Bell Micro To Distribute IP SAN Appliances From LeftHand

Boulder, Colo.-based LeftHand offers a series of appliances built on an industry-standard server running the company's proprietary SAN/iQ software.

SAN/iQ virtualizes any number of the appliances into a SAN built using IP networks, said David Bangs, vice president of sales for LeftHand. Such a SAN is scalable both in terms of capacity and bandwidth since the addition of each appliance adds another Gigabit Ethernet pipeline, he said. Automatic failover between appliances protects the data, he said.

The deal with Bell Micro was aimed at helping LeftHand fill out its channel sales as swiftly as possible, Bangs said. "Bell recognized that the iSCSI and IP SAN market is taking off," he said. "They have a good reputation for bringing products early to their customer space."

Prior to the deal with Bell Micro, LeftHand products were distributed only by Premark Technology, an Annapolis Junction, Md.-based regional distributor, said Bangs. About 95 percent of LeftHand's non-OEM business goes through channels, he said.

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The company is targeting midrange solution providers with annual sales of between $10 million and $100 million with customers that need to move to networked storage but are afraid of SANs," Bangs said.

Earlier this month, LeftHand unveiled its latest SAN appliance. The Network Storage Module 150 supports four hot-swappable SATA drives with a maximum total capacity of 1 Tbyte. It offers dual network connectivity with failover, and can be clustered with the company's other appliances.