Here at the Powering The Cloud conference in Frankfurt Fujitsu announced today two important additions to its storage systems strategy.
Fujitsu’s 2 announcements are:
- It has introduced a new version of its data protection appliance – the Eternus CS800 S4; this device now offers a maximum 249TB capacity in incremental amounts from 1TB and is designed to compete against EMC (which it believes has over 60% of the market); it is one of the first products to support Symantec’s NetBackup OST and Auto Image Replication can also load Commvault’s Simpona media agent, allowing customers to write data directly into the appliance without the need for extra server hardware; Fujitsu’s appliance includes the ability to backup to tape.
- It also announced a partnership with Violin memory to ship its 6000 all-flash-array; this is the third way flash storage is included in Fujitsu’s strategy as it also offers SSD and large caches in its Eternus DX storage systems and Fusion IO cards in its Primegy servers; Violin claims to have achieved 1 million IOPS with its flagship 6000 offering; Fujitsu has not announced a reseller agreement for the 3000 yet and still has some work to do to integrate the 6000 into its overall go-to-market approach
Fujitsu differs from other mainstream storage system suppliers by adding functionality through partnership rather than through acquisition. It will be interesting to see how the agreement helps to expand Violin’s sales in Europe – especially as that company is getting ready perhaps for an IPO. Fujitsu’s is in the process of converting many of the customers it sold EMC products to through another reseller agreement it ended 2 years ago, creating strong storage systems growth as a result. It also has a strong OEM partnership with NetApp for part of its DX range.