A “Tweeterview” with Stephen Foskett, Nirvanix Consulting Director

“Incent people correctly and you will have real success not just sales.”

If a luddite like Maureen Dowd can do it, then there’s no reason why we here at tech-savvy Online Storage Optimization can’t conduct an interview via Twitter. And who better to try this idea out with than Stephen Foskett, one of the most social media savvy and active bloggers and tweeters in the storage world. Stephen recently joined cloud storage provider Nirvanix as Director of Consulting.

In addition to being a great way to elicit some thoughtful responses, the process itself proved to be an interesting experiment in public interviewing. For example, at several points others retweeted Stephen’s responses, and even jumped in with their own answers to my questions. So, here for your reading pleasure is the complete interview, with all of the 140-character-long questions and answers. If he gave secondary responses, I note it by separating them with an ellipsis (…).

@sunshinemug: Let’s start with this–what’s yr new gig at Nirvanix like so far, and what are you hoping to accomplish there?

@sfoskett: It’s an amazing start-up atmosphere: All hands on deck and everyone pushing in the same direction. It’s a breath of fresh air! … I’m so glad to be focused 100% on enterprise storage and enterprise strategies again. … I actually wasn’t much interested in “just some job”, it was the vision of tiered storage including the cloud that hooked me!

@sunshinemug: Sounds fun! And what are they pushing towards? i.e. What kinds of goals are front and center there right now?

@sfoskett: Goal number 1 is building a new kind of enterprise storage: Managed, off-site, scalable, granular, mobile. (Retweeted by Marc Farley @3parfarley).

@sunshinemug: What’s the potential for CloudNAS in yr estimation?

@sfoskett: CloudNAS is a gateway really – it’s a way to get data in and out of the cloud without re-engineering applications. … One of the hurdles to managed storage is having to rewrite applications to make use of even standard APIs.

@sunshinemug: Interesting– so yr saying that eliminating that hurdle is a reason to use them?

@sfoskett: Every product has hurdles, and in storage it’s all about migration. How do I start using your solution? How do I stop? (Also retweeted by @3parfarley.) … Nirvanix is not trying to make CloudNAS a competitor for NetApp or a Microsoft file server, it’s a bridge.

@sunshinemug: What does your role–Dir. of Consulting–entail?

@sfoskett: I’m an evangelist for storage as a service inside enterprise IT. How do they write SLAs? Make a business case? Set up tiers?

@sunshinemug: So you interact directly w/IT mgrs? Or…? And what are the biggest probs they are facing at this point that you help them solve?

@sfoskett: IT management’s biggest challenge is how to continue to innovate in this budget-squeezed environment. Save money and do better! … It’s interesting to be in the fray more instead of in the ivory tower pretending I’m not selling anything.

@sunshinemug: Say more about that–how has the move out of the ivory tower been and what are you learning?

@sfoskett: I wrote on my blog about trust, independence, and credibility and the consulting business equation. This changes that. … My goal is to connect with enterprise customers and help them, not to build a business on billable consulting hours.

@sunshinemug: In what ways? I.e. How are you walking that fine line?

@sfoskett: I don’t work for sales, marketing, or engineering. I work for the CEO. He understands that the best customer is the right one.

@sunshinemug: Seems like this is where many people are headed–thinking in terms of service rather than “what’s in it for me.”

@sfoskett: There’s a point that you get desperate and say how can I push it out the door. This happens in services as well as SW/HW sales! … I think that means the incentives are wrong. Incent people correctly and you will have real success not just sales.

@sunshinemug: OK one final question: what do you predict will be the most notable trend in the coming year for the storage industry?

@sfoskett: I think this is the year of automated tiered storage. Everyone is going in that direction. It’s where v12n gets real!

For this question, several other responses also came in:

@StorageMonkeys: Notable trend?: Consolidation: budget footprint, workforce, energy.

@storagebod: Notable trend this year will be make and mend…but next year, I think we’ll see some new tech along V-MAX lines appearing … This will be game-changing as we move into a nearly fully automated management paradigm.

@3parfarley notable trends:   moving outside comfort zones to make major leaps in performance and efficiency.

@ianhf: this year = rabbits from hats money wise | end year = cloud storage, API storage and automated tiers – raid will be hygiene.

And, it’s not to late if you have something to say. Simply fill in the comment field below.

We hope you enjoyed this experiment in Twitter-viewing.

About our interview subject: Stephen Foskett has provided vendor-independent end user consulting on storage topics for over 10 years. He has been a storage columnist and has authored numerous articles for industry publications. Stephen is a popular presenter at industry events and recently received Microsoft’s MVP award for contributions to the enterprise storage community. As the director of consulting for Nirvanix, Foskett provides strategic consulting to assist Fortune 500 companies in developing strategies for service-based tiered and cloud storage. He holds a bachelor of science in Society/Technology Studies, from Worcester Polytechnic Institute.