Putting StorMagic Behind the Arrow - Arrow becomes authorized distributor of StorMagic SvSAN Virtual Storage Solution

A lot has changed in the past four years. In 2011, StorMagic started to put more emphasis on creating a better virtualization and high availability solution for distributed enterprises and remote office/branch office (ROBO) environment. ROBO is where the enterprise meets the customer. Today I’m excited to announce the next phase in our channel strategy: our distribution partnership with Arrow Electronics, which will sell the StorMagic SvSAN through Arrow’s community of solution providers in the U.S. and Canada.

What does this mean for potential end users? As a $20 billion supply channel partner, Arrow’s distribution network will make it easier for remote sites and SMBs to gain the data availability of shared storage without the cost, complexity, or single point of failure of a SAN. Arrow will help us match customer requirements with local and regional resellers who are their customers’ trusted advisors.

On the other hand, VARs and solution providers in Arrow’s network will expand their virtualization and storage lines of business with a product in SvSAN that only requires two x86 server nodes to deliver high availability and excellent performance. SvSAN works seamlessly with a VMware or Microsoft hypervisor, appearing no different to a physical SAN but with the advantages of no single-point of failure, lower cost, higher performance through internal rather than network interfaces and simplified management. With StorMagic, Arrow solution provider partners can cut operating and capital costs by 40 percent and prevent downtime for customers by leveraging direct attached or internal server disks, including solid-state drives, and presenting all of it as centrally managed, virtualized shared storage for business critical applications.

For many years, the indirect channel has played a critical, strategic role in both our business and our customers’ business. StorMagic launched our first channel program in 2007. Over time we’ve built out our channel and technology partnership programs to scale our growth, deliver new software innovations faster to market and meet enterprise customers at the edge. In 2010 we launched in Japan to grow routes to market outside the United States and EMEA. In 2012, we introduced version 5 of our SvSAN, the first virtual storage appliance (VSA) aimed specifically at ROBO, which opened up new opportunities for our resellers that had been previously focused on core data center infrastructure solutions.

Last month, we expanded our partnership with VMware to deliver high availability with just two server nodes whereas other VSA solutions require a minimum of three physical servers at each site to provide highly available shared storage that protects against data corruption. The two-node entry configuration of StorMagic SvSAN allows VMware and its channel partners to recommend vSphere ROBO together with SvSAN for remote environments that don’t have low latency or high capacity requirements per site, but must have highly available shared storage.

The economics of the virtualized data center is shifting from the core to the remote edge and we’re finding that the market is coming to StorMagic. VMware and Arrow and hundreds of solutions providers and systems integrators are recognizing the benefits we bring to our strategic partnership and respective markets. Together, we’ll do our best to drive more shifts in the market that will expand opportunity for mutual success — for our partners and our customers.

To learn more about the StorMagic and Arrow Electronics announcement, read the press release in full here.