Brocade shoots Arrow into cloud market
Storage and networking vendor appoints Arrow ECS as fourth UK distributor alongside Avnet, Azlan and Zycko
Brocade says Arrow ECS' reach into the cloud service providers (CSPs) market was pivotal in its decision to appoint it as a fourth UK distributor.
Arrow will work alongside incumbents Azlan and Avnet in punting Brocade's full range of SAN, IP switching and software technologies - including its Brocade Network Subscription (BNS) offering - to the UK channel.
Brocade also has a relationship with Zycko limited to its Vyatta software-defined networking technology.
John Mitchell, head of EMEA channels at Brocade, said Arrow would add more clout around its cloud and managed services strategy via BNS, which allows customers to align networking capacity with usage via an open-ended rental model.
Arrow's vendor alliances with Brocade OEM partners such as EMC, NetApp and IBM were also a big factor in the deal, which is an extension to the partnership Brocade and Arrow already have in several mainland European countries, Mitchell added.
"Migrating existing partners from one distributor to another doesn't add any value," Mitchell said.
"Arrow is very strong in the forward-looking cloud market with ArrowSphere. We believe we have great technology for CSPs in BNS so we are looking to work with Arrow to target resellers that want to add in cloud or managed services to their existing CapEx hardware offering."
Nine out of ten customers who have acquired IP equipment through BNS are net new to Brocade and that all of them had returned to buy new equipment, Mitchell said. BNS also reduces the risk to resellers moving to a cloud model by enabling them to be profitable "almost from day one", he said.
"Our technology also fits very well into the multiple different technology relationships Arrow has," Mitchell added.
David Ellis, director or strategy at Arrow ECS UK and Ireland, highlighted Vyatta as another key another key attraction for Arrow.
"Arrow is very focused around the datacentre of tomorrow and Brocade will help us deliver that," he said.
He added: "The alliances Brocade has with a number of other key Arrow partners will allow us to tailor solutions rather than just selling point products."
Although Mitchell stressed that Arrow is a pure addition to the UK line-up, he indicated that Brocade would "see how [the new line up] is working" over the coming quarters. "We will proactively support all our distributors if we are seeing the growth," he said.