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Top 10 Storage Vendor Blog results... with an asterisk Print PDF

Tim

Here are the results from the vote for the Top 10 Vendor Storage Blogs:

 

Mike Workman (Pillar) - http://blog.pillardata.com/  1583 ( 13.88%)
Dave Hitz (NetApp) http://blogs.netapp.com/dave/  1225 ( 10.74%)
HP StorageWorks Blog - http://www.hp.com/storage/blog  950 ( 8.33%)
Val Bercovici (NetApp) - http://blogs.netapp.com/exposed/  855 ( 7.5%)
Alex McDonald (NetApp) - http://blogs.netapp.com/shadeofblue/  725 ( 6.36%)
Nick Triantos (NetApp) - http://blogs.netapp.com/storage_nuts_n_bolts/  697 ( 6.11%)
Larry Freeman (NetApp) - http://blogs.netapp.com/drdedupe/  677 ( 5.94%)
Vaughn Stewart (NetApp) - http://blogs.netapp.com/virtualstorageguy  633 ( 5.55%)
Kostadid Roussos (NetApp) - http://blogs.netapp.com/extensible_netapp/  613 ( 5.38%)
Chuck Hollis (EMC) - http://chucksblog.emc.com/  557 ( 4.89%)

 

These results are not without some controversy, however. When I set up the poll, I tried locking down as much security as possible to prevent one person from voting multiple times. It was locked down so tightly that I received complaints from some vendors who had publicized the poll to their employees (thank you) but discovered they were being blocked because they were using the same IP address (one of the four methods used to ensure that each person only voted once). Like anything else on the internet, when there's a will, there's a way to break the rules and a number of people have expressed suspicion at the poll results.

I agree with their suspicions and I am also concerned about the quality of these results. These results cast some doubt on the site's credibility but I can honestly state that we used all means available to us to ensure an accurate vote.

In response to the complaints, I'm reviewing some options on how to make this right. Any suggestions you have would be valuable. For now, I am going to post these results on the site, but with an asterisk as we review alternatives.

If you have some suggestions, please make them in the comments below. Thanks.



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August 1, 2009 Posted by: Tim | in General
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storageio
...
written by Greg Schulz, August 01, 2009
How about doing a storage monkeys based vote, that is, if you are a member, you can vote.

If you are not a member, you need to signup (increase the number of storage monkeys) to vote.

Granted it does not survey the broader audience, however it does give an element of validation to the results.

Food for thought

Cheers
gs
lasswellt
...
written by lasswellt, August 01, 2009
it is quite interesting the number of NetApp blogs that made the list. (I'm a netapp fan myself and find they have excellent details in their blogs) but it is still interesting none the less.
CalvinZ
...
written by CalvinZ, August 01, 2009
My suggestion is still to gather up all those NetApp blogs and give them a single link pointing to their corporate blog page; do the same with EMC because it's a crime that StorageZilla's blog didn't make the list.
shadeofblue
...
written by shadeofblue, August 03, 2009
If you really want to debase Mike's win, I'd suggest that the asterisk should point to something like this;

This poll is not scientific and reflect the opinions of only those internet users who have chosen to participate, possibly multiple times.


I'm also not convinced that it's a crime that StorageZilla didn't make it into the top ten. This cuts both ways. If the poll is flawed, just put him up there anyway and ignore the vote. Otherwise it isn't flawed, and the voters have spoken.

Congratulations to Mike, I say.
Tim
...
written by Tim, August 03, 2009
Please understand, there is no attempt to "debase" Mike's win - this is simply an acknowledgement the vote looks very peculiar to many people. I think you understand that I need to be concerned about SM's credibility and I need to make sure every effort is taken at being fair with everyone even if it's not scientific.
simon pohler
...
written by simon pohler, August 04, 2009
imho, its reflecting the quality of the Blogs very well.
I'm just looking from time to time into that Blogs, but technically...NetApp has the better Blogs.
Chuck, StorageZilla and Alex are so much trolling and blaming each other...they only got an entertaining factor for me.
shadeofblue
...
written by shadeofblue, August 04, 2009
@Simon; that's something I'm conscious of in my blog. It's a difficult balance between robust argument and trolling, and sometimes I fall on the wrong side. I'll try harder!

@Tim; debase may be too strong a word, and I meant it to be illustrative, not accusative. My point is that the asterisk is largely superfluous as I suspect that everyone knows how these things work. I don't think the poll reflects badly on either the participants or the voters or StorageMonkeys. It's just like any other internet poll, and SM hoping for an orderly queue of eligible voters for a "fair" outcome may have been the mistake. Given the nomination process and the sampling technique, this is as good as it gets.
kostadis
My name, oh my name
written by kostadis, August 04, 2009
Hi!

Never expecting to make it to the top 10 :-) I never bothered to correct the spelling of my name. But since I have fame and fortune, okay fame, can you please change it to Kostadi*s* from Kostadi*d*?

cheers,
kostadis
Pelliman
let's get realistic
written by Pelliman, August 05, 2009
Does anyone really believe that NetApp should have all those spots? The current results undermines the credibility of the survey.

Require user log-in and sort votes by end-user and vendor. Then provide 2 sets of results - What do end-users prefer to read and what do both groups prefer to read.

mprewitt007
Results
written by mprewitt007, August 05, 2009
I think the results also tend to point out which companies & people actually like and interact with their vendors. I have worked with emc, netapp and Pillar, and am currently a Pillar fan. I thin Mikes blog is far more fun and interesting to read and other than a few glances, I ignore the emc/netapp blogs as not worth my time.
I think Pillar is a more personable company than netapp or emc and the folks there work harder to provide customer service & response. Just my .02...
wcpreston
You're asking too much
written by wcpreston, August 05, 2009
Please note the guys running storage monkeys are doing this as a free service to the community and aren't making a dime on it, so how about we back off on the demands a bit.

They could redo the poll using logins, but guess what? it's still about how many people at NetApp will login and vote vs how many people at other companies will login and vote. it won't make it any more or less valid. Not to mention that it's still possible to cheat if you use logins.

As to your suggestion on sorting votes by end users and vendors, it's completely unrealistic. First, everyone would have to use their work address. No gmail/yahoo/etc. A lot of people just won't subscribe with their work address due to spam reasons. Then there would need to be a database of vendor vs non-vendor domain names, etc. Man you're talking a lot of programming. Are you going to donate the money to make all this coding happen? I didn't think so.

I go back to my first point. This is a free site and it was just supposed to be something fun. Something else to talk about other than Michael Jackson, Michael Vick, healthcare, and the Data Domain acquisition.
storageio
...
written by storageio, August 05, 2009
WCP,

Valid points, however, for entertainment purposes or discussion fodder of the week, how about this?

Had the vendor polling required being a member, would there have been an a giant jump in StorageMonkeys new members? Would that have been a good or bad thing?

Then on the other hand, with the current polling taking place (btw, congrats on your giant lead) that is for members only, is there a jump in new members at StorageMonkeys? Again, is that a good thing or a bad thing?

Either way as you mention, it makes for good fodder discussion, a distraction from other items and summer fun.

With that, now back to our regularly scheduled programing however fist, a big kudos, job well done to all of the StorageMonkeys for their hard work on running a great site as well as those who particiapte in one form or another.

Cheers
gs
wcpreston
...
written by wcpreston, August 05, 2009
I agree that it should be members only voting. I just didn't like the other idea of splitting things by end-user/etc.

Congrats on the lead may be premature. It's a long time till the voting's over. We'll see who's on top by then. smilies/wink.gif

I do believe it will increase membership in Storagemonkeys.com as well.

Agreed on the kudos for the monkeys. Free bananas for everyone!
storageio
...
written by storageio, August 05, 2009
Good point on splitting things, you can only slice and dice so much, that is unless you have Vince from Shamwow doing the demo.
As for the polling/voting, I think its safe to say and I will step out on a limb and predict that the winner will be a StorageMonkey smilies/wink.gif.
Cheers
gs
jpolk
...
written by jpolk, August 06, 2009
At this point, I would just leave it alone. I think everyone suspects what happened and it is what it is. Re-doing it now is just going to tick everyone off. Next time around, just do member voting. Maybe.... maybe.... re-do the voting in December?
storageio
...
written by storageio, August 06, 2009
Concur, it is what it is, disclaimers are in place.
Next time around do member based voting as a means of single instancing or normalizing or commonality factoring or deduping submitted ballots.
Cheers
gs

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