Chi Corporation Latest Hifn VAR

Hifn announced that Chi Corporation, a storage value added resellers (VARs), has become the latest VAR to add Hifn’s Swarm iSCSI storage appliances to its product line.

Chi Corp., based in Cleveland, is a storage specialist serving SMB to enterprise customers with a full-line of storage and network products, solutions and professional services. Chi’s decision to start selling Hifn Swarm appliances was based on the unmatched feature set and superior ease of use of the Swarm appliances, according to Greg Knieriemen, Vice President of Marketing at Chi. “Hifn’s Swarm line has an incredible feature set for the price,” said Knieriemen. “It gives us a real strong value proposition walking in the door talking to end users. Hifn redefines ‘easy.’ They are easy to work with and their products are easy to use, easy to sell, easy to install and there’s a very high degree of customer satisfaction.”

Knieriemen also praised the design of Hifn’s Swarm iSCSI appliances, which are built to support both SAN and NAS storage as well as provide Enterprise-class storage services that are part of the standard Swarm configuration, rather than extra-cost add-ons as is typical with other iSCSI products. “The fact that you can do both SAN and NAS is pretty critical, especially for an SMB customer, they need to have a combination of those features in a size and scale that’s appropriate for a small business.  It’s that combination of features that makes Swarm a winner.” he said. “Hifn really packed all the things that SMBs need in an all-in-one appliance.  The automatic backup feature that is compatible with any major backup software eliminates the need for a separate backup server, which would be a typical design for an iSCSI-based solution.  It is a huge value proposition to an SMB customer.”

The iSCSI market is one of the fastest growing areas in storage technology with industry analyst firm International Data Corp. (IDC) projecting double-digit growth through 2010, when the market for iSCSI technology will grow to more than $5.1 billion.

“Chi Corporation represents the ideal channel partner we are targeting to help us keep pace with the demand for iSCSI storage technology,” said John Matze, Vice President Business Development at Hifn. “The design of our Swarm product line took into account the features, functionalities and pricing that a VAR needed to compete in the market.  We are committed to our partners with a 100 percent channel-only strategy, a very robust partner program, and our determination to make Hifn the premiere option for resellers looking to cash in on the iSCSI market opportunity.”