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Lenovo, Pivot3 Team Up on Hypercoverged Appliances

As part of an effort to make it simpler for channel partners to sell hyperconverged systems, Pivot3 and Lenovo have announced a partnership in which Arrow Enterprise Computing Solutions will make available Lenovo servers and all-flash storage technologies as an appliance the comes pre-packaged with vSTAC OS software from Pivot3. “Our initial thought is to […]

Written By

Michael Vizard

Jul 17, 2015

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As part of an effort to make it simpler for channel partners to sell hyperconverged systems, Pivot3 and Lenovo have announced a partnership in which Arrow Enterprise Computing Solutions will make available Lenovo servers and all-flash storage technologies as an appliance the comes pre-packaged with vSTAC OS software from Pivot3.

“Our initial thought is to first focus on the European market,” Pivot3 CEO Ron Nash said. “Once we get that process down, we’ll start to look at other markets.”

The goal is to provide Arrow ECS partners with a turnkey Hyper-Converged One appliance that unifies the management of compute and storage in a single platform, Nash said.

With many IT organizations beginning to make the shift to hyperconverged systems that enable IT organizations to more easily scale out compute resources as needed, Lenovo is looking for partners that can help it more effectively combat rivals, such as Cisco, Nutanix and Hewlett-Packard.

Even after acquiring IBM’s x86 server business, there is room for Lenovo to expand its data center presence. Nash said that as IT organizations make the shift to new architectures that tightly align compute and storage management, Lenovo sees an opportunity to gain share by partnering with Pivot3.

Unlike rivals, Pivot3 has taken a software-only approach to creating a hyperconverged appliance that enables partners to mix and match server and storage components as they see fit. In the case of Lenovo, Arrow ECS is providing the manufacturing and configuration expertise to create a hyperconverged appliance that is easier for its partners to sell.

Of course, via the acquisition of the IBM x86 server business, Lenovo has already gained access to converged systems. However, the converged systems in the IBM x86 portfolio require a fair amount of expertise to deploy and implement. The alliance with Pivot3 provides an alternative approach that enables Lenovo channel partners to participate in one of the hotter segments of the IT infrastructure market without having to invest in nearly as much engineering expertise.

Michael Vizard has been covering IT issues in the enterprise for more than 25 years as an editor and columnist for publications such as InfoWorld, eWEEK, Baseline, CRN, ComputerWorld and Digital Review.

Michael Vizard

Michael Vizard is a seasoned IT journalist, with nearly 30 years of experience writing and editing about enterprise IT issues. He is a writer for publications including Programmableweb, IT Business Edge, CIOinsight, Channel Insider and UBM Tech. He formerly was editorial director for Ziff-Davis Enterprise, where he launched the company’s custom content division, and has also served as editor in chief for CRN and InfoWorld. He also has held editorial positions at PC Week, Computerworld and Digital Review.

Lenovo, Pivot3 Team Up on Hypercoverged Appliances

Michael Vizard

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