Brocade brings on Distribution Central

Networking vendor, Brocade, has struck a distribution deal with Distribution Central for its LAN products portfolio.

Brocade country manager, Graham Schultz, said it had been looking for an organisation with strong national coverage and reach that could provide focus, adequate technical resources and skills to help grow and support its reseller base.

The vendor weighed up a range of options including Ingram Micro, Avnet and global distribution partner, Westcon Group, before selecting Distribution Central for the local market. Its products will be distributed through the SAN Systems division.

Brocade also works with Ingram Micro through OEM partnerships with IBM and HP, along with Westcon through its EMC alliance.

“We certainly looked at the alternatives, but felt Distribution Central gave us the best balance and mix for us to achieve,” Schultz said. He also highlighted the distributor’s back-end quoting and logistics systems, as key attributes, as well as the experience of its management team.

“It’s a fresh organisation and fits our attitude and culture,” he added. “It’s hard to get growth without running against competing products. But compared to a Westcon, Ingram or Avnet, Distribution Central has less competitive products.”

Schultz also pointed to complementary vendor products, such as NetApp’s SAN, NAS and iSCSI solutions.

Distribution Central will have access to Brocade’s IP networking products including Layer 2/3 fixed and chassis-based switches, Layer 4-7 application delivery switches, wireless LAN equipment, network adapters and management systems.

Brocade will continue to distribute its storage networking solutions through boutique player, Lynx Technologies. In a statement, Distribution Central marketing director, Nick Verykios, said Brocade would allow its resellers to broaden their networking offerings to customers.

“The Australian market is being driven by the need for efficient and cost-effective data access and management capabilities and as a result, the network is shifting to the datacentre with less reliance on traditional network infrastructure,” he stated.

To coincide with the new relationship, Schultz said Brocade is developing a one-day fast track training program to enable partners with existing Cisco skills to certify across its solutions. The free course has already been beta tested with select partners and is expected to be available in December.

“Our LAN products are very similar to Cisco’s from a command-line perspective. Our course takes into account a partner’s skills and provides the delta training to do the certification exam,” Schultz said. “It covers the key tools to help channel partners overcome the barriers to entry.”

The vendor will also launch a roadshow across several regions in conjunction with Distribution Central to drive awareness.

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