EMC, Dell Take Stage For Clarion Array Debut

Channel executives took the news well, noting they like the new entry-level array and how it fits into EMC's CX-family.

Scott Pelletier, senior technical consultant and storage practice manager at Lewan and Associates, a Denver-based solution provider that works with EMC, called the CX200 a good idea, as customers are looking for SAN connectivity without high prices. "EMC is always good at offering more connectivity than other vendors out of the chute," he said.

For Pat Edwards, vice president of sales at Alliance Technology Group, a Hanover, Md.-based solution provider, the CX200 is not as exciting as the CX400 and CX600, as his firm is moving away from the Windows NT space. Instead, Alliance will sell it when customers ask for it, he said.

"The CX200 is not cost-efficient for us," Edwards said. "Dell is strongest in the NT space. We're not going out there and fighting the battles with the CX200. The CX400 and CX600 are different. . . We're actually excited about the CX line."

The CX200 will help drive EMC into the corporate department or workgroup space and give customers an opportunity to migrate upward to meet the interest in SANs in the midrange space, said Kevin Schoonover, director of engineering at Arrow Enterprise Storage Solutions, an Englewood, Colo.-based distributor.

The CX200 can scale to more than 2 Tbytes in capacity and supports Windows 2000, NT, Linux and Novell NetWare environments, EMC executives said. It can be scaled upward in features to be equivalent to a CX400, with a maximum capacity of 4.3 Tbytes, or the CX600, with a maximum capacity of 17 Tbytes.

The CX200 is available for order and will be generally available early next month. List prices for starting configurations from EMC are less than $30,000, including warranty and EMC services. The Dell version, with similar configuration but services from Dell, will start at about $28,000.