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HPE inks object storage reseller deal in EMEA – with Cloudian

Object storage partner Scality: Don't forget they put a RING on it!

+Comment Not content with having one object storage partner, Scality, HPE has linked arms with a second – Cloudian.

HPE has signed a reseller agreement with Cloudian – and will resell Cloudian HyperStore software in the EMEA region through its Pointnext services business. The Cloudian software runs on HPE's ProLiant and Apollo server lines.

Suggested use cases include data protection, active archive for media and entertainment, healthcare imaging, digital surveillance, storage-as-a-service, and – of course – artificial intelligence/machine learning applications.

Lorenzo de Amici, Worldwide Service Portfolio Manager at HPE, was a tad non-committal about the deal: "Our customers in EMEA are eager to find effective and economical solutions to consolidate, protect and manage their business data."

OK Lorenzo, but HPE has the Scality deal, and doesn't that provide "effective and economical solutions to consolidate, protect and manage their business data?" No? Yes?

He added: "Our relationship with Cloudian gives HPE customers new options for scalable enterprise storage solutions that capitalise on their existing investments in networking and server technologies.”

We've asked Cloudian and HPE why HPE would need a second object storage supplier in the EMEA region.

An HPE spokesperson replied: "HPE continues to actively partner with Scality to deliver leading object-based storage solutions to customers around the word. This partnership is backed by a Hewlett Packard Pathfinder equity investment, joint engineering for the HPE Scalable Object Storage with Scality RING product offering, and ongoing investment in go-to-market activities.

"Today’s announcement with Cloudian in the EMEA region is focused on a specific set of requirements and provides additional options for our customers.”

We have an understanding that it might involve existing Cloudian customers.

Cloudian did not wish to comment.

A knowledgable source said they think that Cloudian and Scality have similar roots in large scale telco messaging. Scality evolved its technology into its RING whereas Cloudian built an object storage product focused on native S3 from 2011 onwards.

It might assert that its resulting product is easier to operate and starts smaller than Scality's RING, commented our source, who opined that it has possibly the industry's best S3 compatibility. Scality has since added its S3 Server and Zenko products as it expands outside the core RING product with its protocol gateways.

The Scality view

Scality's view of HPE reselling things is somewhat different.

Chief Marketing Officer Paul Turner, who used to be Cloudian's top marketeer, said: "The professional services division of large companies like HPE will sometimes resell a product as part of a larger engagement. These are not official repeatable resells of the product and should not be considered as such. Any claim of a general resell of Cloudian by HPE is false."

Clear enough. And he backed this up with some quotes supporting this position.

Michelle Rockler, VP of Strategic Alliances at Scality, said: "HPE does not have a repeatable resell of Cloudian. Since 2014, Scality has had a global OEM relationship with HPE as its exclusive object storage vendor.

"HPE's Scalable Object Storage with Scality RING is HPE's petabyte scale-out object and file product, and core to HPE's storage portfolio. This partnership has been going from strength to strength and we just recently announced deeper integrated appliances with worldwide Level 1 and Level 2 support from HPE. No other vendor can compare with the appliance-like experience Scality has with HPE.”

+ Comment

Scality signed a reselling deal with Dell in April last year, which might have blotted its HPE copybook.

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