Niche distributor Bluechip Infotech has announced that Nexenta's software-defined storage solution has been listed on an Australian university sector IT panel.
The Council of Australian University Directors of Information Technology came to terms with Nexenta in October, for a term lasting one year.
CAUDIT's members include most universities – UNSW, University of Sydney, UTS, Monash, and University of Melbourne to name a few – and some research agencies such as the CSIRO and Defence Science and Technology Organisation.
"Collectively, CAUDIT member institutions spend approximately AU$2 billion on ICT products and services annually," said a statement from Nexenta.
The news is a boon for Bluechip Infotech, which senior product manager Kylie Ayres confirmed was the exclusive local distributor for Nexenta after the channel was established in October.
The distie's director of enterprise Phil Lancaster said: "The education market is a classic benefactor of software-defined storage, allowing [the institutions] to minimise their cost of owning and managing storage through hardware independence and license transportability."
The CAUDIT website shows that members are now eligible for a 20 percent discount for systems of up to 1 petabyte, and 30 percent off for those above that threshold. In addition, the organisation stated "NextentaConnect for VDI will be offered at 20 percent off, and 30 percent off for more than 5,000 VDI users".
Nexenta said in October that its software-defined solutions work with a number of technologies from the likes of VMware, Citrix, Intel, Dell and Cisco. In July, the storage company was named on the CRN US Emerging Vendors honour roll.
Bluechip Infotech has branches in all the mainland state capitals with enterprise products such as Nexenta coming into its catalogue after its merger with software specialist Track IT Online in April.
Source: http://www.crn.com.au/News/399653,universities-strike-deal-with-software-defined-storage-vendor.aspx
