Raritan, a management solution vendor with headquarters in Somerset, N.J., is looking to increase its existing reseller base in Canada with the release of its new Dominion PX solution, an intelligent power distribution unit (PDU) designed for use in data centres.
The PDU, Jerry Diakow, country sales manager at Mississauga, Ont.-based Raritan Canada, explains, is a large intelligent power bar that is made to work within a data centre at the server rack. The solution, Diakow says, is ideal for IT managers or system administrators who want to better monitor and manage their business’s power consumption and power usage on an outlet-by-outlet basis. In addition, the product, he said, also allows administrators to monitor things like rack temperature and humidity and power sequence.
“It’s a system that provides real-time information to the system administrator to help them make informed decisions about how efficiently they’re using their power resources,” Diakow said. “Dominion PX also improves a business’s uptime and staff productivity because the PDU itself is connected to the network and the administrator can access the information over the network using an IP address and a Web browser to see if there are any problems over the network with the servers.”
The solution, which Diakow says can be used as a standalone power management solution, requires very little maintenance on the actual equipment itself, since he said the equipment is reliable once it has been set up. Dominion PX, he continues, is now available to the channel through distributor Tech Data Canada and comes in 16 different models that range in size from eight to 20 outlets.
Diakow mentions Raritan currently has about 26 channel partners that are Gold and Platinum certified in its registered partner program. However, he notes that with the recent release of Dominion PX, Raritan is hoping to broaden its reseller base to increase these numbers across Canada.
“We’ll focus on our existing partners with this new solution,” he said. “We also hope that partners who work in this space and who have some sort of focus on power will be attracted to this product, in which case we’ll entertain them into coming on board.”
Asides from monitoring and measuring power usage, Diakow said system administrators can also cycle power when using Dominion PX, as well as can also turn the power off on a particular server and re-power it back up again if necessary. By providing administrators with this sort of control and information in the data centre, Diakow said the PDU helps saves businesses both power and money.
“It’s great for a small company with about eight or 10 servers,” Diakow said, “all the way up to working in large data centres like in the financial and government sectors. These PDUs really apply to everyone who has a data centre or some type of computer room with a system administrator.”
Where resellers can make the most money off of the product, he mentions, is through the upfront, initial sale of the product itself. Dominion PX starts at a MSRP of U.S. $649 and Diakow said depending on its price at distribution, partners should expect to receive anywhere between 20 and 35 per cent margins. To increase their revenue streams, he also said partners can sell customers an extended warranty by adding another one or two years to its initial two-year warranty.
“For resellers, this new product is a way for them to look at both existing and new customer and upgrade opportunities,” Diakow said. “Our goal now is to have partners in all the major geographic areas in Canada. We’re well represented in the East, but we could always use more partners in the West,” he added.