VADition has launched a storage division after signing as exclusive UK distributor for Massive Array of Idle Disks (MAID) storage vendor Copan Systems.

The distributor, which was founded last summer (CRN, 10 July), has also revealed plans to sign a SAN or iSCSI vendor to round off its storage portfolio. The new unit will be VADition’s first service-led division and will be headed up by Jason Dance.

Dance told CRN that the distributor still has one gap left to fill, despite partnering with Copan for its MAID technology.

Dance said: “VADition was looking for a long term archiving product and from a technology point of view Copan’s product is low carbon and has a low physical footprint.

“VADition also partners with Isilon Systems, which offers clustered storage. With Copan’s MAID technology our portfolio is more complete, but there is still a missing link.

Tim Pitcher, vice president of Copan, said: “VADition is a good marriage with Copan because it has a go-to--market model and Copan has MAID products, designed to save space, power and money for the end user. It is a good cultural fit because VADition is quite a new business, much like Copan.

“VADition is in the data rich space, which is harder to store. Through partnering with Copan it now has a product that fits with the issue of long-term rich data storage to offer to its customers.”

VADition also signed with unified threat management vendor Fortinet last month (CRN, 3 December).