BMC Software, Inc., [NYSE: BMC], a leader in enterprise management, and INRANGE Technologies Corporation [Nasdaq: INRG], the world leader in high-end scalable storage networking solutions, today announced a reseller agreement that will offer all of BMC Software's storage Knowledge Modules® (KMs) through INRANGE's world-wide sales force. The agreement creates a simplified purchasing process for mutual customers who are looking to further reduce costs by more effectively managing their storage environments with BMC Software solutions.
"As storage environments become increasingly complex, storage administrators are facing a tremendous management challenge," said Geoff Roten, assistant vice president of information technology, Ardent Health Services. "Through INRANGE and BMC Software's partnership, users are able to benefit from industry-leading, interoperable solutions that work to simplify management and enable high levels of data availability."
Under the terms of the agreement, INRANGE's direct sales organisation will sell BMC Software's PATROL® for Storage Arrays and PATROL® for Storage Networking KMs through its world-wide sales and professional services organisations. BMC Software's KMs offer added intelligence about the storage device being managed, which delivers a greater return on a customer's storage investment. The KMs optimise these devices through improved operational efficiencies and accelerated problem resolution. INRANGE will sell all of BMC Software's storage KMs, including the PATROL for INRANGE
FC/9000(tm) KM, which supports INRANGE's IN-VSN(tm) FC/9000 multi-protocol Director.
As interoperability and the management of multi-vendor storage environments continue to be a key user concern, customers can benefit from simplified management of a scalable storage environment that enables users to optimise existing environments and benefit from the flexibility to support multiple protocols and transport speeds. Through the assistance and expertise of INRANGE Global Consulting (IGC), INRANGE's professional services organisation, customers can deploy BMC Software's management offerings in conjunction with INRANGE's enterprise connectivity hardware to enable truly integrated, end-to-end enterprise availability.
"As enterprise infrastructures continue to become more heterogeneous, management becomes a greater challenge. Through our agreement, INRANGE and BMC together can now offer customers industry-leading solutions to help ensure the availability that their business-critical environments require," said Dale A. Lafferty, vice president, marketing and alliances, INRANGE. "This agreement represents an excellent growth opportunity for both companies and furthers INRANGE's commitment to providing additional value to our customers by delivering open, flexible, end-to-end solutions for their multi-vendor environments."
For INRANGE customers already using PATROL as their enterprise management tool, implementation of the KMs will be instantaneous. For those customers who are not using PATROL, INRANGE will have access to BMC Software's PATROL agent and console. KMs are easily installed to activate monitoring of storage arrays or storage networking devices. INRANGE is distributing a package custom-built by BMC Software to meet their needs.
"BMC Software's strategy has been - and will continue to be - to partner with leading storage hardware vendors like INRANGE so we can present our mutual customers with a complete enterprise management solution," said Helmuth Klemm, vice president and general manager, Enterprise Storage Management, BMC Software. "INRANGE has been a valuable BMC Software partner for nearly two years, and we look forward to delivering our mutual customers interoperable solutions."
INRANGE has been a member of BMC Software's industry-leading application-centric storage management (ACSM®) Consortium since March 2001. As the first member to achieve Global Solutions Program status within the ACSM Consortium, INRANGE has qualified as a BMC Software alliance partner who has best-of-breed technology and is an industry leader who advanced its relationship with BMC Software to resell its products. BMC Software's ACSM Consortium is a technology-based alliance program comprised of industry-leading companies. BMC Software works closely with the member companies to develop storage management technologies that ensure data reliability and availability across heterogeneous storage environments.
BMC Software Delivers Channel-Friendly Storage Solutions
BMC Software's storage KMs are ideal for the reseller community, and BMC Software has worked over the last year to make these solutions easier for resellers to offer as a part of their storage product offerings. Other efforts by BMC Software's storage group to reach the channel include revising the ACSM Consortium this past Spring to attract the reseller community and formalising training for its members. With this announcement, BMC Software is also announcing the following new channel-friendly
packaging:
* BMC Software has packaged its KMs into two separate groups and has
given each its own name. To date, there are nine KMs supporting distinctive storage array hardware. These KMs are now packaged into an offering called PATROL for Storage Arrays. Additionally, there are nine KMs supporting distinctive storage hardware. These KMs are now packaged into an offering called PATROL for Storage Networking. For additional information on BMC Software's storage management solutions, please visit http://www.bmc.com/solutions/0,2834,19052_19450,00.html.
About INRANGE (www.INRANGE.com)
INRANGE Technologies Corporation (Nasdaq: INRG), a subsidiary of SPX Corporation, is the world leader in high-end scalable storage networking solutions and provides users with the building blocks to manage and expand large, complex storage networks simply without geographic limitations. INRANGE's core-to-edge-to-anywhere solutions solve the growing storage challenges facing today's IT organisations, while providing investment protection and a proven foundation for future growth. INRANGE has a 33-year history of providing mission-critical networking technologies, servicing over 2,200 customers in 90 countries.
For further information, please contact:
INRANGE Technologies Ltd. Christine Schmidt,
Martin-Kollar-Strasse 15, 81829 Munich, Germany
Tel: +49 (0)89 42741124, fax: +49 (0)89 42741199,
e-mail: christine.schmidt@inrange.com
Technical Publicity Lorenzo Bonasera,
26-34 Liverpool Road, Luton, Beds LU1 RS, UK
Tel: +44 (0) 1582 878879, Fax: +44 (0) 1582 878877
e-mail: lbonasera@technical-publicity.com
Lorenzo Bonasera
Technical Publicity Ltd
26-34 Liverpool Road, Luton, Beds LU1 1RS, UK
Tel +44 (0)1582 878879; Fax +44 (0)1582 878877 lbonasera@technical-publicity.com
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