Unfortunately, customers don’t always spend enough time in the data gathering and discussion phases when they have a problem to solve. They like to skip the “What do I need to accomplish” question and jump to “What should I buy?” And they usually have no trouble finding vendors (and VARs) that will tell them what to buy.

They may not admit it, but a lot of customers are pressured to jump into a new technology, like the cloud. They’re being fed unrealistic claims about its benefits, and they’re predisposed to believing a technology solution exists for every problem (it’s in their genes). In some environments, users can bypass IT and simply start using a cloud product on their own. So IT certainly has to stay on top of a potential cloud solution that makes sense—or lose some control over their information infrastructure. In this regard they need to know what the cloud can and cannot do for them. As their trusted storage advisor, it may be time for you to have the “cloud talk” with your customer.

As a delivery mechanism, a cloud solution can be one of many options available for a product. Savvy companies know this and are making the cloud one of several ways to use their products. In backup, for example, Symantec is rolling out cloud versions of its existing software solutions, like Backup Exec. But the product still provides data protection and business continuity, not the cloud.

One area that’s helping to confuse customers is with new products. As a delivery mechanism, the cloud is making it easier—and faster—for startups to get their products out to customers. Distributing software as a service takes a lot less time and resources than developing, testing and supporting a full-blown software product on a whole range of platforms. In that regard the cloud is truly an enabling technology, but it’s still not the product.

As a VAR, being able to sit your customers down and have the cloud talk—or a similar discussion about the next high-profile technology—puts you firmly into a consultative role. Separating the facts from hype and showing customers when they don’t need to buy something can really set you apart from the competition.

Now there certainly are a lot of cloud-related product options for you to sell, and it’s prudent to stay on top of what’s available. After all, there are a lot of viable cloud products providing real business value. But like in any other quality meeting with a customer, the conversation should start with questions about what problems they need to solve, not just answers about what products they should buy.

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The VM6 Managed Cloud Platform is a software application that uses Microsoft Hyper-V to create a scalable, all-in-one IT infrastructure without any complex network or storage setup. This solution can be installed on any Win 2008/Hyper-V-compatible servers to create a high availability (HA) cloud infrastructure, consolidating the internal storage available on connected servers into a virtual shared-storage pool, replacing the need for a SAN. It supports automated application failover and migration of live workloads among VMs, to provide customers with a true HA solution for critical applications.

Storage Switzerland recently spoke with an MSP based in the Boston area that’s been using VM6 for two years. “We just couldn’t afford the investment in traditional hardware and software needed to provide the uptime and scalability that we had to have for a viable cloud service,” admitted the founder and CTO. Only basic Microsoft skills were needed to install and centrally control this virtual infrastructure, providing a way to establish a cloud infrastructure easily and offer the services that its traditional customer base is asking for. It was the enabling technology that allowed this MSP to get into the game.

More than that, this scalable, virtual environment also gave the company increased efficiencies as it consolidated clients onto less physical infrastructure. And it allowed the MSP to offer a true HA solution, something that was a step up from what most of those businesses had in their own server rooms. But in addition to providing an improved product and service levels for clients, this HA capability provided substantial benefits for the MSP as well. In the next entry we’ll continue this discussion and detail those benefits.

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CloudShare solves this last-mile problem that many cloud providers have, getting their services into the end users’ sites where they’re needed, or getting users’ applications and data into the cloud and accessible. With its “infrastructure on demand” model, users export their virtual server environments to CloudShare’s production cloud. This can come directly from an existing virtual infrastructure or can be created by CloudShare from existing physical servers, storage and networking. The users can then run these applications for their own ongoing production, leveraging the scalability and off-site protection of the cloud. Or, they can use this on-demand environment for temporary or one-time applications, like product demos and evaluations, as well as internal data storage training environments. This is the part that VARs should be interested in.

ISVs and system integrators are a major customer segment for CloudShare, which enables them to set up a private Cloud Demo Center, a dedicated, branded, mini-site allowing a controlled demo experience with embedded user tips and messaging for each product. This environment can be set up in a few minutes and left running for as long as necessary to allow the prospect to work and play with it on their own. Compared with the alternative of putting hardware and software on-site and the commitment in resources required to leave it running, this implementation of the cloud can offer dramatic cost advantages. Another benefit for VARs is the ability to duplicate the best demos with templates and customized materials from the most successful sales engineers. For VARs that struggle with getting SEs up to speed with new products and new vendors, this can be very valuable.

For many integrators, there never seems to be enough resources (time, money or personnel) to support on-site demos as they would like. Most VARs have a few products they’re strong with and a list of others for which they have to rely on their vendors’ SEs. With CloudShare a VAR could keep as many demos “in the can” as they need, ready to be rolled out and run when sales finds a prospect. Also, having these demo environments ready to run can facilitate SE training for organizations with distributed offices and personnel who travel a lot.

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