The advent of the cloud has ignited the hope of a storage recovery.

While storage technology innovation has never been interrupted, no technological innovation has ever been able to break the silence of the storage market in a short period of time. The advent of the cloud era has raised hopes of a storage recovery, and those isv/si, who have never been stored as core businesses in the storage value chain, have also begun to favor storage vendors. The famous distributors with professional distribution networks are becoming intimate with the storage vendors in their cages and favors.

A few years ago, people in the industry said that talking about the "biosphere" of storage channels is like looking at a picture hanging on a wall, meaning that the ecological circle can only be an ideal in storage. In the industry also has such a real joke: said that a storage sales to visit customers, the other party thought he was engaged in mobile storage, and even asked him how much money u disk sold.

Storage is inherently vulnerable, not only the user's perception of storage is low, but within many vendors, the store's sales force is much smaller than the service server. All along, storage is sold as a server's affiliate product. But with IBM, HP and other enterprises in the completion of the storage sector and the server division, the domestic enterprises are gradually separate the department. Although from the original server channel away from, there will be costs, staffing costs increase, but in the long run, this separation of the "pain" is a barrier to be passed.

Because storage products need to deliver different storage solutions based on the needs of users, whether it's security, recoverability, high availability, and manageability, it's much more complex than any other IT product. From storage vendors to channel providers, they are the key to mastering the storage market Initiative because they have the ability to provide efficient and practical storage solutions for their users. So, in fact, the value of storage products is not in the product itself, but in the suitability and satisfaction of the user's application needs.

The environment in China's storage market is changing, and as tape storage recovers strongly in the second half of the 2009, China's storage software market will grow at a rate of 18% per cent over the next 5 years. At the same time, with the evolution of storage architecture, the proliferation of global data and the advent of the cloud era, the traditional storage architecture has been brought to life.

Challenges and opportunities always coexist, in the face of opportunities to compete is also tragic.

Reporter for the last two years to store sales data to do a comparison, in the enterprise of storage product procurement behavior survey found that domestic users for the first time to buy storage products accounted for 70%-80%, the second upgrade only accounted for 10%-20%. In other words, the user's awareness of the upgrading of storage products is far inferior to the PC, software products, storage products is basically a one-time behavior. And for the procurement of the results of the survey also shows that the enterprise alone procurement of storage products accounted for only 20%, and by the system integrators or other forms of "packaging" sales accounted for more than 70%. Some users do not even make specific requirements for what storage products are configured.

The findings also show that users are less well known and knowledgeable about the use of storage products than other IT products. Integration Integrators also play a big role in determining the sales of storage products. Users consider nothing more than cost-effective and fast and convenient service, when the integrator given the scheme, the next is in the supply chain distribution flow is smooth, and the system to build the time is the user directly concerned about the problem. At the same time, if there is a problem in the system, it will be disastrous, precisely because of the uniqueness of the storage industry, it is bound to make its supply chain particularly sensitive.

(Responsible editor: The good of the Legacy)