Intel, EMC Ink Pact Targeting SMB Storage

The multiyear OEM agreement announced at Storage Networking World will provide Intel resellers and distributors with the Intel SSR212PP Storage System, which is based on EMC's Clariion AX150 and AX150i storage subsystems.

SAN DIEGO—Targeted at improving storage functionality and options for SMBs, Intel and EMC announced a new multiyear OEM agreement and strategy on April 4 while also unveiling plans to co-develop storage technology.

Per the joint agreement unveiled at Storage Networking World here, Intel will provide its reseller and distributors worldwide with the Intel SSR212PP Storage System.

The new Intel box is based on EMCs Clariion AX150 and AX150i storage subsystems, which were introduced at SNW on April 3.

The SSR212PP will be made available to the Intels vast network of channel partners—numbering more than 160,000 worldwide—next month, said Hans Geyer, vice president and general manager of Santa Clara, Calif.-based Intel.

Intel and EMC have pledged to work together and push storage innovation by leveraging each others core strengths.

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That means EMC will assist Intel with identifying small to midsize businesses storage needs and building out its storage portfolio, while Intel will help EMC to construct more efficient storage subsystems capable of being married closer to hardware chip and server environments.

"[The partnership] gives us an extremely valuable lead for how we should develop and architect future CPUs and chips for future storage requirements," said Geyer of the EMC and Intel agreement.

Click here to read more about Dell and EMCs efforts to target SMBs.

"For us this helps us to have a better server platform."

Geyer said that currently, many SMBs have their storage embedded in servers—but that paradigm is rapidly changing. In order to simplify steps for SMBs to embrace greater storage capacity and more complex offerings, he said it is critical to receive those increments from suppliers they already know and trust, namely resellers.

"SMBs bought their first PC from that reseller, they bought their first server from that reseller, and theyll buy that storage from that reseller," he said.

In particular, EMC will leverage Intels distributor market base to push out its technology in Asia Pacific, Latin America, and Western Europe.

Based on EMCs AX150 and AX150i models, for Fibre Channel and iSCSI connectivity respectively, the SSR212PP will offer up to 12 SATA (serial ATA) disk drives in a 2U rack mounted enclosure.

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The box will support a capacity of up to 6TB in a single array and can be ordered as either single- or dual-controller configurations.

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