Avnet Technology Solutions UK launches Elastic Cloud Infrastructure

Avnet Technology Solutions, UK, has launched an Elastic Cloud Infrastructure (ECI) solution combining technology from Cisco, EMC and VMware. The new addition to Avnet’s portfolio will accelerate the success of business partners looking to maximise the potential of the rapidly expanding Hyper-Convergence market.

The platform is aimed at smaller service providers and mid- to large-sized organisations looking to increase the flexibility and scalability of their next generation data centre environments. Avnet’s ECI solution will also help to lower total cost of ownership (TCO) through the lifecycle of the infrastructure. Avnet business partners can install and deploy Cisco’s UCS servers and EMC’s ScaleIO™ storage systems with VMware’s vSphere® virtualisation platform to offer one totally integrated solution.
Tom Corrigan, open storage and Cisco business unit leader, Avnet Technology Solutions, UK, commented, “The new ECI solution builds on our wealth of experience, knowledge and expertise in delivering converged infrastructure solutions that help business partners enter new markets. Working with some of the world’s most trusted technology providers, we have created a powerful addition to Avnet’s portfolio that tightly integrates computing, storage, networking and virtualisation resources in a single package. The rewards for customers are exponential, as they reap significant benefits, operationally and financially.”

Traditionally, organisations were committed to one brand of storage technology that often locked them into long-term contracts. Avnet’s ECI solution provides a flexible, scalable, building block approach by allowing storage functionality and capacity in any server to be accessed as and when the organisation needs it. By offering a common pool of storage, purchasing decisions can be planned over shorter cycles with less impact on budget and scheduled downtime can be reduced.

Using ECI, Avnet business partners will benefit from incremental revenue from upgrades and services as they work closely with customers to plan capacity in line with real-time operational and financial requirements. In a single conversation, they can discuss storage, servers, virtualisation and networking and demonstrate tangible business value in terms of better infrastructure planning, reduced risks and maximised resources.

Avnet anticipates that the new ECI solution will appeal particularly to Software as a Service (SaaS) providers who are reluctant to make large initial infrastructure investments but need to scale resource as demands increase. In addition, education sector organisations implementing Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) to avoid investing in large technology stacks for point solutions, such as end user computing, are a key target.

Avnet plans to host a series of webinars on ECI that will give business partners the product and market knowledge they need to address the growing demand for Hyper-Convergence solutions, find new revenue streams and answer end user questions on infrastructure, databases, virtual storage and virtual infrastructure.