McData signs partner deals for ROC initiative
Vendor lands IPStor software and Steelhead appliance as part of its integrated data-recovery solution
McData has forged OEM agreements with FalconStor and Riverbed Technology as part of its plans to create a Remote Office Consolidation (ROC) initiative.
The vendor told CRN that ROC consists of several product and service elements, such as backup elimination and file centralisation. It has been designed to enable end-users to consolidate, manage and protect remote office applications and data assets.
Under the agreement, McData will re-brand FalconStor’s IPStor software replication technology as part of an integrated data recovery solution, as well as Riverbed’s wide-area data services Steelhead appliance product.
Edgard Capdevielle, director of product management at McData, said: “This will enable the channel to offer an increased value proposition to end-users, going past dropping products at the site, enabling them to achieve their return on investment.
“ROC consists of storage, application and networking elements. The initiative requires a lot of assessment of all three, which is a good margin opportunity for the reseller,” he said.
The announcement comes as figures from IDC’s latest Worldwide Quarterly Storage Software Tracker show that the global storage software market grew by 11.2 per cent year-on-year in the fourth quarter of last year.
Rhoda Phillips, research manager at IDC storage software, said in a statement: “The storage software
market continues to exhibit steady growth, particularly in the replication and backup and archive segments, driven by customer requirements of trying to protect and secure information in an increasingly complex IT environment.” C