Follow the Wire
Virtualization
Storage
Data Protection
Questions to Ask Customers
100

A computer that manages access to a centralized resource 

Ex: host applications.

What is a Server?

100

VM Stands for.

What is Virtual Machine?

100

The three types of Primary Storage.

What is DAS, NAS, and SAN?

100

3-2-1 Rule.

What is three copies of your data on two different storage types and one of those copies in an offsite location?

100

On a call, the customer mentions they are in need of new storage devices.

What is "What storage solutions are you currently leveraging for your primary storage"?

200

A network security system that monitors and controls incoming and outgoing network traffic based on predetermined security rules.

What is a Firewall?
200

The Five benefits of Virtualization.

What is "Utilization, Management, Footprint, Power and Cooling, and Availability". 

200

NAS stands for.

What is Network Attached Storage?

200

The Four types of Data Protection.

What is Backup, Disaster Recover, Business Continuity, and Archival Data?

200

On a call, a customer mentions they run Virtual Machines.

What is "What kind of workloads/applications are you using?", "Any upcoming projects? (Migration)", "How much Data is stored?", and "How many VMs are you running in your environment?"?

300

SHI Go to Market Partners for Servers. (Top Three)

What are Cisco, HPE, and Dell?

300

License offerings for Virtual Machines (Two).

What are "VWare: Essentials+, Standard, and Enterprise+ and Microsoft: Hyper-V".

300

HPE is doing away with the Nimble and pushing this new Storage Array.

What is the HPE Alletra?

300

RTO stands for and means.

What is Recovery Time Objective and how long will it take us to recover data?

300

The customer mentions they are leveraging Dell PowerStore in their environment.

What is "When is the next maintenance renewal date for your solution"?

What is "Are you experiencing any challenges or pain points with your current storage solution"?

What is "Are you able to leverage advanced features such as deduplication and replication with your current storage solution"?

400

This hardware is known as the "Heart" and "Brain" of the Datacenter.

What is a Core Switch?

400

Virtual Machines sit on this in a virtualized environment.

What is a Hypervisor?

400

The most expensive type of Primary Storage.

What is Storage Area Network (SAN)?

400

RPO stands for and means.

What is Recovery Point Objective and how much data is the customer willing to lose?

400

A customer just purchased TOR/Aggregation switches from us, Follow the wire and ask this question.

What is "What are you connecting these switches to?"/"What servers are you connecting these switches to?"

500

Shared storage device in the Follow the Wire Diagram.

What is SAN Storage?


500

The three types of Availability offered in Virtualization.

What is High Availability, Fault Tolerance, and Vmotion?
500

Go to Market Partners for Storage. (Top 4)

What is Pure Storage, Dell, HPE, and NetApp?
500

The reason someone would keep Archival Data.

What is in case companies get audited or sued?

500

Three topics to discuss when talking with your customer about data protection (backup and recovery).

What are RPO/RTOs, immutable copies of data, and cloud integration?

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