While so much of technology spending has suffered from the ravages of the
recession over the last nine months, a few areas have enjoyed relative
immunity, and storage and virtualization technologies are often mentioned as
two of those areas.
Now Ingram Micro, recognizing the strength of and demand for those
technologies, is offering a way to help solution providers demonstrate their
benefits to end customers. The Ingram Micro Infrastructure Technology Solutions
Division this week announced that it will create an EMC
Velocity2 Solution Center partner training and demonstration lab at its Solution
Center in Buffalo,
N.Y.
“We’ve seen a steady increase in demand from our partner base for more
resources and support offerings around data center solutions and virtualization
in particular,” says Keith Bradley, president of Ingram Micro North America.
“Demand for more education, training, resources and solutions has spiked in the
last six to nine months, in part due to economic drivers which are forcing businesses
to cut costs, optimize the business and reduce real estate.”
He notes that managed infrastructure has also become a big opportunity for
solution providers, especially those targeting midmarket and small enterprises,
and those that have an established managed services practice.
“It’s always easier to sell when the buyer can test-drive the product or
service and see it in action—try before you buy,” says Bradley. “That’s
especially true when you’re dealing with big purchases and more complex technologies
such as those found within the data center.”
The new EMC Velocity2 Solution Center
will enable demonstrations for backup, recovery, archive and virtualization
solutions in real-world application environments, according to Ingram Micro. It
is also designed to offer technical training around EMC
data center architecture and VMware virtualization.
The solution center will also offer solution providers access to reference
architectures, Web-based presentations and prospect-facing demonstrations that showcase
and address six of the most common business challenges facing today’s small
business and midmarket customers.
It is available now exclusively to EMC-accredited
channel partners in the United States.
Virtualization 
