HDS To Resell CommVault Software Suite

HDS on Thursday said it has signed a worldwide distribution agreement to resell the QiNetix software suite from CommVault Systems, Oceanport, N.J. Under the deal, HDS will co-brand QiNetix under the banner, Hitachi Data Protection Suite Powered By CommVault, said Brian Householder, senior director of business development at the Santa Clara, Calif.-based company.

The deal with HDS is a big plus for CommVault, said Dan Carson, vice president of marketing and business development at Open Systems Solutions, a Yardley, Pa.-based storage solution provider and longtime CommVault partner. "It's good for Hitachi, but it's better for CommVault. That they're getting hooked up with a big storage player [like HDS] is quite a coup for them," he said.

QiNetix offers robust storage management software that's suitable for enterprise customers, according to Carson. "We think it's a dynamite product," he said.

The agreement expands on a two-year-old relationship in which HDS resells the CommVault Galaxy data backup and recovery application, said Dave West, vice president of business development at CommVault. With the new arrangement, HDS also will sell CommVault's Data Migrator hierarchical storage management, Date Archiver compliance and QNet storage reporting applications, as well as its Quick Recovery snapshot software, he said. The deal doesn't include CommVault's storage resource management application.

In addition, HDS and CommVault will work together to better integrate their software to improve its performance, West said.

Though HDS offers software for device and performance management and array-based data replication, CommVault's suite is more focused on the management of the data, Householder said.

The HDS-branded storage management suite is expected to be available to HDS' direct-sales force and channel partners on May 12.