Intel storage, according to both IDC and Gartner research, is placed in the ‘Other’ category when compared to leading vendors in the market, which means it did not crack the top ten storage companies worldwide. Peiffer, however, believes the storage division has a unique value proposition over many of the company’s competitors.With that Intel announced new storage platform, called the Intel Storage System SSR212MA, for the small- and medium-sized market based on affordability, increased disaster recovery and extended back up capabilities.
“We are building a business that is not sold on volume. We are expecting to be more successful in IP SANs and grid storage segments and be able to compete with the traditional monolith SAN suppliers,” Peiffer said.
Peiffer added that Intel’s storage value proposition lies in its systems’ simplicity.
The new platform is a hardware and software systems that uses a single Intel Xeon processor and supports up to 12 Serial ATA hard drives and iSCSI connectivity. The system also enables users to move their current SAN network onto an existing network IP infrastructure.
Peiffer believes small businesses will be able to scale through to large deployments with the software and grow from a singular box with RAID subsystem all the way up to a highly available multi-path solution.
For example, businesses of 50 users with two servers can consolidate data the same way a business that supports thousands of users.
The Intel Storage System SSR212MA is available through standard industrial distributors such as Bell Microproducts, Arrow and Avnet. Peiffer could not confirm street pricing, but said he believes the product will be sell for $6,000 at the entry level point up to $20,000 depending on the number of chips installed and advanced features.
Intel will be supporting its Premier partners with this storage system, however, Peiffer added there are no restrictions on the product and any other resellers will be allowed to buy it.
The company currently has fewer than 10 Canadian resellers, including Open Storage Solutions and Hypertech. One of the goals for the storage division will be to grow that base to more than 100 resellers, Peiffer said.
Margins on the product will be better than the average server margins, which are between seven and 12 percentage points, he added.
Another advantage, Peiffer said, is that resellers are able to re-brand the system under their own names, similar to what Open Storage Solution does in the market.
“We allows them to build their own brand equity and build their business as a storage company rather than selling a commodity item,” Peiffer said.
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