I remember when I started in my role there were proposals on the table for an infrastructure upgrade, one of which included a SAN (and a corresponding price tag). SAN was being recommended as the obvious choice and has been at intervals since then. At the time I knew I was lacking the knowledge/experience to make an informed decision, so despite the opportunity to get a bit of SAN experience, I opted for a local storage only solution. It turned out that’s all we’ve ever needed and the SAN would have been overkill, and given the very wide remit and responsibilities of SMB IT, it would have just ended up being a half-neglected liability. Right now, local storage is meeting all of our needs but of course we can look at SAN again in the future as and when our needs change.

In the SMB space it’s not likely that there are many people to turn to for advice, especially people who fully understand your business needs. The majority of conversations around new solutions are, for me at least, with the sales people and of course these are laden with bias. But knowing that doesn’t prevent us from being influenced. Having the confidence to go against the grain is not easy, and admittedly my own decision was more a result of reservation and uncertainty than confidence.

I appreciate the amount of consideration that goes into this blog and the willingness to question industry norms in smaller organisations. It helps to reinforce my own confidence when something just “doesn’t feel right” and hopefully arrive at solutions which are appropriate for the organisation.