Avnet to Distribute NetApp Syncsort Integrated Backup

Avnet Technology Solutions and Syncsort Incorporated announced an expanded distribution agreement.

Under this agreement, Avnet will now distribute the NetApp Syncsort Integrated Backup (NSB) solution in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA), with an initial focus on Ireland, Germany, the Netherlands and the U.K.

The agreement builds upon Avnet’s record in helping NetApp and Syncsort expand their market presence. Avnet and Syncsort signed a similar distribution agreement for Canada and the U.S. in 2010.

With this agreement, Avnet’s community of NetApp reseller partners will now be able to leverage a combined offering featuring integrated backup capabilities from Syncsort and NetApp’s storage products.

The solution brings value to the NetApp portfolio by creating new markets for resellers that maximize revenue opportunities and grow their NetApp storage sales. Avnet will help its channel partners further increase their data protection business with customized programs designed to help them identify and capture new opportunities.

NetApp Syncsort Integrated Backup empowers channel partners to take a new approach to data protection that goes beyond deduplication to resolve a broader set of backup and disaster recovery challenges. In addition to providing source-side data reduction and target-side deduplication, the solution eliminates backup windows, provides unified data protection across all data types, and delivers faster, simplified disaster recovery.

Built from the partnership and technical collaboration between NetApp and Syncsort, NetApp Syncsort Integrated Backup extends core NetApp snapshot and block incremental replication technologies to deliver a data protection solution at a 30 to 50 percent lower total cost of ownership than is common in today’s market.

NetApp Syncsort Integrated Backup is available in EMEA through Avnet Technology Solutions. Resellers that sign up with Avnet for the solution will also join Syncsort’s recently announced Partner Edge Channel Program in EMEA.

"With organizations transforming their businesses through server virtualization, there is a rapidly growing need for data protection solutions that support heterogeneous storage environments," said Ed Bateman, product business group director, storage and software, Avnet Technology Solutions EMEA. "By providing Avnet’s channel partners with the NetApp Syncsort Integrated Backup solution, they will be able to further expand their storage offerings into the lucrative and growing data protection market. The solution complements our existing NetApp portfolio, and Avnet will be working hand-in-hand with our partners to provide the tools and resources needed to help them capture this market opportunity."

"The pace of data growth and the shift to virtualization are breaking traditional backup architectures and dramatically increasing the costs and resources needed to protect data," said Mike Kuehn, vice president of worldwide channels, Syncsort. "NetApp Syncsort Integrated Backup’s simplified architecture means that customers only need to move their data and deduplicate it once. With this solution, they can backup and recover data significantly faster, and dramatically reduce total cost of ownership. The distribution agreement builds on our already successful relationship with Avnet, and we are confident, that together, we will continue to create new market opportunities for the NetApp Syncsort Integrated Backup in both North America and Europe."

"NSB extends core NetApp snapshot and block incremental replication technologies to provide a powerful heterogeneous data protection solution that transforms backup and recovery to help businesses significantly improve their operational efficiency and get more out of their existing investments," said Nick Thurlow, vice president, EMEA partners and pathways, NetApp. "Through our close partnership with Syncsort, we have engineered a proven, comprehensive data protection solution that is far more advanced and delivers greater benefits than any source-side and target-side deduplication appliance or virtual tape library."