The VAR Guy

VARs looking to add a little bit more value to their storage portfolio might want to check out Avnet’s latest offering, CapacityNow. The service enables Avnet HP VARs and partners to deliver an on-premise data solution that is essentially a private pay-as-you-go storage cloud. Read on for the full details …

Under the service, VARs deploy blade servers on a customer’s premise and then plan a solution for the customer based on the customer’s storage capacity needs. The idea is to provide a way for budget-strapped customers to get the data storage they need (with the option to scale out) without the amount of capital expense needed to buy and deploy their own managed on-premise solution. It also allows for VARs to more easily sell solutions to businesses that need them.

CapacityNow has a built-in assessment service to help VARs pick out the right blade server needs of a customer, and also help the VAR and customer plan ahead when a customer foresees expansion in the future. Avnet will also meet with the VAR to determine how best to continue meeting the needs of the VARs’ customers as well as monitor how much of the deployed capacity is being used and tweak accordingly.

Avnet is also billing CapacityNow as the perfect solution for customers who aren’t quite comfortable with putting the data center in someone else’s hands but are more than happy to let someone else micromanage their hardware needs. Avnet hopes this will address ongoing concerns about storage in the cloud, too.

Not an Avnet HP VAR? No worries, that requirement is only temporary — Avnet plans to open up the service to all Avnet VARs as the program progresses (although no time frame for this plan was announced). In the meantime, if you’re a customer or VAR eager to jump on board, check out Avnet’s video for a few more details.

Bigger picture? Amid the news from Dell Storage Forum that data needs are booming everywhere, Avnet’s CapacityNow has huge potential to meet storage needs without breaking the bank or cutting corners. We’ll keep an eye on CapacityNow as it expands to gauge its impact on the storage market.

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