Storage solution providers, or value-added resellers (VARs) are essential partners for some IT organisations and most companies are likely to employ the services of a data storage reseller at one stage or another. The key thing for the customer is to select the right partner and to manage them effectively.

While most vendors are keen to maintain direct relationships with their biggest customers, many simply do not have the in-house resources to cater to the needs of small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs).

As a result, smaller accounts are likely to deal almost exclusively with resellers, while medium-sized firms may experience a “co-selling model.” This is when vendors jointly sell into and manage their customer accounts with solution provider partners that provide local market expertise and are the first port of call in times of trouble.

The pros of working with storage solution providers

One of the key advantages of working with a reseller is that they can supplement, complement or augment existing in-house storage skills.

“Anyone buying any kind of storage should seek the help that they need because it requires specialised skills, and resellers are a good method of getting that,” said Pete Hooper, IT and production manager at Somerset cheese producer Wyke Farms.

Although Hooper looks after IT at the company, his main role is production management, which means that “there’s not always time to look for the best solution,” he noted. Resellers can help customers invest in the right products to fulfill their requirements while also providing support should any problems arise.

Wyke Farms employed local partner 101 Data Solutions to install a 12 TB Overland Snap Server SAN at its headquarters, swiftly followed by a second at its packaging facility for disaster recovery (DR) purposes and to store data generated from 20 high-definition CCTV cameras. It has also signed an annual support agreement with the reseller.

Read more of this article on Search Storage.co.uk

Contact 101 Data Solutions to find out how we can help you.

The new EMC® Data Domain® DD670, which incorporates the Nehalem-based Intel® Xeon® Processor 5500 Series, is over 2 times faster than midrange competitors using recently released EMC Data Domain Boost software and up to 1.5 times faster when used as a virtual tape library.

The new DD670 midrange deduplication storage system offers up to 5.4 TB per hour of aggregate inline deduplication throughput. The system supports up to 76 TB  of raw capacity or up to 2.7 petabytes (PB) of logical capacity with 50 times data reduction. A single DD670 system can support replication fan-in from up to 90 remote offices using smaller Data Domain appliances such as the DD140 or DD610, delivering a fully-automated disaster recovery capability for distributed enterprises. Overall, the DD670 delivers major price/performance improvements to backup and recovery processes and more capacity for extended online retention.

The base model includes 12 TB of disk in a 2U rack mount chassis and supports expansion shelves with either 1 TB or 2 TB SATA drives yielding a 2.1 times increase in rack density. Like all Data Domain systems, the DD670 is simple to install and flexible enough to implement into existing user environments without disruption. Data Domain systems offer broad application support on any storage fabric. This includes NFS, CIFS, Symantec OpenStorage or EMC Data Domain Boost over 1 or 10 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) and/or VTL over Fibre Channel. An 8Gb Fibre Channel connectivity option is also now available for the DD670 and DD880.

Availability

The EMC Data Domain DD670, expansion shelves with 2 TB drives, and the Deduplication Storage Expansion option for DLm960 will be available in Q3 2010.

About EMC

EMC Corporation (NYSE: EMC) is the world’s leading developer and provider of information infrastructure technology and solutions that enable organizations of all sizes to transform the way they compete and create value from their information. Information about EMC’s products and services can be found at www.EMC.com.

New Business Ready Configurations help reduce cost and complexity by combining technologies in pre-configured bundles

–New products integrate seamlessly into Dell solutions for government, healthcare and education organizations

–New technology solutions, services and management functionality across servers, storage and networking enable customers to reallocate resources from maintenance to drive value and innovation.

Customers in the ‘Virtual Era’ demand IT solutions that drive efficiency, rapidly deliver business value and drive innovation without locking organizations into proprietary technology. Harnessing more than 25 years of expertise in meeting customers’ requirements, Dell today unveiled new technology, services, management tools and business ready solutions that preserve choice and help customers reduce the time required to build, manage and maintain an efficient datacenter.

Building off its industry-leading position and partnerships in storage, servers, networking and services, Dell has pre-integrated the product hardware and systems management capabilities critical to deploying and running various data center elements as a holistic solution. This approach is designed to deliver significant efficiencies in both OPEX and CAPEX — and deliver on Dell’s mission to reduce budget devoted to maintaining the status quo and increasing investment in innovative projects.

As customers look to streamline data center operations, the combination of next-generation storage platforms and intelligent infrastructure compute models is becoming increasingly important. New Dell EqualLogic(TM) storage products, Dell PowerConnect (TM)networking solutions and Dell PowerEdge(TM) blade servers , all built on industry-standards, plus new Dell Storage, Virtualization and Support Services, drive organizational and application agility – so customers can focus on innovation as opposed to basic maintenance.

Dell Business Ready Configurations

To help customers more quickly deploy fully integrated virtualization-ready data center solutions, Dell today introduced six new Business Ready Configurations. Business Ready Configurations help customers reduce the complexity and trial and error involved in deploying virtualization projects by bringing together best-of-breed server, storage, networking, and virtualization technologies in pre-configured and validated bundles to ensure fast deployments. These solutions integrate with a customer’s existing infrastructure while allowing them to rapidly accelerate the benefits of virtualization using either VMware(R) or Microsoft(R) hypervisors. From customers just starting to deploy virtualized infrastructure for consolidation to the more mature customers looking for high availability, dynamic provisioning and disaster recovery capabilities, Dell has a solution.

Dell’s new server, storage, networking products and services include:

Dell EqualLogic and Dell PowerVault(TM) Storage Platforms

– New Dell EqualLogic PS6000XVS and PS6010XVS storage arrays combine the advantages of SAS and SSD drives in a single enclosure to improve density and performance. An extension of Dell’s expertise in automated load-balancing and data movement technologies, customers leveraging the EqualLogic 5.0 firmware can now benefit from automated data tiering within the new arrays.

– New advancements in the Dell EqualLogic software architecture dramatically improves the performance and scalability of EqualLogic storage arrays – all at no additional cost to new or existing EqualLogic customers. With the introduction of EqualLogic 5.0 firmware, VMware infrastructures can dramatically reduce SAN network traffic for the copy process by over 95% and CPU utilization for the copy process by over 75%(1). The EqualLogic 5.0 firmware will support future developments of the VMware vStorage initiative.

Contact 101 Data Solutions for further information

Overland, which has replaced its CEO and other top executives with storage industry veterans over the last year, unveiled the SnapServer SAN S2000, a $15,000 (starting price) device that features automated provisioning, compatibility with multiple operating systems and a simplified management dashboard for companies lacking a deep IT bench.

The SnapServer introduction repositions the 29-year-old Overland to expand beyond its tape storage legacy into SAN and to serve one of the fastest-growing segments of the disk storage market, iSCSI SAN products selling in the $15,000 to $20,000 range. Snap also allows Overland to emerge as a seller of name brand storage and less of an OEM supplier to other companies.

“We want to be able to deliver to the midsized market technology that a lot of large organizations are able to deploy because they have the resources and the budget to do that,” said Jillian Mansolf, vice president of sales and marketing at the San Diego-based firm. “The midsized market [is] facing all the same challenges.”

SnapServer is based on Snap network-attached storage (NAS) products Overland acquired from Adaptec in 2008. The basic system is a 2U 19-inch rack-mounted appliance that stores up to 24 terabytes (TB) of data. Expansion units can be purchased starting at $3,000 each that can extend system capacity to 120TB. The SAN S2000 supports Windows, Linux, Mac OS X or Novell NetWare operating systems as well as VMware and Microsoft Hyper-V virtualization. It is also designed to combine set-up, allocation, replication, data protection and other chores into one dashboard, said Mansolf.

Contact 101 Data Solutions for further information.

Overland Snap Server S2000 Data Sheet

The two systems feature a combined NAS (network attached storage) and iSCSI connectivity to facilitate server and storage consolidation and simplify data storage, protection and management for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) at affordable price points.

SMBs have the same challenges as enterprises with rapid data growth and increased storage management complexity, but they have relatively limited resources to deal with the challenges. To help SMBs deal with diverse and changing data demands without increasing budget and technical staffing, Infortrend designed the new EonNAS models to deliver broad protocol support, easy management, optimized performance, robust data protection and flexible scalability.

EonNAS 3200 is an entry-level model ideal for small businesses, remote/branch offices and enterprise departments, while EonNAS 5100 is designed for mid-sized businesses. Both EonNAS 3200 and 5100 support file and block protocols including CIFS, NFS, FTP and iSCSI to facilitate NAS and SAN consolidation. The EonNAS 5100 supports SSD drives for greater efficiency.
“EonStor and ESVA product lines have proven Infortrend’s capability to produce quality and innovative storage systems. Adding to our expertise, we are introducing the EonNAS unified storage solutions to benefit more users,” said Thomas Kao, product planning and global marketing director at Infortrend Technology.” At affordable prices, these multi-protocol systems help SMBs deal with growing amounts of data that need to be stored longer, protected and managed more efficiently. With EonNAS, SMBs no longer have to compromise on business competitiveness because of limited budgets and staff.”

Products are available from 101 Data Solutions, more EonNAS  information can be found by viewing our pages:

Infortend EonNas 3200

Infortend EonNas 5100N

Infortend EonNas 5100U

For further information, contact 101 Data Solutions by calling uk:0845 29 26 101 Intl:044 1761 568183

Buy one EqualLogic PS6010E, PS6010X or PS6510E, PS6510X along with one Dell PowerConnect Switch 8024F or M8024 (both supporting 10GbE technology) and we’ll give you a 2nd Switch for free.

Dell Equallogic Minimum Specs:

EqualLogic PS6010: PS6010E, 8x 500GB SATA,2 Controllers, 3 Yr ProSupport for IT and 4hr Mission Critical

What’s new in EQ?

The 10GbE EqualLogic arrays make the already exceptional EqualLogic storage performance even stronger. The PS6010/6510 Series gives increased performance for critical business applications, stronger virtualization, storage consolidation and higher performance in disaster recovery.

In addition, the PS6010 and PS6510 can be deployed without abandoning previous EqualLogic investments, helping reduce overall total cost of ownership (TCO).

Simply put, the PS6010 and PS6510 offer 10x more bandwidth per port and 2.5x more bandwidth per array and reduces cabling up to 50%.

10GbE: A new age of efficiency

With integrated infrastructure management and the unification of LAN, SAN and Infiniband networks, 10GbE revolutionises the datacentre. Improve virtualization effectiveness and increase VMs without fear of bandwidth challenges with an end-to-end 10GbE solution.

The PowerConnect M8024 Switch

Dell have combined flexible modularity with 10Gb Ethernet in the innovative Dell PowerConnect M8024 Switch:

• Ideal for I/O intensive environments
• 24 ports of 10Gb Ethernet to the Dell PowerEdge™ M1000e chassis
• Built upon Flex I/O architecture
• Modular external uplinks provide flexible choices in diverse media types for connecting to LANs
• All the features and ease of the PowerConnect family

The PowerConnect 8024F Switch

One of the key components in Dell Unified Fabric Data Center solutions, The PowerConnect 8024F supports converged fabric requirements such as Priority Flow Control (802.1Qbb), iSCSI Optimisation, and 10Gb wire speed performance on all ports. iSCSI traffic can also be monitored at the fabric level, allowing the administrator to track active iSCSI sessions.

• Dell’s  first all 10 Gigabit 1U Ethernet product
• 24-port 10Gb Gigabit Ethernet Layer 3 switch
• Four Combo Ports for mixed cabling environments
• Designed for utilisation in a variety of customer environments such as 10Gb Top-of-Rack switching, 10Gb Aggregation, and Switch Core applications in small to medium datacentres

Contact 101 Data Solutions to get involved.

Terms of Promotion

Prices and specifications are correct at date of publication but may change without notice. Configuration needs may vary depending on customer environment.  Please verify your needs with your account manager.
Offer prices exclude VAT and shipping costs unless otherwise indicated.  Shipping costs available upon request.
These promotional offers cannot be combined [either with each other,] with other promotions or with other promotions or discounts offered by Dell to Business User customers.
Third party products are covered by third party manufacturer’s warranty. Service may be provided via telephone or internet where appropriate. Where next business day or other upgraded warranty support is included, such support is available in certain countries and/or regions only. Service may be provided by a third party. Response times may vary according to the remoteness or accessibility of the product location. Technician will be dispatched if necessary following phone-based trouble shooting. Certain restrictions apply.

The promotion ends 30th April 2010

EqualLogic PS6010 will be available as of Dec 15 2009. EqualLogic PS6510 will become available as of Jan 15 2010.