DataCore sees Total Enterprise Virtualization take off

MUNICH, GERMANY: DataCore Software, the leading software provider of storage virtualization software, has announced that it gathered more than 70 distributor and reseller partners at its third Central European partner conference held in Hagen, Germany. Over twice as many partners as the previous year attended the event to hear DataCore Software outline its plans for growth, to discover mutual opportunities and to witness firsthand the roadmaps the company has developed for its SANsymphony, SANmelody and SANharmony storage management and virtualization platforms.

Attending channel partners reported on further growth and margin opportunity in the market, fuelled by market demand and the uptake of customer interest in total enterprise virtualization (TEV) solutions -- spanning desktops, to servers and to storage.

DataCore CTO Ziya Aral underscores the professionalism and technical competence of the resellers in attendance as follows, "The sheer professionalism and technical competence of the group was remarkably impressive. It is just terrific and DataCore's customers above all are fortunate to have resellers this technically competent and professionally enthusiastic."

At the conference, Aral and the technical team provided valuable insights into DataCore technology and product development roadmap for the company's virtualization platforms. Highlights included announcements on 64-bit versions of SANsymphony and SANmelody, and SANharmony was showcased as a new, key channel initiative.

SANharmony represents the next generation of storage virtualization that harmonizes existing Microsoft NAS file serving capabilities, new storage services and new virtual server applications with DataCore SANmelody and SANsymphony software within a simple-to-use management environment. SANharmony extends DataCore's Virtualization 2.0 program by enabling a new class of storage applications to be easily integrated within the virtualization layer -- enabling DataCore services and I/O performance acceleration to be applied to both SAN and NAS storage in the network, thus allowing Microsoft NAS file serving to benefit from DataCore's SAN performance acceleration and advanced storage capabilities such as thin provisioning and continuous data protection (CDP).

"The great interest shown before and during the event has confirmed our strong belief that DataCore and its partners are on the right virtualization road," states Iris Hatzenbichler, Marketing & Operations Manager EMEA, DataCore software. "With our storage software platforms we are offering a true value path for our partners and customers. The market for storage virtualization is in a buoyant, optimistic mood."

Total Enterprise Virtualization: multi-level virtualization is the key

At the conference, DataCore's distribution partners stated that the storage virtualization market was gathering momentum on the back of desktop and server virtualization from Citrix, Microsoft, VMware and others. Rainer Bretzel from DataCore distributor Magirus confirms, "It functions according to the whirlwind principle. Server and storage virtualization simply belong together and our resellers are realizing this."

Distributor Azlan also expects that the virtualization of desktops and applications will be combined with that of servers and storage. In addition to various hardware platforms, the Azlan Technology Centre in Munich also provides its business partners and potential end users with virtualization solutions combining Citrix, VMware and DataCore for test and demonstration purposes. Paul H. Mathes, Business Development Manager at Azlan, says, "The market is still evolving and maturing, with room for further growth, and what we see is that each partner approaches the end user customer in a different way. Partners profit from events like the DataCore partner day, as they can learn from one another and use these platforms for a lively information exchange."

ADN is one of the newest value-add distribution partners to recently sign with DataCore. ADN has a strong Citrix background and has only recently signed a distributor agreement with DataCore. The distributor integrates DataCore solutions into other virtualization solutions in its own computer center at its head-office in Bochum, Germany, which has become an official DataCore Training Center. "DataCore perfectly supplements our product range," explains Udo Schillings, Marketing Manager, ADN. "Our resellers and system vendors benefit very much from that expansion and now can select the appropriate individual or all-in-one solution for small and medium-sized customers, as well as for large-scale enterprises, in accordance with their needs."

Growing acceptance in SMB market

Growing acceptance of virtualization concepts is now prevalent in the SMB market. Manuela Greinwald, Product Manager Virtualization at DNS, sees "clear growth, particularly in the small and medium-sized sector" and links the options open to the resellers to the quality of their services. "In the storage virtualization market, the partner still has to act as an educator and drive the market in addition to the activities undertaken by DataCore, because not all customers have realized and understood the benefits offered by storage virtualization," she commented. "There are still some good profit margins out there for our partners! We offer our resellers consulting and many other services to enable them to profit more quickly from this business." DNS, which has just successfully held the first virtual fair ("virtuelle Messe") on this subject, offers its partners a Demo Center with various types of hardware and virtualization platforms, such as VMware, Citrix and DataCore.

Service for partners

The virtualization market continues to evolve and diversify. DataCore's Partner Conference introduced and explored alternative options for market entry. At the event, Stortrec introduced itself as DataCore's first European-wide service provider for the channel. Through Stortrec, VARs can commission the company to cover staff shortages or to assure project quality with the end customer. This service was particularly interesting to partners who were entering the market for the first time and were not yet fully accredited and certified. "Our experiences with DataCore show that the demand for our expertise not only comes from large data centres, but also from small and medium-sized companies", says Thomas Horig-Braun of Stortrec. "It is just important that the service remains entirely within the dealer's domain."

DataCore distributors, resellers and integrators obviously are now actively positioning themselves with diversified virtualization offerings that rely on the concept of total enterprise virtualization (TEV). At the DataCore partner conference, almost everyone agreed that the best of virtualization business is still to come. "Partners who recognize this potential will not have a problem with profit margins either," states Mathes.