Hewlett-Packard Co. this week is taking aim at the growing storage needs of cash-strapped smaller businesses with a new SMB-focused storage system and an updated channel program to help resellers get the wares into the hands of their clients.

New to the Palo Alto, Calif., vendor’s lineup is the MSA 2040 Storage four-port 8/16GB Fiber Channel array that delivers affordable SSD performance up to 288TB in a simple to deploy and easy to manage system. The MSA 2040 boasts an updated controller with 4GB cache per controller, built-in setup and management tools, and comes standard with 64 Snapshots and Volume Copy enabled for increased data protection and support for replication with optional Remote Snap software.

The flexible enclosure allows solution providers to select large or small form factor enterprise-class SAS or SAS Midline SSDs to best suit the client’s application, performance, and budget requirements. An integrated “wear gauge” lets end user improve application performance and reduce operating costs by reducing the system’s overall footprint and power consumption.

The MSA 2040 is compatible with a number of operating systems including: Microsoft Corp.’s Windows Server 2012, Windows 2008, Windows Hyper-V; HP-UX; Red Hat Linux; SUSE Linux; and VMware ESXi 5.x.

More importantly to partner, HP is announcing the MSA 2040 concurrent with the launch of a new end-to-end storage program with solution guides and reference architectures for resellers targeting SMB customers. The addition to the HP Just Right IT program, dubbed HP Simply StoreIT, includes tools, resources and incentives to help channel partners accelerate time to revenue with HP storage solutions, according to HP officials. Simply StoreIT tools include quote and configuration templates, cobranded lead-generation assets, training and materials designed to increase sales opportunities.

David Scott, senior vice president and general manager in HP’s Storage Division, said the entire package of product, services and partner enablement will help solution providers address specific challenges in critical areas of virtualization, backup and data protection, Microsoft Exchange and Microsoft SQL Server, and file consolidation.

“Virtualization and other emerging workloads threaten to drown SMBs in a sea of complexities that hinder, rather than support, growth,” said Scott “Simply StoreIT allows our partners to serve their small and midsized customers who are stressed for time, budget and resources to support a growing business, with a stress-free storage solution.”

The Simply StoreIT Program is available to partners worldwide now. Dual-controller MSA 2040 configurations will be available on July 4 and start at at $11,470 which includes custom enhancements of HP StoreEasy Storage for storing, managing and protecting unstructured data for thousands of concurrent users along with persistent file and application availability.