Storage Fusion Drives Professional Services

Specializing in storage analytics, UK-based Storage Fusion is reaching out to the broader channel with a new flat-rate pricing model for its SRA (Storage Resource Analysis) service. Based on a SaaS (Software as a Service) platform, the latest release of SRA combines all of the company's analytic modules into a single unified service with a monthly subscription fee.  This makes the service much more accessible than the existing pricing model which is based on the amount of disk storage capacity being analyzed.

Technically a one-year-old start up, the company has been delivering SRA since January, and started signing up global resellers to host the software in August, said Graham Woods, managing director. "We're exploiting the SaaS model to be very disruptive in the marketplace. We've had some fantastic traction in the market since August, to the point where we're now profitable and cash-generative."

The technology behind SRA represented a small segment of Itheon, a software developer acquired by Xploite plc, an investment company, in 2007.  It was subsequently spun off as Storage Fusion. The new release includes a comprehensive set of analytics that report on system utilization, capacity allocation and disk tiering based on workgroup classifications. It also includes the recently-announced environmental module that calculates power consumption of storage hardware down to individual disk drives.

Initial customers were primarily consulting companies who used the tools to help customers enhance and accelerate their data storage assets, said Colin Horne, sales manager. He said there are a number of alternative solutions out there, but that they're either proprietary, complex and/or expensive. "The (competition's) heterogeneity tends to be pretty slim across platforms (and) they tend to be a big clumsy."

Horne said customers tend to love Storage Fusion's SaaS model because there is no agent software required, no spending on CapEx, and storage analytics can be delivered in the same day requested. He said channel partners would typically spend about $1,600 per month/per customer for a subscription which would provide one analysis per month. According to the company, most organizations see a full return on their yearly investment with the first month's analysis. Typically customers can recover 10-15 percent of their storage assets.

The service enables channel partners to analyze their customers' storage environments and provide specific recommendations on how to optimize their storage and get the best ban for their buck, said Horne. "This is driving our channel partners' professional service revenues."

The company is looking for additional coverage in the U.S. and is considering hooking up with a distributor to capture niche markets.

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