Emerging Vendors

October 22, 2009

Company: Reldata

Headquarters: Parsippany, N.J.

Technology Sector: Storage

Key Product: Reldata 9240i

Year Founded: 2005

Number of Channel Partners: 60 in North America

Ideal Channel Partner: Midmarket-focused solution providers

Why You Should Care: Reldata develops software-centric unified storage systems that simplify management and improve utilization of storage infrastructure in virtualized, private-cloud computing environments. For VARs' customers, that means that even demanding storage loads can be managed by a smaller, more efficient staff.

The Lowdown: By consolidating SAN and NAS technology on an open, standards-based x86 platform, Reldata unified storage systems let companies see, virtualize and protect application data from a single management interface.

Reldata 9240i

Reldata delivers throughput rivaling more expensive Fibre Channel SANs but at a lower total cost of ownership, said Reldata CEO Steven Murphy. The company's products let users virtualize SAN block-level and NAS file-level data with management from one source, using iSCSI for synchronous mirroring and incremental replication. That results in greater flexibility and lower cost than legacy Fibre Channel, he said.

"We can provision storage within two hours," said Murphy. "And you save as you grow. As you scale up, and add terabytes, you start to save because you are not nickel-and-dimed every time. We offer a simple licensing solution." Reldata enables virtualization of third-party storage into a single pool, managed through a single interface. File data can be replicated using traditional block-level methods, and solution providers can offer customers snapshot roll-back flexibility, which saves time because IT staff can roll back volumes to an arbitrary snapshot on a block-level.

The product is popular with partners because, according to Murphy, it works.

"Reldata scales up and out, is elegant and works," he said. "We don't bundle in everything upfront and offer base features up front. We're simply not competing with the likes of an EMC or Dell. We have a billion dollar market right here ... I am helping bring legacy into the new, consolidated world."