of every storage administrator, project manager, and executive who shared their story with me. Now more than ever, time is a premium commodity, of which none of us have enough. The fact that so many of you were willing to share your time with me highlights not only the passion that you have for your work, but also the desire in your hearts to help others like yourselves. Even if you were not allowed to speak on the record, you know who you are and your input is recorded here.Without a doubt, the Cisco Enterprise Storage Services team and its leadership (certainly my manager Scott Zimmer) deserve credit for allowing me to take this project on in addition to all my other responsibilities. Storage strategies and visions mean little without hard work to back them up. Along these same lines, I have to thank John Nelsen, Phil Lowden, and Hagen Finley for reviewing the work at its many stages. Although they might disagree, I believe that reviewing this book (and providing insightful, useful comments) was more difficult a task than writing it. To John I owe a special debt of gratitude for crafting the Cisco Storage Story and for shaping many of the guiding principles behind the storage vision.It is absolutely critical that I pass along my appreciation for the hard work and cooperation of the staff at IDC. In particular, I want to thank John McArthur and Natalya Yezhkova, who not only assisted me in my research, but also provided a close reading of the first draft and suggestions on how to best use the data provided by IDC.I also want to thank John Noh, the public relations manager for the Storage Technology Group at Cisco Systems, Inc., for his last minute assistance in helping me review the Cisco case study and for providing me with additional opportunities for publication.Alison Conigliaro-Hubbard of Cisco and Tom Gelbach of EMC were a tremendous help in lining up contacts for case studies. During the process of writing this book, I talked to numerous storage managers, project managers, and IT directors, but due to the sensitive nature of the material discussed here, many of the individuals I spoke to declined to share data in print. This does not mean that their input is not reflected here. To these individuals, I owe a great deal of thanks. For participating in this project anonymously with very little to show for your time and effort, I thank you.I also appreciate the assistance of the other researchers whose work is reprinted or referenced here. It is a pleasure to not have to undertake an effort such as this in a vacuum.I owe a debt of gratitude to Thomas Herbig at McKinsey and Company and Alberto Torres, formerly of McKinsey and Company and now with Nokia, as well as Tim Cannon at Harvard Business School Publishing, for their assistance in fine-tuning the work presented here.In addition, I would like to offer sincere thanks to the following individuals: Susan Davis, vice president of product marketing and management at Egenera; Nancy Herzog, director of marketing communications at Egenera; Ray Villeneuve, president and CEO of MonoSphere; Mark Davis, vice president of marketing and general manager of customer service and support at MonoSphere; Mike Koclanes, CTO of CreekPath; Scott Hansbury, senior vice president of marketing at CreekPath; Jennifer Roane, senior manager of public relations at CreekPath; Dr. Raphael Yahalom, chief scientist and co-founder of Onaro; and Tom Riddle, vice president of business development at Onaro.In addition, I want to thank Fred Moore of Horison Inc., Christian Terwiesch of the Wharton School, and authors Jon William Toigo and Nicholas Carr for their knowledge, guidance, and support.Many thanks to the Cisco Press production team, especially Andrew Cupp, Ginny Munroe, and my editor Jim Schachterle. I have always believed Cisco Press products to be of the highest quality. Having participated in the process for the last 12 months, I can personally attest to the quality of the teams dedicated to the production of Cisco Press materials.Finally, I want to thank Broad Street Coffee Roasters in Durham, North Carolina and Open Eye Café in the People's Republic of Carrboro. Many a great work can be contributed to great caffeine.
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