Storage Swagapalooza!

NetApp’s gift of a T-shirt the other day made me think about all the other s.w.a.g. I’ve collected during my time in the storage industry – I’ve become something of a collector of odd trade-show tchotchkes. And I realized when I looked at the items I’ve kept, my desk has become a personal museum of now-defunct or acquired companies. So I thought a brief tour of my collection might be a fun Friday post.

Here are some of the things I’ve accumulated:

Commemorative EMC baseball

This baseball commemorates EMC’s naming rights to the luxury boxes at Fenway Park. No word on whether it matches the one Joe Tucci threw at Hideki Okajima.

Clearly, a match made in (baseball) heaven

Might a shared passion for baseball-themed marketing strategies have brought these two together?

A plastic poseable snake with ‘Neverfail’ on it
 
That’s about all I can say about this one.

Stress ball collection

I’m into items I can squish in moments of angst. As you can tell by the wear and tear, the green Copan version in the back there is the prize piece of my collection. It makes a sickening squishing noise when you squeeze it thanks to its air-filled honeycomb structure.

Somehow not the message I think they wanted to send

All I can think of when I see this Arsenal dice-shaped mint box is, “Arsenal–roll the dice and choose us!” Not the kind of thing a backup SaaS provider wants to be saying to customers, necessarily, but then again, that is taking this particular item out of context – I’m sure I got it in Vegas, where 99.9% of storage vendor conferences are held and where chip, dice and card-themed giveaways are mandatory.

Squishy braiiiiiin…

Another of my absolute favorites. It’s really difficult to describe the sticky, squishy texture of this little model brain in a plastic petri dish from ADIC. Kind of like Wacky WallWalkers, if anybody remembers those. Can be used to simultaneously entertain and horrify coworkers and friends!

“Who Backs Up Your Remote Office?”

This colorful travel mug, another Avamar classic, is meant to provoke frightened introspection about whether your remote office data protection strategies have been left up to a gum-popping entry-level employee.

DPM man

This is from the first launch of Microsoft’s Data Protection Manager. Adam West’s appearance at their launch event was admittedly more of a draw.

CommVault Magic 8 Ball

Another possibly unfortunate association with randomness and uncertainty, but this was one of my favorite toys as a kid.

EMC desk calendar

As you can see, I haven’t kept up with it very well…

Green EMC storage

Last year’s origami project helped me repurpose these EMC calendar resources and cut down the amount of waste I generated from my desk. My goal is to do the same with this year’s calendar,  totally behind though I am, and put both batches of birds towards a Senbazuru.

McData parachuter

This was a donation to my collection from one of my former colleagues. Not sure where it came from.

Contents: one brain

Sanrad’s got my back in case I need a spare. Or need to sarcastically offer it to someone.

Email archiving voodoo doll

Now this is the piece de resistance. Quite possibly the most thoughtful and elaborate marketing giveaway ever, by MessageOne. this voodoo doll comes with pins, hair samples and an instruction guide as well as its own storage box…

…as well as outfits to dress it up in:

Pictured here: Rogue User’ and ‘Idiot with Backhoe (presumably one that takes out power to your data center).