From its beginnings as a developer of software programs for mission critical inventory applications, Zerowait has focused on the backbone of today's high availability networks - infrastructure maintenance and technical support. This breadth of experience has given Zerowait the specific knowledge and focus it needs to service our world-wide customer base. Increased usage of the Internet for the transmission of inventory data and status reports required our customers to deploy large Web server farms to handle the load, and this led us to explore the specialty area of load-balancing and traffic management. By 1999, we became an OEM for Arrowpoint, a major player in the switch-based, load-balancing arena. Arrowpoint was soon after purchased by Cisco, making load-balancing ubiquitous, so Zerowait adapted, concentrating on related areas of business including caching, data storage and backup.
NetApp, Inc. (NetApp®) had gained a reputation for excellence in highly reliable storage, and we chose to partner with them for our high availability customer base. Their filers were synonymous with reliability, simplicity, and performance, and for our customers with BIG DATA, such as banks and scientific organizations, NetApp's filer was the clear answer for storage, access, and backups. Their NetCache product, built on a filer base but optimized for web content, was a logical solution for our larger ISP load-balancing customers. We became a NetApp Platinum level reseller, and then one of the first NetApp® Registered Service Providers. Using our knowledge of high availability infrastructures, we rapidly grew to be a very successful and knowledgeable NetApp® reseller with loyal customers who appreciated our honest approach to their strategic storage plans.
As the Dot Com boom imploded, Zerowait changed its course once again. By late 2002, as NetApp's service and support costs skyrocketed, we found our niche in third-party support. With our loyal customers assisting, we developed a comprehensive solution that provided them a Next Business Day (NBD) advanced parts replacement solution along with Incidental Technical Services (ITS) to assist with configurations, migrations, and other complex tasks. Faced with burgeoning maintenance costs, end-of-life hardware, and their storage salesman's constant pressure to "Buy New!", the legions of disaffected NetApp filer owners grew. Users understood that their storage equipment was sound, often underutilized, and operating as reliably as ever. Customers came to us to extend the life of their existing systems past artificial EOL dates and conserve their budget dollars. Via word of mouth from our satisfied customers, our reputation and customer list expanded quickly.
We added recycled/refurbished hardware sales to our support offerings, working with select leasing companies to help them remarket their NetApp equipment inventory with transferable licenses. Our customers recognized the exceptional value these parts, subsystems, and systems offered, and Zerowait continued to grow, adding international support with our first off-shore location in Manchester, UK, followed by one in Sydney, Australia, to meet the demands of the world-wide marketplace.
In 2010, our growing family of NetApp customers told us they needed an affordable, large capacity, highly dense storage solution for their rapidly growing archive and video requirements; NetApp’s solutions were too expensive and not dense enough. Working with some of our biggest customers, our engineering team developed SimplStor--our line of On Premise data storage. Using the same components as the big iron guys--Intel processors, Seagate and Hitachi drives and Broadcom RAID controllers--our team put together a flexible architecture for our customers with a range of servers offering 12, 36 and 60 drive bays and 2 JBOD shelves offering 45 or 90 drive bays--allowing us to custom-tailor a storage solution that meets the exact requirements of each client. The SimplStor platform provides redundant hot swap drives, PSUs and fans. When our customers expressed interest in Red Hat and Windows solutions, we added those products to our mix. Today we can offer 2.9PB raw in only 12U. And all of our SimplStor systems include the first year of SimplSupport, offering phone home diagnostics with weekly status reports, 24/7 access to our engineering staff, and next business day parts replacement.
Today, we continue to provide our customers with unbiased advice on affordable, long term procurement and support strategies for their NetApp infrastructures. Zerowait has prospered through turbulent times in the networking and storage business because we listen to our customers and provide them with excellent service at reasonable prices. If you are looking for a responsive company that will put your requirements first, please contact us by calling toll free in the USA 888.811.0808.