NEWS
"It takes Three to Tango" : By - Sunny John Country Manager, Quantum
By VARINDIA - 2010-04-05
Quantum’s image as being a leader in the secondary storage supposedly helps it in delivering highly reliable backup, recovery and archival solution that meet demanding requirements for data integrity and availability with superior performance and comprehensive service and support. It offers businesses of all sizes an unparalleled range of solutions – from leading tape drives and media technologies, autoloaders and libraries to disk-based backup systems.
Business leaders today want their backup, recovery and archival problems solved easily with limited additional cost and staff time. Moreover, they need solutions that seamlessly integrate into existing environment, while leaving infrastructure flexible enough to accommodate unforeseen technologies of the next decade and beyond. To meet these challenging demands, Quantum leverages new storage architectures, transport protocols and operating systems that effectively manage, store and protect valuable digital assets.
Now that the shared file systems found in file virtualization and clustered NAS are gaining popularity in the enterprise, Quantum is smartly repositioning StorNext. Last year, after acquiring ADIC, Quantum added an array of great product lines in its kitty. And, at present, Quantum is repositioning ADIC’s StorNext storage area network (SAN) file virtualization system as a tiered storage/file sharing product for the mainstream enterprise with three new features in version 3.0.
The VARIndia team attempted to delve deep into the story of Quantum StorNext, acquisition and marketing in conversation with Sunny John, Country Manager, Quantum, and Steve Rovarino, APAC Manager, Software Sales, along with Mala Mathur, Executive Director, Ideal Broadcasting India Pvt. Ltd.
Explaining StorNext in layman terms, Sunny termed it as a “Black Box” which helps in transferring the data from one source to another. Putting more light on the product, Steve said,”“StorNext enables systems to share a high speed pool of images, media, content, analytical data and other key digital assets so that files can be processed and distributed quickly for easy accessibility.”
Basically, Quantum StorNext data management software enables customers to generate revenue faster and store more data at a lower cost. Combining high speed data sharing with cost-effective content retention, StorNext helps customers build an infrastructure for consolidating resources so that workflow operations run faster and maintaining business assets costs less. And because data sharing and retention are combined in a single solution, there is no need to cobble together multiple products that only deliver a part of the desired functionality and may not integrate easily.
All files are easily accessible to all hosts – SAN or LAN. When performance is the key, StorNext recommends SAN connectivity to achieve throughput that extends over 10 Gbps. For cost efficiency and fan-out, it offers LAN-based access using clustered gateway systems with resiliency and throughput that outperforms traditional network sharing methods. This also means that LAN clients can connect to the SAN file system over Ethernet rather than requiring Fibre Channel and HBAs – essentially vaulting StorNext into the world of file virtualization For long-term data storage, StorNext expands pools into multi-tier archives, automatically moving data between different disk and tape resources to reduce costs and protect content. Data location is virtualized so that any file can easily be accessed for re-use, even if it resides on tape. Additional cost savings can be achieved by using DRS – Data Reduction Storage –, which provides content-specific data reduction using Quantum’s patented de-duplication technology.
Talking from the marketing perspective, Steve said, “Though StorNext was present in the market for the past few years, but its entry in India was limited. The customers knew about the products but needed an access point which paved the way for Ideal Broadcasting India Pvt. Ltd. having S.I. capabilities.”
Quantum StorNext has more of its use in the broadcast-centric space than in regular IT- centric products. The traditional way of IT is not the way StorNext could be promoted, because it is not a product. Rather, it has to be a part of the solution. And, it needs an S.I. who can successfully deploy this in the market. Hence, the appointment of Ideal Broadcasting system as value-added resellers for its StorNext data management has been announced.
Ideal Broadcasting, the Indian arm of Ideal System Asia Pacific Ltd., is a systems integrator and full service support company which provides consultancy, system design, project management and installation services to terrestrial, cable, satellite broadcasters as well as post-production facilities.
Quantum stated that this agreement strengthens its channel strategy in the region and leverages the two companies combined expertise to deliver data management solution to the media, government and scientific market.
“This strategic relationship with Ideal will benefit customers in the data-intensive industry space as well as provide high quality consultative support and service. Quantum has been marketing his technology in other regions of the world, and, together with Ideal, we will expand Quantum’s product reach and increase our local market share,” adds Sunny John.
Speaking about Ideal’s initiation in Quantum business, Mala Mathur, Director, Ideal Broadcasting India Pvt. Ltd., stated,’“Quantum StorNext is not just another box selling. It is the selling of complete solutions which should go through systems integrator rather than normal disti.” Citing the reason so as to why Ideal system is best for the task, she says,”“If a customer says we have twenty thousand archival storage and we do footage and wanted to archive it and make sure that our two hundred journalists can have easy access to it, it requires a lot of components like tape library, there will be automation, interface software between archiving and automation, video servers, etc. Ideal as systems integrator will understand customer’s requirement, fit in with Quantum product lines whether it is a tape library or StorNext software and also fit in other solution that has to go into making the solution work to the best of customer’s satisfaction.”
Finally…
Looking forward to working closely with Quantum, Mala Mathur said, “We are delighted to assume this role in India as it provides us an opportunity to broaden our existing customer base and product offerings while growing our business portfolio.”
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