Xiotech bullish on Indian storage market

HYDERABAD: California based Xiotech Corporation, a storage-networking provider, is targeting the Indian market in a major way. The company is setting the ground to tap the potential storage market by aggressively expanding through the reseller market.

Also, the company is toying with the idea of providing software that allows storage automation process that is application driven rather than human intervention.

"We are expanding our network through an effective reseller base in India. We want to market our products through vendors in cities like Bangalore, Chennai, Mumbai and Delhi. So far, the storage market in India is largely dependent on direct attached network and slowly the penetration of SAN and NAS solutions are creeping in. We would be shipping our solutions through resellers in a big way in India," said Xiotech engineering EVP, Dave Aune.

"Our primary customers would be SMEs. The data levels are expanding and so there is an increasing need to address this area. Our solutions are capable and dynamic with flexible configuration levels and are hence easily manageable," he added.

Speaking on the USP of their solution, Aune said, "With universal storage platforms and storage network solutions, there are contemporary solutions existing in the market, but the architecture of our solutions, interoperability with newer technologies, processes, would make our products a better bet".

With development centers in Minnesota, California, and India, and with sales locations across US and Europe, Xiotech would make its maiden venture in the Indian reseller market in 2005. "We are charting out an efficient marketing model for the reseller market and soon make our presence in the Indian market in 2005," quipped Aune.

Elaborating on the proposed solution for application driven storage automation, he said, "Conventional storage solutions allow IT administrators to go to particular applications, load the application, and then work on it. Also, traditional storage architecture designs are little complex with more number of servers being attached. This solution enables simpler architecture of storage design with limited number of servers yet, with increased capacity, and also allows the applications to run default on request."

"So far, in some large enterprises, a similar concept called script based storage exists, wherein a selected application could be run automatically without any human intervention. This kind of command driven application exists for specific applications but, not for all applications, added Aune.

"With less number of servers and with no human intervention, it is slated to reduce cost to a greater extent and in some cases could be around 70 per cent or so," he added. The solution is under the final development stages and would be launched by the end of 2005.