HDS Adds CommVault's QiNetix Suite

HDS late last week said it has signed a worldwide distribution agreement to resell the QiNetix software suite from CommVault Systems, Oceanport, N.J.

Under the deal, HDS will co-brand QiNetix under the banner, Hitachi Data Protection Suite Powered By CommVault, said Brian Householder, senior director of business development at Santa Clara, Calif.-based HDS.

Dan Carson, vice president of marketing and business development at Open Systems Solutions, a Yardley, Pa.-based storage solution provider and longtime CommVault partner, said QiNetix offers robust storage management software that's suitable for enterprise customers.

The deal with HDS is a big boost for CommVault, Carson said. "It's good for Hitachi, but it's better for CommVault. That they're getting hooked up with a big storage player [like HDS] is quite a coup for them," he said.

The agreement expands a two-year-old relationship under which HDS has been reselling the CommVault Galaxy data backup and recovery application, said Dave West, vice president of business development at CommVault.

Also under the new arrangement, HDS will sell CommVault's Data Migrator hierarchical storage management offering; the Data Archiver compliance and QNet storage reporting applications; and its Quick Recovery snapshot software. The deal doesn't cover CommVault's storage resource management product, West said. In addition, HDS and CommVault will better integrate their software to improve performance, he added.

The CommVault suite complements HDS's storage offering, Householder said. HDS offers software for device and performance management as well as array-based data replication, and CommVault's technology is more focused on the management of the actual data, he said.

The co-branded storage management suite is expected to be available to HDS's direct-sales force and channel partners May 12. Pricing information is not yet available.