with Siler through the
entire process, from order- Solution providers were asked to select their
ing the product to receipt preferred products in 26 categories and list the
of the technology to instal- reasons for their picks. Now the votes are in
lation and training. The and counted. The results contain a mix of sur-
initial order included the prises and some expected outcomes. Perhaps
Axiom 500 configured THE most surprising is how close the results are in
with 4.8TB of storage with
Cisco MDS switches for CHANNEL’S a good number of categories, and that means
vendors whose products ranked first cannot
the fabric.
However, Siler said that TOP CHOSEN afford to rest on their laurels as competitors try
to dethrone them.
from the time the contract
was signed, Pillar commu- PRODUCTS The full list of results, a comprehensive
analysis of the outcome and an explanation
nicated with Cholestech
either face to face or via
a conference call until 60 OF 2006 of the methodology are accessible at e WEEK’s
sister Web site, The Channel Insider (www.
channelinsider.com). Visit www.channelinsider.
days after implementation. com/article/Product+Power+in+the+Channel/
“Pillar wanted to make 206756_1.aspx for the full report.
sure that any problems Be sure also to visit The Channel Insider
were well-documented and regularly for daily news coverage and incisive
resolved by the next phone commentary on the channel issues of the day.
call,” Siler said.
Cholestech received the
product in September. servers by seven using mentation have seen the for virtualization. “We’ve
Adeara was on-site the day VMware,” said Siler, noting transmission of a 5MB file, also informally discussed
of delivery to help take it that the first seven servers for example, reduced from installing archive and
out of the box, roll it to that were virtualized were 30 minutes to seconds on backup technology,” he
the server room, plug it older equipment that was the SAN. said.
in and get it up and run- the most susceptible to Siler also cites system For both Pillar and
ning. In fact, at any given failure. Today, all servers expandability and flexibil- Adeara, working with
time during the project, boot off of the SAN. Two ity as huge benefits. “And Cholestech was a big win.
an engineer from Adeara Cisco Fibreswitches, oneof when it comes to manage- “They’re one of our early
and one from Pillar were which is an extra for redun- ment, the system takes care biotech accounts, and bio-
on-site. The Cisco engi- dancy, were also installed of itself,” he said. technology is a high-growth
neer was on-site for part on Adeara’s advice, Siler area,” said Jensen, who f one day. said. Looking ahead added that Pillar already
Siler’s network engi- Cholestech has seen going forward, adeara has a foot in the door with
neer—one of five people many benefits as a result will continue to work with health care and life science
that make up Cholestech’s of installing the new stor- Cholestech to help the sectors. ´
IT department—worked age technology, accord- company increase storage
side by side with the ing to Siler, who added capacity and with server Lynn Haber is a freelance
installation profession- that the biggest benefit is virtualization work. writer in Norwell, Mass. She
als. “Instead of having the uptime and the availabil- According to Reny, Cho- can be reached at lthaber@
Adeara and Pillar engi- ity of service. “Before, we lestech plans to double comcast.net.
neers do all the configu- were experiencing weekly the Axiom 500 system’s
ration work, they put my reboots. Nowthemachines storage capacity by add- REQUEST FOR COMMENTS
person, who had exposure on the SAN have experi- ing another 4.8TB some-
to SAN technology, in the enced zero downtime,” he time in the spring for Have a comment or
driver’s seat,” he said. said. data such as Microsoft file suggestion? Please
The project began by Users also are getting stores and a SQL database. e-mail Editor Debra Donston
moving Cholestech’s 27 better systemperformance. Cholestech also plans to at debra_donston
servers to the Axiom 500 Remote workers who send evaluate Hewlett-Packard ziffdavis.com.
SAN. “We reduced the 27 program files and docu- blade server technology
www.eweek.com
