Virtual Tape Libraries Enter SMB Price Range

Traditionally a higher-end play due to the costs and complexity of the technology, newer VTL products have features and prices geared toward smaller businesses. And the channel is taking notice.

Earlier this month, Tech Data started carrying VTLs by Sepaton. The Clearwater, Fla.-based distributor will sell the products through its Advanced Infrastructure Solutions (AIS) division, becoming the first distributor to carry products from Sepaton.

Tech Data solution providers can present their customers with virtual tape solutions to replace tape storage, said Pete Peterson, senior vice president and general manager of Tech Data's AIS group. "We think [the solution] has an opportunity to provide value in the SMB community," Peterson said.

Tech Data will distribute Sepaton's S2100-DS2 series, targeting select small-business environments. The units store information faster than traditional tape devices and also cuts data restoration and retrieval times during business continuity and disaster recovery situations, Tech Data said. Sepaton also has applications for enhanced data protection, compression and replication.

"We have reduced the complexity and made it very affordable. We want to reach a broad market. Given it's able to be installed by the customer, it made sense to go through a channel where SMBs buy products from," said Linda Mentzer, vice president of marketing at Sepaton, Marlborough, Mass.

Sepaton chose Tech Data as a means to boost revenue through the channel because the distributor was most ready, said Michael Sutkowski, vice president of business development at the company. "It really was 'the perfect storm.' Pete's new program focused on AIS was intended to go upmarket. We intended to go downmarket. We needed a partner to do that," he said.

Sepaton currently sells direct to about 35 VARs to target the Fortune 1,000 market, Sutkowski said. He wouldn't say how many customers he hopes to add, but he said solution providers must be willing to make an investment along with Sepaton and Tech Data because of the complexity of the solutions. "We want a few good partners that will be determined by their skill set and willingness to train," he said.

"The DS2 is a small 3U, a great little unit. You can get a lot of bang for the buck. We see that as a satellite office, remote office environment. It fits nice in that space," said Kevin Hanlon, president and CEO of ComSource, a solution provider in Manlius, N.Y. "Tech Data made a good, strategic decision to sign with Sepaton. ... [It's great for] some companies with remote offices that don't have an individual assigned to do backup/restore or manage backup/restore."

Most vendors don't have backup solutions with automatic backup features for SMBs, Hanlon said. "[The SMB solution] is usually somebody backing up a handful of servers with some stand-alone drives, some hodge-podge backup software. It's probably not your core Veritas or Tivoli shops," he said. "I haven't seen anybody else down in that space myself. My guess is that [other vendors] have not tried to sell into that space."

Sepaton has a head start in the small-business market, he said. "It's a unique strategy to go downmarket. No one is really chasing it. [Sepaton] seems to have a better mousetrap."