It was announced recently that data protection services provider Axcient has partnered with HP to deliver its hybrid on-premise appliance for backup and business continuity capabilities. Axient provides on-premise hardware and a cloud-based infrastructure as a means of backing up data for SMBs.
Now, Axcient will employ HP’s Converged Infrastructure in providing the hardware portion of its offering.
Why Partner on the Hardware
In an exclusive interview with ChannelPro-SMB, Axcient CEO Justin Moore told the channel that his company sought out a hardware manufacturer after analyzing its own strengths as a company. “We at Axcient realize that software and software as a service are our strong suits. So, we wanted to find a partner who really had the expertise in the hardware,” explains Moore. He adds, “After spending a lot of time testing, doing research, and looking at the market, we came to the conclusion that ultimately HP was the best provider.”
Why HP’s Converged Infrastructure?
The Converged Infrastructure from HP packages various IT components into a single solution. The components include servers, storage devices, networking hardware, and software. According to Axcient, this “total solution” provides a recognizable name-brand partner to provide the hardware for its hybrid solution.
In the Axcient configuration, an HP server resides at the SMB’s location, where it backs up servers and acts as a failover system. The ProLiant-based appliance then connects to the Axcient data center, where it transfers the backup data.
Previously, Axcient’s systems were based on a variety of hardware. Using HP equipment instead, SMBs can now scale from 250 GB to 20 TB on a single appliance. In addition, this configuration can accommodate the backup and failover of as many as seven servers.
“There is an onsite appliance that goes at the customer location that runs all of our software,” Moore explains. “None of the software actually gets installed on the network. That is now an HP-based appliance. All of our infrastructure now in our data center—our networking, our dense-compute layer, our clustered, scalable, redundant storage solutions—they’re all based on the HP infrastructure.”
Moore adds, “We felt that by working with HP, we could provide the channel the best of both worlds.”
What’s In It for HP?
Meaghan Kelly is HP’s vice president of channel sales development and strategies. She told ChannelPro-SMB that the partnership with Axcient benefits both companies.
Kelly says channel pros are moving to cloud- and managed services-based offerings. “By 2013,” she says, “we estimate it [the cloud] is going to be about a $150 billion market, and it will represent about 10 percent of the total IT spent.”
These figures, she explains, made it hard for HP to ignore Axcient’s proposal. “We have 16,000 SMB partners in the U.S. alone,” she says. “And they represent $57 billion in hardware and services opportunities for HP.”
Kelly adds, “the great thing about the Axcient solution on HP is that it will fit into any size SMB and allow them to have a scalable business model no matter how many seats they have. “
How Scalable Is It?
According to Moore, scalability is at the heart of the Axcient-HP partnership.
“Fom our perspective at Axcient, this relationship is obviously critical because it provides us a new level of scalability for the channel,” Moore says. “We now have a solution that starts as low as, say, an SMB in need of 100 GB of critical data, and we can scale all the way to an SMB that has tens of terabytes of critical data.”
Kelly concurs, adding, “When we talk about SMBs from HP, we typically say it’s a VAR that’s selling into 1,000 seats or below. The great thing about the Axcient solution on HP is that it will fit into any size SMB and allow them to have this scalable business model no matter how many seats they have.†
How Is the Channel Reacting?
Moore says Axcient and HP have been working with their channel partners on a variety of initiatives aimed at leveraging sales. “You will see these [initiatives] rolling out over the next several months,” he says. “We’ve been talking to VARs, and we’ve been working with HP trying to help VARs position their services, trying to provide them tools as they go into their customer accounts. “
“Our partners are excited about this,” Kelly says. “I’m out talking to partners on a regular basis, and we have lots of discussions about what are the best solution sets and market.† And the conversations that I’ve had with them—when Axcient comes up and we talk about what it can do for their business—it really changes the game for our partners.”
