Sunnyvale, Calif.-based data management vendor, Network Appliance, has expanded its Fabric-Attached Storage systems (FAS) product line by releasing its new FAS2000 storage solutions designed for the mid-size enterprise market space and its existing reseller community.
NetApp’s FAS2000 product line is ideal for businesses that range between 100 to 1,000 staff members and includes the FAS2020 and the FAS2050 models. These solutions help businesses store, manage and protect data. NetApp says these new solutions help to minimize a business’s total cost of ownership by offering lower acquisition costs, and by reducing company downtime and therefore technical staffing costs as well.
Jeff Goldstein, area director at Network Appliance Canada, Ltd., said NetApp’s go-to-market strategy for the FAS2000 line will be completely channel focused.
“What we find in the SME space is that smaller organizations are having the same kinds of problems that larger organizations are also having,” Goldstein said. “They also want and need to consolidate, store, recover and backup their data too. What NetApp is doing differently is we’re able to solve multiple ranges of business problems using one unified storage infrastructure. We also give customers the option of letting them upgrade within the product family so they never have to change families.”
Extending the FAS family of storage products, NetApp now has solutions for businesses ranging from small to large-scale enterprise businesses. All FAS products offer enterprise-grade reliability and scalability when it comes to data centre management.
Goldstein says NetApp’s market strategy is a two-fold one which involves both the company and its current channel base.
“For SME customers, they can be serviced either by our reseller community or through NetApp directly,” Goldstein said. “For partners, because [the FAS2000] is an extension of our existing [FAS] product family, they’re already familiar with the solutions and they already know how to support and sell it, so it’s a fast start for them in the marketplace. There’s no need to retain or recertify our partners on these new products.”
While Goldstein admits NetApp is not actively looking to create a new channel to support these products, he says NetApp would be welcome to bringing new partners on board.
“If there are new channel partners, NetApp will definitely chat with them to see what they can do and offer to us,” Goldstein said.
Currently, Goldstein says NetApp has about 15 to 20 resellers across Canada. He maintains the company’s channel strategy is one based on value rather than volume.
“We want folks who understand storage and data management problems and ones who can solve problems with the value added software that we bring,” Goldstein said. “That’s what drives the margins for our reseller community. Our best resellers are making 20-plus points of margins even before they start adding their own services to the mix.”
Partners are supported through a combination of in-class and online NetApp training. Every quarter, NetApp also tours across Canada, holding what it calls its Partner Quarterly Roadshow, to educate and train partners on what’s new. While a date is still being determined for the next Canadian tour, NetApp partners can expect to see it out in either November or December of this year.
The FAS2020 solution offers users 24TB of maximum raw capacity and 40 maximum disk drives with 2GB of cache memory. In contrast, the FAS2050 offers 69TB of maximum raw capacity, 104 maximum disk drives and 4GB of cache memory. The starting price for the FAS2020 is $15,000 and the FAS2050 starts at $34,000. Both solutions are now available worldwide.
As businesses continue to expand and the amount of data continues to grow, Goldstein says both partners and end-users can expect to see NetApp continuing to expand its product line both from a high and low-end perspective.
“We’ll also expand our portfolio from a software capabilities perspective,” Goldstein said. “We’re going to continue to add value to the software mix. We’re excited about [FAS2000] because it helps move NetApp into the SMB market space. Existing NetApp resellers will love this because they can start selling it tomorrow and can earn rich margins. We love it because we not only don’t need to retrain or recertify our partners on the new products, but we can instantly give our customers a better overall business experience.”
