Value-added distributor Westcon Group has expanded its relationship with networking equipment vendor Brocade. Westcon announced this week it will now offer Brocade’s Storage Area Networking (SAN) portfolio to its partners in North America.
With the addition of the SAN offerings, including the company’s first fabric-based networking solutions based on 16 Gbps Fibre Channel technologies, Westcon now offers Brocade’s entire network infrastructure line, including its IP/Ethernet networking portfolio.
“To be able to offer the reseller community Broacade’s entire SAN portfolio is important and significant for us,” said Patty Gray, vice-president of vendor relationships with Westcon. “This is a global announcement and it’s a natural evolution of Brocade’s channels strategy, taking full advantage of Westcon’s global footprint.”
Their relationship with Brocade used to be primarily North American and IP-product focused only, said Gray, but based on Westcon’s performance and expertise in the data centre they wanted to expand the partnership. She added the SAN market is expected to be a major growth market in the coming years.
“SAN is considered a key technology for the coming years and Brocade is a key SAN market leader,” said Gray. “Our goal is to align with the leaders in the industry and provide those top manufacturer technologies to our partners.”
Building on Westcon’s leadership in the data centre, Gray said adding backbone switches and adapters creates the ideal environment for virtualizing the data cetnre and allowing migration to cloud environments. The Broacde technology will also be showcased in Westcon’s LEAP “Learn, Experience, Architect and Plan) enablement centres.
“These centres allow partners to bring in customers for hands-on training and technology demos,” said Gray. “By housing multiple brands of technology they allow partners to reduce cycle time in design and have a full view of multiple technologies.”
By adding Broacde’s SAN offerings, Gray added partners will now be able to deepen their relationship with Westcon instead of having to source offerings from multiple distributors, leading to cost and process efficiencies.
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