“It’s not about what you can do for your customer, it’s about what your customer wants you to do for them.”

That’s the refreshing insight of Digital Sense Chief Technical Officer Michael Tran, who cites storage giant NetApp as one of the industry leaders in IT Innovation.

Speaking at the NetApp Elevate in Auckland last week, Tran spoke at length about his company’s decision to partner NetApp for Storage as a Service and Cloud offerings, a decision he made following extensive industry research.

“Other vendors tried to sell us what they could do for us but NetApp listened to our brief and understood what we wanted to do,” says Tran, who is based in Brisbane.

“We had our own vision for Digital Sense and were keen to align with a company who shared this vision, hence our decision to partner with NetApp.”

Tran believes that if Digital Sense follows the same route as its competitors, it will never get ahead of the game.

But after a competitive bid, Digital Sense chose NetApp due to the agility and scalability that its solutions can provide, allowing storage capacity to grow as the business does.

“NetApp was the only vendor that could meet our brief, which was to provide highly-competitive, enterprise-grade cloud services that could be distributed across multiple data centers throughout Brisbane,” Tran adds.

“Customers will save up to 80% through the aggressive and competitive large-scale cloud storage service that Digital Sense is now capable of providing.”

An Australian owned company specialising in providing cutting edge IT infrastructure through the company’s purpose-built Brisbane data center, Digital Sense’s relationship with NetApp was based on three core principles - storage, flexibility and value for money.

“When it comes to storage you have no second chance,” Tran says. “If you lose your storage you lose your business.

“Digital Sense trusts NetApp because if something goes wrong, we know they will provide top quality support.”

Alluding back to the issue of flexibility, Tran believes NetApp’s ability to tailor its solutions to the company’s business needs made it the standout bidder among vendors.

As a result, Digital Sense is now able to offer a new range of enterprise level solutions to customers through the implementation of a NetApp platform provided by systems integration company, FLEXdata.

“Flexibility is a huge point of difference,” Tran adds. “Not just in sticking to the brief but the seamless integration through out our business.

“NetApp made everything simple. While I wouldn’t say they have made storage easy, they’ve certainly made it manageable which helps our organisation become more proactive going forward.”

As a service provider, it is of the utmost importance that Digital Sense has continuous and reliable access to its data, with non-disruptive operations and seamless scalability.

To address these specific needs, Digital Sense selected a NetApp solution that comprises two NetApp FAS3220 units running clustered Data ONTAP 8.2, providing unprecedented flash support and up to 1.4PB of data storage.

“Value for money is huge for us,” Tran says. “NetApp isn’t in the cheap and nasty bracket, it provides a quality of service and support which made them standout out among its competitors.”

In essence, NetApp is renowned for creating innovative products—storage systems and software that help customers around the world store, manage, protect, and retain one of their most precious corporate assets: their data.

Recognised throughout the industry for continually pushing the limits of today’s technology, NetApp ensures customers never have to choose between saving money and acquiring the capabilities they need to be successful.

For more information on NetApp products click here