Page 2 of 3
For companies that already have a VMware vCenter administrator, learning to use and manage the OmniCube is as easy as learning to drive a new rental car, SimpliVity's Kempel said.
"The IT administrator may have five to 20 people reporting to her, but she can't afford to spend a lot of time on purchasing, managing and training for new IT," Kempel said. "With OmniCube, you install one, and all the functionality is instantly available. All the functionality is in the hands of a single administrator. If she understands VMware, she doesn't need training."
Scott Robinson, president of Xioss, a Las Vegas-based solution provider, said he is intrigued by the concept of SimpliVity's OmniCube despite not yet having had a chance to see the actual product.
Robinson, who was CTO at Chanhassen, Minn.-based Datalink when that solution provider was the biggest channel partner of Kempel's former company, Diligent Technologies, said SimpliVity has brought the acceleration and deduplication technology that other startups are developing together with the ability to scale out in performance.
"It is very tightly coupled to VMware's management console and includes the processors, which can be used to run virtual machines," Robinson said. "I want to get my hands on it to test it out."
Robinson said the OmniCube is targeted primarily at midrange customers and at remote offices in enterprises, making it a good alternative to more expensive converged infrastructures such as VCE's Vblock and the NetApp and Cisco FlexPod solutions.
"The OmniCube has a similar architecture, but all in a single box," he said. "So, instead of a $1 million-plus price point, it comes in at a much smaller price point."
The OmniCube, which will formally be introduced at next week's VMworld conference, was designed to scale globally, and so multiple units can be installed in the same data center or across multiple data centers, all managed through the same management window, Kempel said.
"It's managed as if it was developed by rational people who understand VMware environments," he said. "So our session at VMworld is named, 'What Would IT Infrastructure Look Like Had A VMware Administrator Designed It.'"
The OmniCube is currently in beta, and it is expected to be in general availability this year. Pricing is slated to be about $55,000 per unit, which includes all the software functionality.
NEXT: Getting Ready For The Channel
<< Previous
|
1
|
2
|
3
|
Next >>
