Leading IT hardware and software distributor AxizWorkgroup and EMC Southern Africa have joined forces on EMC’s entry-level programme.
The programme centres around EMC’s industry-leading VNX family of hybrid storage solutions as well as the VSPEX Proven Infrastructures. VSPEX is a set of complete virtualisation solutions, designed for flexibility and validated to ensure interoperability and fast deployment.
In addition, the entry-level programme encompasses EMC’s Data Domain systems, a protection storage platform for backup and archive data. The systems reduce the amount of disk storage needed to retain and protect data by ratios of 10-30x and greater, making disk a cost-effective alternative to tape.
These systems can protect up to 100Pb of logical capacity in a single system, enabling customers to retain data online and onsite for longer retention periods, as well as providing faster and more reliable restores.
Jacques Malherbe, Managing Executive: Advanced Technologies of AxizWorkgroup, says: “As a well-established EMC partner with a broad network of more than 4 500 resellers, AxizWorkgroup is proud to take EMC’s entry-level programme to market.”
Headquartered in Johannesburg, AxizWorkgroup has branches in Cape Town, Durban, Port Elizabeth, Namibia, Botswana, Zambia and Mozambique. In addition to its branches in five African countries, the company also enjoys strong business relationships throughout the rest of Africa.
EMC focuses on enabling businesses and service providers to transform their operations and deliver IT as a service. Through innovative products and services, EMC accelerates the journey to cloud computing, helping IT departments to store, manage, protect and analyse their most valuable asset – information – in a more agile, trusted and cost-efficient way.
The EMC entry-level programme concentrates on providing product to mid-market resellers. “EMC sells high-level equipment, which by its nature is extremely complex and powerful,” Malherbe explains. “This programme strips a lot of the complexity out of the process, so that the products are easy to configure, the tools are readily available, and the pricing structure is simplified.”
Servaas Venter, country manager of EMC Southern Africa, says: “We are delighted to be partnering with AxizWorkgroup on this entry-level programme, and thrilled with the market response to our new VNX range, which has become a mixed workload workhorse for thousands of companies globally.
“This programme enables us to deliver on our on-going commitment to our partners and customers to extend key enterprise capabilities to entry-level and midrange platforms, enabling our customers to further stretch their IT rands and protect their investments.”
According to Malherbe, the programme will provide mid-market resellers across the board with quick, easy access to the EMC range of products. The programme is not limited to the VNX and VSPEX ranges of products, and resellers may take a natural evolutionary path to grow their businesses around EMC products.
“In addition to the simplified product range and acquisition process, resellers will benefit from the swift speed to market as well as the opportunity to bolster their expertise and skills,” he says. “Thanks to this programme, mid-market resellers now have access to the world leader in data centres and storage.”
Commenting on the future direction of the AxizWorkgroup-EMC partnership, Malherbe says the two companies will continue to build on their shared synergy.
“By recruiting mid-market resellers to sell EMC products, I am confident we will see an acceleration of EMC’s growth in this industry sector,” he says. “AxizWorkgroup is also focused on achieving mid-market growth, so we are well matched.”
EMC recently added new products and capabilities to the industry-leading VNX family of hybrid storage solutions, including a new entry-level VNXe3200 storage array. The new VNXe3200 is designed to unleash the power of Flash, thereby accelerating virtual applications and file performance three times compared to its predecessor.
The VNXe3200 is also available in new VSPEX Proven Infrastructures, which deliver up to 125 virtual machines and 500 virtual desktops in a VNXe3200. The new VSPEX solutions can store up to 2,000 Exchange mailboxes and more than 20 000 SharePoint users.
“VSPEX gives users the power to choose the technology in their solution while removing the complexity and risk that typically come with designing, integrating and deploying a best-of-breed solution,” Malherbe says. “With VSPEX, private cloud computing is more accessible than ever.”
