NetApps extends alliance with Veritas

Storage vendors to develop and deliver integrated hardware and software

Storage vendors Network Appliance (NetApps) and Veritas have extended their partnership to develop and deliver integrated hardware and software offerings, and will educate resellers on jointly developed products.

The deal covers joint marketing and technical support as well as integration between Veritas' software and NetApps' network storage equipment.

"We have always had a good relationship and this is an evolution," said Jason Phippen, European head of solutions marketing at Veritas. "This is also a response to a customer-driven desire for products to be much more tightly coupled."

Phippen confirmed the two companies would focus on educating channel partners on jointly developed products because, with fledgling storage standards, it is necessary to demonstrate that products are proven to work together. The two firms will focus primarily on their shared resellers.

Simon Gay, consultancy practice leader at Computacenter, a corporate VAR that supplies both NetApps and Veritas products, was bullish. "If two leading firms such as these can produce solid storage solutions, this is great for customers," he said.

Gay added that Veritas NetBackup Storage Migrator with NetApps is an attractive combination.

Ashley Robinson, Northern Europe marketing manager at NetApps, said: "Our solutions are tried, tested and integrated. It's a great value proposition."

Available joint solutions

• NetApps unified storage back-up/restore using Veritas NetBackup for Network Data Management Protocol.
• Disk-based back-up to NetApps NearStore system.
• Data migration to NetApps storage systems using Veritas NetBackup.
• Storage Migrator.
• Replication from multi-vendor server and storage environments to a remote location using Veritas Volume Replicator.
• Oracle database performance optimisation with Veritas Cluster Server.
• Veritas StorageCentral for storage resource management of SAN and NAS environments.